Back from Belgium

I got back from my trip to Belgium last night after hours of riding the train hungover and exhausted. Belgium... where do I begin? We arrived to Belgium and walked around. We ate supper and then went to a bar called delirium Tremens. They sell 2,004 different types of beer. I drank five kinds and tried a variety of others. My favorite beer I drank at the bar was an African free-trade organic beer brand called Mongozo. I had the Palm and the Coconut. The coconut was amazing. It even came in a coconut shell, and more amazingly tasted like coconut. Not fake taste like their banana beer. Basically we were left at this bar with no idea how to return to our hostel. We tried with all our might to remember how we got there, but for some reason it was really hard. I think it was because we were all trashed. I mean, the coconut beer was only 3.5 per cent, but say, the Villams Bruin was 11 per cent. So it's tough to gauge how drunk I was... oh, I may have only had six or seven beers to myself- but that means nothing when the percentage average is 8 per cent. Oh well. Here's what my walk home looked like. How did we ever find the hostel? Haley speaks French and isn't afraid to ask people stupid questions. Since Brussels is a bilingual town, most people speak either French or Flanders, the latter being similar to Dutch. We were in the French part of the city-the language I don't speak. So we're asking everybody we see if they know where this place is. We ask a boy and then show him the address. Instead of pointing, he takes us out of his way at 1 in the morning and walks us to the hostel. Thank God. Speaking of God- I saw his blood yesterday in Brugge. What? Yes!

I SAW THE BLOOD OF CHRIST!

Brugge has a church which claims to have blood on a piece of linen. That blood is Jesus's-so they say, but whatever. I've never told a Christian to their face that their religion is a lie-so I won't start now.

I ate a piece of chocolate in Belgium because Haley gave me a piece of chocolate. Here's a picture. So now I can say that I've eaten Belgium chocolate. I didn't have a waffle, though. I was offered a bite-but I was still feeling a little sick from the 2,004 beers. I mean, I only had 5 beers! I still have 1,999 to go!I got an email from one of the financial advisors at Central, and she told me that my loan was currently being looked over. We will probably know near the end of the month if my second attempt to secure a loan for this semester will be approved. The 31st of the month is my 21st birthday. It would be so nice to know that I may have money to celebrate my birthday with food other than bread and peanut butter! However, there's still processing time through Central that I would have to wait- at most 15 days. So, maybe I'll have $4,000 (originally to last me from Aug. 24 to January 18) by Nov. 16. I still don't have plane tickets to return home in December-and I haven't had money to call my mother since Sept. 2. If anybody knows her number, or sees her in a shop... tell her I'm alive and that, somehow, I'll be home for Christmas. Or whatever little pithy sayings there are for atheists. I'll be home by winter solstice!