Belgium...
Now, I know that there's all sorts of rules around for "what happens on a bucks weekend stays on a bucks weekend", but never fear, I've taken this into account, and the following is the clean, censored, nice version. We won’t mention the hens party that we "met", or the gay bar we were in, or anything like that...
To take about 3 steps back, last weekend, Biscuit and I joined up with a few other guys and went to Ghent, in Belgium for Marks stag weekend. Cath and a few others headed off to Sweden for Andreas hen do. Seeing Mark is a big fan of good beer, Belgium was just the place to go.
Of all things, we drove there, via the channel tunnel - we drove onto the train at one end, and sat in the car while we went under the channel. Really not that exciting all up... It was great being able to just jump on a train and end up in a different country. Not that exciting if you're European, but cool to an Aussie...
Belgium seems to be a really nice place. The place we went to, Ghent, speaks Dutch, so I was able to dig out my half-dozen phrases to impress the locals (who all spoke better English than the English <IMG alt=":D" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-2.gif" border=0>). Its outskirts are fairly industrial, but the town centre is pretty cool - everything is really old and picturesque. A lot of it has been rebuilt since WW1, but they rebuilt it in the same style. Definitely got to go back there - especially how easy it is to get there with the tunnel. Would be nice to hire a car and go wandering around, driving wherever we feel like.
Anyway, I think I'll gloss over the actual night out - too many incriminating things that we don’t want Andrea to find out about. I'm gonna upload the non-incriminating photos soon <IMG alt=":D" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-2.gif" border=0>. Lets just say that it was a really good time, and fun was had by all, and we made it back home about 6.30am...
Annoying thing was that I dropped my camera, and the little display doesn't work so well. I tried dropping it again to see if that'd fix it, but alas, it didn't. Maybe I'll have to sort out the purchase of my new camera sooner rather than later.
On the way back from Ghent, we dropped into Ieper/Ypres/whatever its called this week. Cool little town, built with a big moat around the entire town, and full walls. Check out the pics - they're cool. Also had some big gate memorial commemorating the thousands with no known grave. Was very moving. Was almost a case of not allowing myself to think about it, as it would've affected me too much.
Anyway, that’s about the weekend. There's more to it than that, but, well, that stays between the boys... <IMG alt=":D" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-2.gif" border=0>