Big Adventures - Belgium, Day 1 & 2

I found out in late March that I had been invited to attend a worldwide marketing conference for work. It was in Belgium the first week of May. I always try and document my trips but I just keep it for me.  A friend of mine recently pointed out that this would be good blog material.  Funny enough, I had a blog!  This was my first time traveling to Europe so the following posts are all about my adventures.

Day 1 & 2

Saturday, April 30, 2011, Dad took me to the airport to catch 1:45pm flight to Philadelphia, PA.  I met up with Michele from work at the Orlando airport. We flew to Philly to get a connecting flight to Brussels, Belgium via US Airways. Thanks to work, we got to fly 1st Class.  I am not sure I will be able to fly coach ever again. You are treated so well and I enjoyed every minute of it. They gave us goody bags, a pillow, a blanket and kept feeding us the whole flight.

The long leg of the of the flight was about 7.5 hours long but luckily it was overnight so all we really wanted to do after dinner was sleep. That proved to be a bit of a challenge because the chairs just didn’t recline enough and the air circulating was so dry that it made it very uncomfortable to breathe. I managed to get a little sleep and we arrived at about 8am on May 1^st (2am Orlando time). We made it through customs without issue and I officially got the first stamp in my passport. We grabbed our bags and met up with some other work people waiting on a ride to the hotel in the city of Gent. We shared a ride with Paul (Asia) and Anshu (India). It was about a 40 minute ride but I was so out of it that it didn't matter.  I was like a zombie and thank goodness when we got to the Marriott in Gent our rooms were ready.

Marriott Gent

Canal in Gent

I slept for about 2 hours and then met up with the group to take a tour of Gent.  What a beautiful city!  Everything looked like a scene from a movie except it was the real deal!  Things were so old and so ornate.  Buildings are just not made that way any more. There was so much detail and the materials have lasted for 1000s of years. The tour was good.  We ended up going to the giant church near the middle of the city called the Saint Bavo Cathedral. The main tower was so tall and when you walked in it was open all the way to the top.  There were brick buttresses, arches, artwork, sculptures and lots of wood and stone materials.  The decor was so ornate and represented many different religious symbols, people, and stories. It was beautiful but I found myself feeling very indifferent about the religious connection.  This happened to me in Montreal too. It was beautiful but for me, it just seemed like the emphasis was on the building and not God. I took lots of pictures and our guide on the tour kept asking questions about world history that no one knew the answers too.  He would ask us the trivia questions about European History and everyone in the group was silent.  Partly because we were mostly American, but partly because we were all so jet lagged we were ready to nod off.

Outside the Cathedral

Inside Cathedral

After visiting the church we decided to go to a local cafe called Krokantino for real Belgium waffles and beer.  The waffles were awesome! Light and crispy and fresh, not heavy like Americanized waffles.  The people I was with seemed to really enjoy their beer too.  Michele and I returned to the hotel to rest and then met up with the group at 7pm for dinner.  We walked to a building across the street from the hotel to a restaurant called De Witte Leeuw. It was on the other side of the river Lys canal.  The hotel was located on a canal that ran throughout the city.  The buildings were made of stone and wood and had very steep sloping roofs.  They looked like an old village town that you would see in a Christmas display!  Dinner was chicken and potato soup with some shrimp appetizers, rolls, and ice cream with hot fudge for dessert.  It was my first taste of Belgium chocolate and it was everything it was said to be!

It was awesome weather the whole day.  

Restaurant, 4th building from right

It was bright and sunny with a cool breeze and about 70 degrees.  We stayed at the restaurant for several hours and returned to the hotel for the evening.  I was exhausted.  Once I got caught up with email and Facebook I tried to sleep.  It was a six hour time difference so the jet lag was pretty bad.  I couldn’t believe I was in a different country.  It was like a dream.  It was like I was experiencing time travel.