Post-Summer School

After summer school, we had a week to explore the city before school started. The first event we went to was the Noorderzon Festival, a performing arts festival where everyone sits around a large lake to listen to different international bands. The main performer of the night was La Chiva Gantiva, a Brussels-based band originally from Colombia whose music had everyone on their feet dancing. I also got to try my first falafel and found a version of Hoegaarden (a village some of my Belgian ancestors came from) beer that I have never had before called Hoegaarden Rosée (definitely recommend). It was such a fun night but unfortunately we had to say goodbye to half our classmates that were departing for the semester in Sweden the next morning :(

The next night we went to the Carnival at Grote Markt in the city center. We took a ride on the bumper cars (which were so much more dangerous than American bumper cars!), went through the mirror funhouse (which Linnea got lost in for about 10 minutes), almost died on the tallest ride there (I thought I was going to fall out of my seat because the harness became loose when we reached the top), and played a few games. The others met us at Grote Markt after and we went to a few different bars which was a lot fun. 

Sorry for the screaming... I edited the pitch to make it more enjoyable!

We spent the next few days celebrating Gronings Ontzet, which commemorates the city being freed from German occupation in 1672. We went to a festival in the Vismarkt (the other main market in town), saw a King Arthur-inspired marching band concert, went on a pubcrawl throughout the downtown area, attended the Canal Festival, and watched some fireworks. We didn't return until after 5 AM on most nights, but it was so worth it!