Antwerp, Belgium - What an awesome journey so far (!)

Hey there, I'm gonna miss my Sparta :(

It has been a long and interesting journey! 

So, some few more days have passed and I've something more to tell, to keep you posted. 

So, we've been having fun in here, nice places, cities, awesome people I've met in here. It was sad to have so say goodbye to some of them already, it's always sad to leave and know we might never see each other again as we're quite frankly disperse in the world. However, I hope to keep in touch with the ones that touched me the most, and to someday meet them again. Nothing is impossible and the world is not that big!

Yesterday I started another trip to Belgium, I decided to visit Antwerp as I was told the city was super nice and one of the best of Belgium, I also visited a friend there. The city is in fact beautiful and has a kind of ancient look. I enjoyed it a lot, we had fun! 

I'm sad I'll have to leave the people I've met, it's super sad just to think about that, I don't want the 16th to arrive :(

Let's start the photographic report then! :

                  This was the view from the goodbye party, on the 32th floor. Nice ;)

 It did rain hail one day, we heard also that it snowed super super lightly this day for some few mins but I didn't have a chance to see it ahah.

Here we have MarktHall on the right (the so famous and modern new Rotterdam market). I also decided to do a portuguese dish as I was "thirsty" for something like this, our "Francesinha", it was super tasty hehe:

 This is the view I have near my house, one canal:

A kind of church here in Rotterdam

NOW ANTWERP (!):

So, this is the Rotterdam Central station - my trip was going to begin (!):

Here in the Central Station there are lots of these cute birds, like portuguese sparrows, I love them but they seem to be a plague in here!

Now I had already arrived to Antwerp!:

Antwerp is the world's most beautiful train station and I confirmed why! Let's check:

This is the outside of Antwerp Central Station

 Awesome, right!? 

Yeah but let's see what Antwerp has to offer in terms of street views and monuments:

 Huge "Cathedral Of Our Lady":

 This is a square called Groenplaats and it's quite big!

 Modern art museum:

 I like this picture a lot:

 It was getting dark and cold by the time:

 This is another museum:

 I had the opportunity to try the Antwerp tram (much older than dutch ones but I'd say it's similar as portuguese trams):

 This is the Palace of Justice:

 And it was dark now, in this square there were fire sources so that people get around and have a chat while warming up, quite nice!

At night we went to drink some tasty Belgian beers at a pretty cool bar (you can't see tho):

I started my return trip to Rotterdam with this awesome Belgian waffle! 

That's it, here you had the report of my last days, I hope you've enjoyed! See you soon, in a few days. My journey is ending, I'm a bit sad about it as I said previously.

Bye, Francisco

It has been a while... some things have happened in the meantime! Check it!

Hey all! Sorry, it has been more than one month since my last entry but I've been quite busy full of work and exams, tough exchange student life! (I'm serious...).

Well, in the meantime I've been just studying - well, just the last 2 weeks - and I've also visited some new and nice places!

Firstly I went to Belgium because of a university project. Then I stayed there 2 days and visited 2 cities, Brussels and Brugge.

About Belgium, let's say it's not my kind of country, in general pretty dirty and disorganised (mainly Brussels). Brugge is a nice city and it looks like we're living 300 yrs ago !

Then I also visited Utrecht city and had some interesting experiences!

Let's put some photos here so that this doesn't get dry...

This is Brussels: 

 Myself:

 Actually their green areas were the best to me:

 We can see it's big, the Atomium: 

 Now we were in Brugge, at the station:

 Ah, again, a nice guy: 

 It seems we were 300 yrs back in time:

 And people still don't believe Batman, but... : 

 Wind mill:

 Oh, belgian what? CHOCOLATE of course! :

 This is Brussels' metro:

 Oh, Atomium again:

 Ahah, this picture below has some story... It was in Brussels, we decided to go to have dinner in some restaurant near the hotel we stayed in. We decided to go to some Turkish restaurant and I ate one of those 2 greeny things... wow I started immediately crying!!! And it lasted more than half an hour ahahah I looked like a crying baby.

 Brugge again:

Then, a week later I visited Utrecht city during the weekend with 2 friends. It is a nice city, I liked it! 

 This was the castle we visited in Utrecht, pretty cool: 

 Oh, selfie time with some cute cows ! 

 They really liked us:

 You really have to try this unique dutchy mcflurry, "McFlurry of Stroopwafel"! SO GOOD!

 Typically dutch in a rainy night:

 Nice picture:

 We visited the church, awesome!

 Utrecht by day:

 This street was full of handprints of dutch actors, interesting!

 For the first time I saw tulips in Netherlands ahah

 Leaving Utrecht and a week later we had a Portuguese friend's birthday party here in Rotterdam, Alex! It was really nice but I don't want to remember again how it ended but I'll just let you know that my night ended drunk in the middle of the street after a bike fall, quite good dutch experience, yeah!

Ok, sadly this was my last picture of my bike I had opportunity to take. Unfortunately it was stolen a week ago overnight, most probably because the locker was weak.... I had to live the latest days by foot and metro.

 Ah, and I even had already the opportunity to experience the awesome dutch rainy weather! I've never caught so much water in so less time, just 30 seconds of a pure shower coming from the sky!

But, I had to find a new bike and yesterday I did it, bought another one! :) (and a stronger locker, in red). Let's see my new baby (now more dutch style):

In resume, in the past month I had some fun but also experience 2 things I never thought would ever happen: to have a bike fall when drunk and to have my precious bike stolen. IUPI, both of them were accomplished!

Hope to update this blog more often, see you soon!

Peace out!
Francisco