In the Shadow of the Modern Machine

(NOTE: This is the post I thought I lost... It's quite repetitive to the other Belgium ones I put up, but thought I'd throw it up anyways)

I lied. Turns out Bruges is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I'm still moving to Amsterdam, but Belgium is aaaabsolutely breathtaking.

(Got in late last night and stayed up even later, so I'll write about the first town we stopped in and do another post on Bruges later tonight.)

Bus ride was more or less 3 hours. I slept for 2 of these hours plus 45 minutes. We had to get up and be ready to leave at 7 and everyone was pretty wiped out. I don't know that anybody has fully recovered from the shift in time zone yet AND we've been up late/waking up early to go to class all day. That bus sleep was probably one of the best naps of my life. In the top 5, at least. So we stopped in a town called Gent, and the feeling I got stepping onto the street off of the bus can only be compared to coming out of the train station in Amsterdam and seeing the city for the first time: I have never seen anything like this. It's so quaint and beautiful it seems it should be a little lane in Disneyland. Doesn't even look real. The bus couldn't even drop us off right in front of the church we were visiting because the streets are so small and overrun by bikers. Bikers everywhere. If I acquire any bodily harm on this trip it will undoubtedly be because I've been hit by bike. We had stopped in Gent to visit the St. Bova Cathedral where Jan van Eyck's masterpiece triptych "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" is kept. We'd been lectured on the painting early on in the week, and I've got to say, it is the coolest thing in the world to read about a work of art and then have the ability to actually see it. Definitely not a luxury we have as often at home.

So we walked down a couple of blocks over to the cathedral and split up to grab lunch. My roommate and I wandered over to a quieter street and found a cafe that looked good. We sat down, picked up the menus, and realized they were written in Flemish. We do not speak Flemish. Thankfully, the tall cute waiter came, sat down next to us and asked how we were doing. We told him we didn't understand the menu and he goes "Yeah, that's what I figured" and read it to us :).

The cathedral was gorgeous. We weren't allowed any pictures (the one above is a copy of the main part of the painting we came to see) but the gothic style is unlike any old church I have seen at home. I've always loved church architecture and the beauty in this building was so moving. My church at home is nice, but very modern... This place had an original Michelangelo Seriously, the Belgium trip was easily the thing I was least excited about on this trip (mostly because I didn't know what to expect) and this little stop over in the small town was the most pleasant surprise.