Brussels, Belgium; May 13 - 14

As I mentioned earlier I spent the weekend in Belgium, which was divine.

I went with Tess. Our adventure began on Friday. We both had class until 3 and then we were going to catch the 4:45 train. A matter of time mismanagement and a full bike lot (leading me to park my bike illegally which ultimately meant it was confiscated) had me running for the train and see the doors close as I was about to step on. As the train rolled away from the station I got a phone call from Tess who was on the train. Drama! Well not really but it meant that I would need to catch the next train in one hour.

This seemed easy enough, unfortunately, sometimes trains will split and the front of the train goes to one city and the back goes to a second. Normally this isn't a problem but clearly I missed the announcement in Dutch and I ended up in Den Haag instead of Rotterdam. Lucky for me I found a train that would connect me to the train I needed to be on with mere moments to spare. It was about an hour and a half after Tess left that I actually found her again on the train into Belgium. ha. It was like I'd never taken a train before.

Because of my train illiteracy we didn't get into Brussels until almost 10pm. But we had it easy this last weekend because Tess had friends who live there so we were fortunate to be able to stay with them the entire time. They picked us up at the train station, walked us around to some of the main sights at night, which was lovely - cities are always great at night - before we met some of their friends for a drink.

As you may be aware beer is a big part of the culture in Belgium and they do lots of fruit beers. Now you are probably saying to yourself, sure I've had blueberry beer at Brewsters, but no friends this is entirely different. It isn't so much beer that tastes like fruit, it is red not gold and far fizzier. It is difficult to explain. I think the most popular is cherry, Tess and I both had framboise, or raspberry for you engles. It was really quite good, but not really like beer.

It got a little cold the longer we sat there and eventually we headed home. We were tired from the 6 hours of trains. The couple had a nice flat near the city centre. It was so nice to be able to stay in someone's home and feel like a guest. It made the whole weekend quite relaxed.

Saturday May 14

We woke up around 9 and leisurely got ready for our day. It was so lovely. Lily, the woman we were staying with, went out and bought fresh pastries for breakfast and we sat around sipping tea and getting acquainted. Around 11 ish we headed out of the house, Lily and Fabrice were going to show us around. We started off with a trip to the Brussels Atomium which is a 335ft tall building built to resemble an iron crystal for Expo '58. It is quite a funny structure. The rooms, or I guess, parts where you actually walk around, are huge silver bulbs attached with poles that you walk through. That is a really confusing explanation so just see the picture, maybe you'll understand.

It was quite neat. The elevator that takes you up to the top is very quick, supposedly the fastest one in the world when it was built in '58. It was so fast that we thought that it had only taken us to the halfway mark when we were in fact at the top. The top bulb offers panorama views of the city. Then you make your way through the other various spheres through a series of escalators and stairs. The different spheres offer a variety of different cultural information.

After we left we walked through the nearby park to see a natural theatre. It was so lush. I love cities that have forested parks within the city limits, you know, natural looking parks that don't look overly manicured.

Next we drove into the city centre area. We were toured around a little bit, church here, park there, oh a nice fountain, another church, chocolate shop, cute streets, and old city walls. Generally quite wonderful. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant that ended up being overpriced, or maybe just expensive for us budget travelers so we ordered a coffee and decided to go back to the house of lunch. The restaurant was in a great location though, It looked up to the Brussels Palace of Justice - or Justice Courts, which is quite a magnificent building to behold. It is larger than St. Peter's Basilica and cost 45 million Belgian francs to build. To summarize, it is huge. We didn't end up going inside.

We were treated to a wonderful lunch that consisted of a mozzarella, tomatoes, bread, and a couple other varieties of cheese. Eating in Europe is ridiculous. How everyone isn't a million pounds is beyond me.

At this point Tess and I were eager to get back into the city to see, well everything and more. Our hosts were quite tired and, it being their weekend, they opted to stay home for a nap while we took a bus into the city centre. It was kind of nice. I love being toured around but even more I love the feeling of discovery you get when you walk around a city you don't know. You end up getting off track and stumbling upon things and places totally by accident. It is a little more of an adventure.

I wish I could tell you what we say, or even that we had some structure to our seeing things but we really just wondered. It should be mentioned now that there was a gay pride parade going on all over the main city centre area. The streets were FULL of people, and stages, and music, and street beers. We got our first waffles of the trip, this time covered with strawberries and chocolate sauce. So delicious, so sweet. I love the waffles, it is like they dip them in honey and it crystalizes. Too good to be true.

We basically just wandered, the city is quite beautiful, especially the grote markt. Every single side, every single building, that abuts the square looks regal. I couldn't get over it.

At about 7:30ish we were picked up by Fabrice and Lily. They were going to take us to the best local place to get frites. You see, french fries, as far as the Belgian's will tell you, is their invention. Even the frite stands in Groningen are sold out of red, black, and yellow trucks toting the Belgian flag. So Lily was telling us that this is where all the locals go to get their fries and not the touristy places that overcharge for bad fries. I guess at this stand they double fry them, which is what you have to do. You could tell it was popular because the line was very long.

I ordered fries and a hamburger. This time I got my fries with ketchup, which was much more like tomato paste than ketchup flavoured. They were quite good, well the fries were good. I would say the fries were best without the ketchup. As for the burger, I'm not sure what the meat was but I can confidently say it was not beef. ha. Or if it was it was only about 25% beef and 75% mystery. It was quite gross, well gross is the wrong word, but I would not recommend that anyone get one. Because this place is so popular the local pubs let you buy food at the stand then sit at their tables and eat, provided you order drinks. We had beer, this time it was a local brew, a blonde beer that I wasn't overly taken by. It was Hoegaarden. It might be because I'm partial to a darker beer, but I don't really think so. It just lacked character and fell a little flat for me.

We headed back to the hotel after stuffing ourselves with the local cuisine.

On Sunday we'd be heading to Brugge for a day of adorable streets and chocolate overload.