Where Are We??? --- Chelsea Peck and Erica Iafelice

Ciao! Bonjour! Guttentaug?! Halo pronounced ALO!

After we discovered that we were not actually in Berlin, Brazil, or any other word beginning with B… it was time to leave! We loaded up our Fiat Minibubble vans (dirty laundry and all… including no air conditioning… you could only imagine) and began our three hour journey through the hills of wherever we were to Brussels. Let us take a minute to explain our journey aka perilous, dangerous, excursion like we've never experienced. First, Yams, whose glasses are as thick as Evy Iaccono’s hair after and before being brushed (which we discovered… actually never happens), literally ran into our other minibubble van driver Henrick. Henrick who uses GPS through his homeland (not reassuring) decided he needed to Reverse down a one way to park backwards and in turn ran over a stationary TALL … LARGE .. Easily spotted barrel. Luckily after sleeping with one eye open… (unlike Marrissa Miles… whose mouth was wide open), we arrived in Brussels.

After much deliberation, we finally found out that Brussels is actually in Belgium and that Belgium is not actually a city (Thank you Erin Hollinger). As many of you know (except us), Belgium is known for only two things in this world: Beer and Waffles (According to Sarah Miligan). Sarah gleefully (get it sarah?) sang us the Waffles girl Youtube video song… over and over and over… until she finally was able to sit down and enjoy a Belgian waffle. Our lunch consisted of: a Waffle with ice cream, with chocolate sauce, with strawberry sauce, and with whippit cream.
Lets just say, we rolled on out of that restaurant and waddled through the fabulous, gothic, city of Brussels.

“Hey Yams (minivan driver), how far are we from the hotel?”
“O it should only take us 45 minutes to get home… we will have plenty of time for dinner before your game!” Needless to say, the GPS had wrongly informed us of the ETA and one and a half hours later, we finally arrived with only an hour to spare before our big match (match is what they say here… Erica). Quite worried and starving, we decided that it was completely necessary to eat a little, quick, snack before the game (apparently waffles just don’t do it). In the famous words of Coach Reimer, “Hey guys, remember when we had Mcdonalds before our practice and Marissa threw up?... yes, well… this is worse than that!” Before we knew it, Yams and Hendrick were serving us fried tacos and Belgian fries. As we force fed ourselves the unique flavoring of euro tacos… Erica serenaded us to the tune of Grease. It follows as: “Grease is the word, it’s the food, that we’re eating.” After consuming the most heavily frowned upon pre-game meal, we arrived at this, odd looking, gothic, building surrounded by large walls and barb wire. Yes, our game was played in the local jail gymnasium. Hilarious. During this match, we discovered that Lauren Elkin, is once again our MVP and Emily Mueller has more moves than when Chelsea Peck was trying to speak to Italian men. (this actually didn’t happen… they tried to speak to me). To put the cherry on top of this amazing day, we ate Chinese food but not just any ordinary Chinese food… “Americanized” Chinese food at 11:00 PM for our post game meal. We need a diet.

Day 2:

We woke up this morning with severe abdominal muscle pains from what seems to have been caused by over eating. However, that did not put a damper on our indulgence of salami sandwiches (plural) with eggs and espresso. We loaded the minibuses and headed to Brugge. Once arriving in Brugge, we took a boat with friendly Asians (we felt right at home CWRU) and viewed the lovely, gothic, architecture dating back to when Erica believes to be the 1600’s. (we have no idea).

We were set free to explore the city so we decided (Erica and Chelsea) that we would take a bike ride through the glamorous, and over crowded streets of Brugge. This was no ordinary bike ride. Erica would only agree to rent a bike if it was TANDEM. Let me say that we have NEVER driven a tandem bicycle ever yet alone in an overpopulated, dangerous, cars zooming, area. When we first boarded this oversized bike, Erica could not get her handles straight and we immediately almost rode straight into a on coming traffic… for which a Police officer pulled us over and said, “Seriously? You girls should walk… seriously!” (Erica claims that it was the road… “which it was”). Therefore, we seriously walked our bike to a non crowded alleyway to practice… pretty much all day. We decided that we were lucky to escape the treacherous streets of Brugge… (however we may have been the ones to make it so dangerous).

We had a little down time after the city so we took a much needed nap. Erica woke up delusional and confused as to where we were… (but I don’t think she knew in the first place). (She doesn’t know that I am writing this). However, back to the day, we left for the opening ceremony where we were in for the biggest surprise of our lives. We are going to summarize in simple terms: Carnival food stations, ½ hour Glow stick dance show, and scantily clad Brazilian flamingo dancers? Hilarious. Pictures to come including one titled “Danna does Brazilian robot.” (Picture and/or videos are worth 1000 words).

So far, this experience has been out of control. We can’t wait for the next couple of days and to share our stories with you all once we return.

I apologize for this being so long, (ERICAAAA!!!! Yelled at me (Chelsea))) but it was sooooo worth it!

Ciao, Au’revoir, bye, finitto (erica’s version of Italian).