perfect, wonderful day: oostende

10.13.2012

Pronunciation: awe-stend. Cause I know that you were wondering how to say it.

This past weekend, my roommate Claire went to Budapest! Which is totally awesome and I know that she had a fantastic time. But that left myself and Kelsey up to our own devices... what were we to do?! The answer on Friday was just to hang around in Leuven and attempt to be semi-productive (I filled out my absentee ballot for the election!). We also attended an international birthday party in our residence! Which was kind of neat. Yes, they still sing "Happy Birthday" over here.

But after some serious deliberation, we finally made the decision to go to Oostende on Saturday! It's a mid-sized Belgian city right on the coast of the North Sea. I've never seen the North Sea before, and a coastal city = fresh fish. I was totally game for that. We went to the train station on Friday night to get our tickets, and we were official! Kelsey and I were on our way to planning & having our very own day trip.


So the game plan was to get on the train at 9:30 on Saturday morning, but after getting a little bit of a later start than intended, we were set to take the train that left at 10:37. That's the nice thing about buying tickets to other Belgian cities.. there's usually a train leaving once or twice every hour going in the direction that you need to. Quite handy.

We had another snafu in which Kelsey realized that she had left her credit card in the ATM at the bank the night before (don't worry, we went to the bank and found it). But that resulted in us SPRINTING to catch our 10:37 train. Yes, we really did run. And we made it just in time. It was the first time that I've had to run to catch a train, and while it was kind of exciting.. let's hope that it was the last time!

Two hours & a hefty nap later.. we arrived in Oostend! And apparently we brought the rain with us. It was sprinkling as we made our way off the train and toward the tourist office - to get some free maps, obviously. The path to the tourist office led us right to the beach! Kelsey & I were so pumped.. even though it was still sprinkling and windy and gross, we marched right down to the sea so that we could say that we'd officially touched the North Sea! Hooray!

After that little bout of excitement we continued to the tourist office where Kelsey found this handy little brochure (Tasteful Heritage) that led us right around the corner to a little restaurant known for it's filtered coffee - Brasserie du Parc. I didn't know what the heck the filtered coffee would be like, but I ordered it since the place was famous for it, and boy am I glad that I did. Best. Coffee. Ever. 

Seriously.

I don't really know how it worked.. but you can see how the fresh coffee is dripping down through the filter. And it was served with little baby waffles and chocolate? SIGN ME UP.

We then wanted to try and head toward an art museum since it was all rainy and yucky outside, but while we were walking toward the museum we stumbled upon a beautifully enchanting park! Even in the dismal weather, Leopold's Park was beautiful and featured some lovely autumn leaves and a giant clock made out of flowers!

Flower clock!

Next stop, the contemporary art museum.. more officially known as the Mu.Zee. It may or may not be true that Kelsey and I ate food, impersonated paintings, and acted like complete obnoxious tourists in the museum.. but I swear we were quiet & only ridiculous when no one else was around! I promise. Did I mention that the entry fee was only a euro? It was definitely a well-spent euro.

Sandwich in the movie room? So sneaky.

Carrots on the move? Oops..

Where's Waldo?

WE LOVE ART.

We continued to weave our way through the city, walking through the harbor, getting some frites (yay!), and heading into St. Petrus & Pauluskerk...

My stained glass obsession continues...

Loving the graffiti on the street

 Once we left the church, we had some time to kill before we wanted to get dinner and so we decided to go back toward the beach since the weather had cleared a little bit. We were not even the least bit prepared for what we were about to see.. it was absolutely breath taking!! The sun was shining, the skies were blue, and the coastline was glorious. We took lots of pictures (you're lucky, I won't bore you with all of them) and just sat along the promenade for a while taking it all in. 

Bright sunshine and people everywhere.. makes for a lovely afternoon!

Trying out the sweet new panoramic feature on my iPhone.. what do you think?

We wandered through some nearby Japanese Botanical Gardens, before wrapping back around & walking along the coastline one last time before heading back to the restaurant for dinner. Dare I say.. one of the best sunsets I've seen? It was beautiful. 

The sunset...

DINNER. Oh my goodness. So wonderful. We found this restaurant from the same brochure that we found the coffee place in the morning.. this place was listed as having a great sea food selection, excellent steak, and one of the largest selections of beer in Oostende at 325 different types. I'm telling you.. that beer menu was HUGE. Luckily, our waiter helped me pick out a couple choice brews, so I was golden. We had a fantastic and relaxing meal before heading back to the train station & back to home sweet Leuven!

MONSTER sized menu.. and that's just the beer.

YUM. Your mouth is watering, right?

So that was our day! It sounds simple and not so exciting, but it was really awesome that we had the freedom to be late and not really worry about it, we had complete freedom to decide what we wanted to do, and we had the freedom to just wander around the city and along the coast.. which we definitely did. It was nice to take in our new surroundings at a relaxing pace and without any real structure to our day. And we did it all by ourselves! Needless to say, we were kind of proud to have planned out a successful trip without the assistance of my lovely roommate, Claire, since she's usually the brains behind our traveling operations :) We did it!

Another fantastic day well spent in Belgium!! This coming weekend I'm going home with my Belgian buddy, Evelyn! We'll be headed to her hometown on Friday evening, going into Antwerp (!) on Saturday, and heading back sometime on Sunday. I'm excited to see what a home functions like in Belgium! More exciting stories to come...

much love!