Belgians & Their Beer: It's a Beautiful Thing.

Goodness it's been a while hasn't it? Well, hope you're ready for this weekly update, cause it's a doosie. 

• Let me begin with our failed attempt at Pub Quiz night. We suck. Definitely placed last, but we will be back tonight with a vengeance!
• So there's this fashion trend that's sweeping the great city of Brussels: Aladdin/parachute pants. I don't know why women wear these things. You neither live in Agraba, or have the name of MC Hammer, you look like an idiot. I will try to snap a pic of these illusive creatures soon.
• Mary and I discovered the Belgian equivilant of Boy Scouts, the Sea Scouts. We shared a train car with them on the way back from Ostend. It's boys and girls ranging from ages like 9-16. Needless to say I wanted to punch them, but most of them were busy punching each other, so they took care of it themselves.
• I don't know what it is about the butter here, but it's delicious.
• Also, I am obsessed with the super markets here. You can buy Mickey Mouse shaped lunch meat. Ever trip to this magical land of food and produce is an adventure in itself.
• Fruit beer is freaking weird.
• Doing your laundry here is a pain in my butt. My washer is in the basement, I live on the 3rd floor.  
• I'm pretty sure they don't believe in dryers here. I have to line dry my clothes like the good ol days. Laundry is like a 3 day process. 
• They have been updating the facade of my apartment building for the past 2 weeks... it was supposed to take 5 days. I'm tired of being woken up by construction at 8 am. Lets get the job done construction guys. 
• Friday was another student gov sponsored event, this time: The Draft Bar then some club.
• The bar was SICK. The bartender juggled and lit the ground on fire!

• The club was kinda cool too! But it was some random place in Brussels so when it came time for us to go home, we luckily figured it out.

Now let me move on to the greatest event in Brussels. BELGIAN BEER FESTIVAL

• Pictures above is how you purchase the beer. The yellow tokens are your deposit for the glass (because every beer has it's own type of glass) You take the yellow token and anywhere from 2-4 bottle caps and get a beer.
• The more caps the beer costs, the stronger/ better the beer is.
• Once you finish your beer, return the glass to the brewer you got the beer from, and they give you your yellow token back, and move onto your next beer. Repeat till you can't stand, or run out of bottle caps.
• One cap is one euro, one yellow token is 2 euro(which you get back when you return the token at the end of the day, unless you manage to break a glass, in that case, you're out 2 euro)
• These guys had a bagpipe leading them into the festival, and a possee. ->

• This is Corey & Dan, along with Will, we went both Saturday, & Sunday, starting around 11 AM and leaving around 5 or 6 each night.
• Please note our festive gnome hats. We got the fo free from the La Chouffe brewery who's logo is a little gnome. There beer was also delicious, and we got free key chains. It was like a gnometastic Christmas hat, complete with bell.
• We wore the hats the rest of the day.

• This banner is awesome, made me feel less fat.  
• I heard more English spoken in these 2 days at the festival than I have my entire month here so far. The amount of Americans there was unreal.
• There were also may families there with their small children with them.  I like their style. "Now mommy and daddy are doing to have some special juice, so run around and collect coasters and throw hopps at people why we have our drinks"
• We met a very nice family from Michigan who have lived in Brussels for 3 years and there 3 boys, who were a riot. New faves.
• Also met another person from Palo Alto. WTF?!

• Above is the highlight of my weekend.
• No not the crazy Spanish man there for his bachelor party, but the glasses of golden goodness in our hands.
• Behold: Westvleteren. Possibly the rarest Trappist beer in the world.
• We waited for 45 min the first day, and 25 the second day. They got a shipment of 28 cases once in the morning, once at 2 in the afternoon. They're gone in less than 5 minutes each time. Unreal.
• Needless to say, it was freaking delicious, and it's an aspiration in life now to consume the other 2 beers brewed by them, that are harder to get your hands on.

• After the beer fest on Sunday, Casey and I went out with some friends to Delirium, again.
• On our way home, we made friends with a fraternity from Amsterdam. They were all matching, even had the same kind of shaggy surfer boy hairdo goin on. 
• They were doing some scavenger hunt of something, sooo Casey and I sang some song with them in Dutch that was probably extremely inappropriate, but hey, it was fun.

Needless to say it was an eventful weekend, and I love Belgium more and more with each passing day!