Hasselt, Belgium

I spent this past weekend at my Belgian friend Véronique's house, in a small town called Lummen. Me and the other girls that went were very excited for the visit... The main reason being: Véronique is obsessed with a certain Belgian beer and everything that goes along with it. This beer is called Duvel, and when she isn't talking about the beer, she is raving about the "Duvel Club" in Hasselt, Belgium, and has shown me her membership card many times. After so much hype, I was sure the actual Duvel Club wouldn't live up to our high expectations. Turns out, it did! It wasn't what I expected, but turned out to be a really cute tiny Belgian pub.

Translates to something like "here we don't speak badly of Duvel"

The weekend was full of activity, and we also managed to visit Antwerp and Brussels while there. It was cool to see the local side of Belgium, with someone who knew what was going on to lead us around. Also, Hasselt and Lummen are much smaller towns that you wouldn't necessarily seek out, but have a lot of character.

The other main purpose for our visit was a huge techno concert in Hasselt, called Soulwaxmas. It featured Soulwax as well as other DJs in a huge venue. It was unlike anything you would ever experience in the US, and not really my type of "concert," but definitely worth seeing once.

We packed a lot of Belgium into three days, but it was a lot of fun. We managed to squeeze in a lot of sights, experienced some of the typically Belgian foods for the first time (namely fries and waffles), and finally went to the Duvel Club. Now I just have to get through one more week of school, to finish up exams and essays, before Christmas!