Onschlating Spoolway

It has recently come to my attention that, with all the attention I've been paying to perfecting my French skills, I've almost completely ignored Belgium's other official language: Dutch! (or Flemish, as the language is referred to in Belgium)
This discovery was fully realized when I visited the Belgian coast today with three other girls. Besides Brussels, all the places worth visiting in Belgium are full of people speaking...Dutch. The coast is a popular destination for both Francophone (French) and Flemish Belgians (which we didn't realize until our train headed there this morning was PACKED with people) but there is definitely a lot of Dutch influence. And by influence I mean bikes. and hippies. Both of which I will forever, rightly or wrongly, find as being stereotypically Dutch. Anyway, in hopes of showing my appreciation for Belgium's second language within my last few days in Brussels, I've compiled a list of Flemish words/phrases that I've learned (and then had to double check the spelling):

Hello= Hallo!
Goodbye=Dag!
Please=Alstublieft
Thank you= Dank u!
Railway connection= Onschlating Spoolway (not sure on that spelling)

...and that's it. Maybe I should stick with French. Or even better, English.

In other news, I spent last weekend in Geneva and Interlaken Switzerland! I forgot how many awesome things are Swiss. Chocolate, cheese, watches, Swiss Army knives, cuckoo clocks, people that yodel in the Swiss Alps (sadly I did not get to witness that). The SWISS ALPS are magnificent. Probably the highlight for me was hiking to a series of waterfalls that carve though a cave up in the mountains (see picture included with this post). I forgot how wet you can get when visiting waterfalls by the way. It was good that I remembered to bring my rain jacket. Our journey ended with (Surprise!!) ANOTHER, flight cancellation. due to the Icelandic Volcano. Which apparently was effecting air space over Spain at that point. Luckily we got a flight back to Brussels and were able to successfully complete our finals.

A revelation I made regarding my flights is that, since the Philadelphia snowstorm right before Christmas, one leg of all of my flights has been cancelled. I tried to fly home from school...flight cancelled. First plane to Brussels? cancelled. Italy trip: flight home cancelled. Switzerland trip: flight home cancelled.
Here's to hoping no travel problems will occur with my flight home on Tuesday (although since the way HERE, was cancelled, I should be fine). I wonder what all of this MEANS!!??

2 full days left in Brussels. and counting.