Brussels

I ended the last blog post with our school excursion to Cologne- what a gorgeous city. That night, we boarded a 9 euro bus (yes, 9 euro!) to Brussels, Belgium on our first international weekend excursion. A mere 5 minutes after arriving in Brussels, we got approached by some severely intoxicated teenagers who asked us first in French and then in English "Do you have drugs?... Do you want drugs?"  What a great introduction to Belgium! After walking 2 miles in the freezing cold through some extremely sketchy locations, we reached our AirBnb apartment, a comfy modern apartment located near the King's Palace. To save money, we managed to fit 9 people in a 6 person apartment, so needless to say I slept on the box-spring of the bed for the next two nights.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and walked around the city in search of Belgian waffles- we started freaking out when we couldn't find any so we ended up stopping at a small cafe and got breakfast sandwiches, surprised that we couldn't find any place that sold waffles. Had we walked another 5 minutes into the old city center, we would've found that literally every other store sold 2 euro waffles- we just didn't go far enough into the city. Afterwards, we joined a walking tour which began in the Grand Palace and went around to the prettiest sites in old town Brussels.

The Grand Palace is probably one of the prettiest places I've ever been to. Stumbling upon it for the first time came as such a surprise as the square, surrounded by magnificent gold plated 17th century buildings, is hidden amidst various other shops and restaurants. In the Grand Palace, we got to see where Karl Marx lived at the beginning of his prime, as well as the house where Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables.  Both famous people were evicted from the city later on due to radical ideas and drunkenness respectively. While the tour was interesting and a great way to see the city, it rained persistently throughout the entire day, and by the end, my feet were thoroughly soaked and freezing. Thus the end of the tour was perfect, as our tour guide brought us to a coffee shop to warm up and dry off. At this coffee shop, I had by far the best hot chocolate I had ever had- in Belgium, hot chocolate consists of warm milk with melted bars of creamy milk chocolate in the bottom.  I'd say it was just a tiny bit better than Swiss Miss. Afterwards, we treated ourselves to a nutritional lunch consisting of Belgian waffles from Maison Dandoy, the top rated Belgian waffle shop in Brussels. FYI: DON'T DRINK STRAIGHT LEMON JUICE!!!  I got a lemon and sugar waffle, and when I didn't finish all of the lemon juice, I chugged it. Needless to say, my mouth was completely destroyed for the next couple of days.



To top off our waffles, we bought the world famous Belgian fries (our tour guide stressed that French fries are not actually French, but rather Belgian) and they more than lived up to their reputation. Afterwards, we headed back to our apartment to warm up before going back out in the evening. Thankfully, it stopped raining in the evening, so we were able to walk around and see the buildings without worrying about how sopping our clothes were getting.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, it was sunny!!  Thus, we walked back down to the Grand Palace to retake all our pictures in the sunshine.

For breakfast, I found a waffle for 1.50 euro and being the cheap college student that I am, I bought it as it was cheaper than any of the other waffles that I had seen.  Needless to say, it tasted like its price- a pretty disappointing last waffle to remember Belgium by :(  After breakfast, we walked over to a beautiful Gothic cathedral which looked very similar to Notre Dame in Paris. We then walked across the city to the Botanical gardens, which was a little oasis in the middle of the big city. It was full of little ponds and fountains surrounded by grass and pine trees and flowers. I can only imagine how pretty it is in the spring time! After hanging out here for a few hours, it was time for us to head back towards the train station to catch the bus. Along the way, Corey and I found a kids park with a zip-line, and being the kids that we are, we ran over there to ride it. Pretty sure we were the only people over the age of 10 there, but who cares, it was fun. Before leaving Brussels, Corey and I ate at a sandwich place in the train station. It makes me angry to even write about it but long story short, we ordered a gyro for 5 euro which we thought wasn't too expensive. However, after the guy behind the counter began making our sandwich, he told us he didn't have gyro meat and that we could only have 2 toppings. So I ended up paying five euro for a stale baguette with 3 pieces of canned chicken and a few slices of lettuce and tomato. Not at great way to end our fun trip to Brussels, but hey, I guess you just gotta go with the flow when you're in a foreign country. All in all, the trip was a blast and I hope I get to return to Belgium sometime in the next few months.