You never know how much your comfort zone inhibits you until you leave it.

09 November 2010

Belgium

After visitng Amsterdam, the next stop was to Brussels! We got there at night and had a little trouble finding an ATM to check into our hostel, but we got everything settled eventually and started exploring the city by seeing the Grand Place. It is so beautiful all lit up at night. It is a huge square with some very ornate, imposing, yet beautiful buildings. One thing that was funny was the road on the way to the Grand Place reminded me so much of a type street in Chicago. Among the business there I saw Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Subway, Mariott, Burger King and others. What was strange was how happy we all were to hear French. It was like music to our ears compared to the Dutch. We were so happy to understand what was going on around us once more!


After that we decided it was necessary to do some chocolate tasting. I had some chocolate fondue and tasted an assortment of delicious chocolate by going from store to store :)



After the chocolate tasting we got some dinner and then had to try the famous Belgium beer. I don't like beer normally, but I knew I couldn't go to Belgium without trying it. Amazingly I found the first beer that I have ever liked! It was called framboise belle vue, so it was basically very fruity and sugary! :)


After that we went to a new club that had just opened in Belgium since they gave us free coupons to enter. It was a pretty cool place, but the workers were the most impolite people I have ever met. At one point they literally asked me, "What do you want?" It was cool because it was full of people from all across the world. I had some conversations with people from Germany and Italy. The Germans were freakishly tall and they said it was because they had been drinking beer since they were two. haha

The next day we walked around the city to see it in the daylight. Then we walked and saw the famous statue called Manneken-Pis, which is basically a tiny statue of a boy peeing. Apparently they dress him in different clothing throughout the year.


Before leaving the city there was one thing that we absolutely had to do: eat some Belgium waffles. They were delicious, but very very sweet.


Next stop was a town called Brugge. It is a really old city where all of the buildings were made out of brick! On the train there we met some Canadians, an Irishman and a Swiss man with whom we discussed travel and politics the whole way! Unfortunately once we got there, it was rained most of the day, but we still walked around enjoying the scenery. We climbed the famous bell tower from the movie that was filmed there and saw the pretty view. The stairs we climbed were quite steep and small and windy. We also were able to see a lollipop being made in a local candy shop and try some of the famous hot chocolate!

  
Town center


bell tower




look at all that brick!

After that it was time to take the train home. We had a long wait in the Paris train station, so we bought some dinner and stayed at the restaurant for about three hours. The Paris train station had solders patrolling the whole time. At one point a guard came by yelling at the others and they all went running. We saw a bunch of them gathered, but really had no idea what was going on. Anyhow, we made it safely on our train and had a long ride home. I arrived at my house at 8:30 in the morning and had class at 11, so it was a little rough. Now I'm just trying to catch up and recover for London on thursday!

1 comment:

  1. There sure are alot of chocolate places and sweets! Looks yummy!

    ReplyDelete