Getting Out of the Bubble

Part of my research for going to Bruges came in the form of watching the classic hitman film, In Bruges . For all the hatred that the main character, Ray, spouts about the city, it is a beautifully filmed movie if you can look past the guns and violence. Attitudes towards Bruges in the film can be succinctly split into two camps, best conveyed with two quotes (mind the bad language). Harry: It's a fairy-tale town, isn't it? How's a fairy-tale town not somebody's fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fucking fairy-tale stuff, how can that not be somebody's fucking thing, eh? Ray: Maybe that's what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in fucking Bruges. I was hoping that I would see Bruges through Harry's eyes...perhaps minus all the swearing. We went to Bruges on the tail end of the worst snows that the UK has seen in a long time, so I was slightly dubious that the w

Whenever I travel anywhere the main focus of the trip is pretty much always food. I think that you can tell so much about a place and it’s culture by it’s food, and it doesn’t hurt that I’m a bit of a glutton at heart!  So, what did New York’s food tell me about the city? New York’s food is incredibly diverse, and for the historic gateway to the United States this shouldn’t be a surprise. One of the incredible things about the influx of immigrants that the US has historically seen is that their food is able to absorb all the different cultures that hit American soil.  At a time where immigration is a bit of a hot topic, and not always viewed in the best light, New York’s food shows how the city really is a melting pot and how this can produce something amazing for everyone to enjoy.  Going to New York I didn’t go with a list of tourist spots I wanted to hit, I went with a list of food I wanted to eat – and this wasn’t a short list! I was a woman with a mission and thank