You'll have to pardon me in advance - I'm typing on a computer who's keys were designed for a pigme and whose keyboard is not setup in the standard QWERTY formation. In fact, what I'm looking at can be described as a QWERTZ keyboard. Whatever, I'm over it (not really)
My trip has exclusively been in Belgium so far (minus the part where I'm sitting in Amsterdam right now). Bill and Brenda, two family friends who have gratiously provided their house as Home Base, were more than fantastic hosts. Upon landing after 7.5 hours in a plane seat - which is a total lie because it was actually 9.5 hours due to thunderstorms in Philly - I got settled at Bill and Brenda's. Not long after, I was taken to the American School in Brussels where I gave a talk to two classes about life in college and what they should suspect in the college-prep process.
Saturday we drove to southwestern Belgium in preperation for the Orval brewery tour the next day. Orval is one of the last Trapist (monk-run) brewerys in the world, making some fantastic beer. They only open up their brewery two back-to-back days to the public, so it was a treasure to be able to see.
In a not so strange turn of events I'm now writing this on my blackberry. Regardless, the brewery your was fun and we all received a bottle opener and a free beer at the end. We finished up the tour, grabbed our free beers and cheese and say down at a communal table that was setup with some Belgians who were already seated. After conversing with them , half in English, half in french, we found out that that were locals, knew the people serving the Orval, and were already on their third round. How this is possible, I don't know, because what I haven't told you is that this beer is at least 9% alcohol by volume. Soon enough, Bill and I had a free round in front of us. Next thing I know I'm staring at my second free Orval. My french was progressively getting better and better. Bill leaned in and suggested that we better finish what was in our glasses and promptly leave before they got us more beer. Sure enough, we get up and the old barkeep who was visiting the table asked where we were going because he was about to bring us another round. Merci, mais non.
After a day in Brussels, the next day I took a day trip to Bruges, or Brugge. It's a tourist town but it wasn't bad on a Monday. Below is my lunch from the day: a giant kettle of steamed mussels. Another number off Esquire's things every man should do before he dies.
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