Random weekend to Brussels, Belgium was a HUGE success. Accent on HUGE. I can't even tell you how awesome this trip was. Brussels is the hidden gem of Europe, why no one talks about it, I will never know but it's my personal goal to start spreading the word.
Bucket list item!! Much to my mother's dismay (and probably the grandmas too after reading this), Anna and I Couch Surfed. Couch Surfing is this online site where you create a profile and request to stay with people. People around the world literally offer their couches to travelers for a couple nights while they visit the city. So, about 3 weeks ago, I sent out a few requests. I heard back from a lady named Noura. Her profile looked legit, so we made plans. This was probably the best decision I've made since I got to Europe. Noura and her husband Mathieu were so great, they picked us up at the bus station and brought us back when we left, they drove us around town, showed us where to tour the city, and fed us twice a day! Not to mention let us stay at their place for 3 nights. We didn't pay a thing for housing. This is probably the best invention since Belgian chocolate.
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| Noura and Mathieu |
We left Thursday, so Friday was our first big day of touring the city. We took a map and headed off. We started at the Royal Palace, which as it happens, the King was home! I tried to get him to look out the window- only to see me and fall madly in love, but it didn't happen. I think I was outside the wrong window.
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| The Palace! I couldn't fit the whole thing in the picture. |
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| Couldn't find the window of the King.. I had a one in like 1,000 chance of picking the right one. |
From there, we needed food. And we learned that Belgium is famous for very specific foods- Fries, Chocolate, Waffles, and Mussels. We got this coupon from the tourist center that got us a huge thing of fries for 1 Euro!
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| The fries were so good- I don't know how they do it in Belgium, but they do it right. |
Tummies full, we headed further into the city towards the Grand Plaza. There are no words to describe this place. It's probably three football fields long by two football fields wide, and has 6 giant buildings surrounding it. I felt so small next to them. It was just beautiful, we walked in the city center and I think my jaw dropped. I literally stood there with my mouth open before I realized people were staring. It's just overwhelming beauty.
How do we even follow that? Food, naturally. So we got the next most popular food here- WAFFLES. With chocolate, so I guess the two most popular foods. If I could choose a last meal, it would be this waffle. It was that good. It's like heaven. Just look at all that melty dark chocolate and a perfect crispy sugar outside with a moist inside. YUM. My mouth is watering. Sorry for the visual.
Now, there is a waffle choosing skill involved here- in order to make sure it's an authentic Belgian waffle, it has to have little chunks of sugar on it which happens naturally when they cook it. I would definitely include my skill in choosing a proper Belgian waffle on my resume. You never know when that might come in handy!
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| I got Belgian dark chocolate, and Anna got the white chocolate. We learned afterwards that white chocolate really isn't chocolate- it's just super sweet butter! |
Next we hit up the Beurs and St. Gery buildings. The Beurs building holds the Belgian Stock Exchange.
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| The Beurs building |
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| St. Gery |
I think I'm sensing a theme here- building, food, building, food, building, guess what's next- MORE FOOD.
This time we got Escargot. And not just any escargot, street escargot. I got 6 escargot for 2 Euro. That probably would have cost me $12 in the states. And it was way better here!
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| Check it out- the guy in the stand smiled too! |
Then we made it to St. Hubertus-Gallerijen. It's basically a glorified shopping center. It's three stories, and has two sections, each about two football fields long. Above the front entrance it says, "Omnibus Omnia" which means "Everything for Everybody". It was created in the 19th century, construction started on May 6 (Happy Birthday Mom! They built you a mall!) and lasted 18 months, which is relatively quick work considering.
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| Bought some chocolate here too! |
St. Catherine's Cathedral is said to be the largest church in Brussels. It was designed in the 11th century, and in the 13th century it was revamped and had Gothic features added. There are almost 50 bells in one of the towers!
We saw Mannequin Pis and Jeanneke Pis. I don't think I was as impressed as I should have been. They are two statues of little kids peeing. It was a little weird to me to be honest..
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| Mannequin Pis- the story goes that a father came to Brussels with his family and his son got lost. The police and many citizens helped him look for the little boy and they found him peeing in a garden. To thank the city and people for their help, he made a statue. |
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| Jeanneke Pis. I don't know what her story is, but this is just weird to me. I do know that she's unrelated to Mannequin Pis, but she is the gender match to him. |
That ended our Friday. Actually, that ended the touring of our Friday. We went out with Noura and Mathieu that night, but it wasn't too exciting. Noura had a job interview the next day so we didn't stay out late.
We went to the Atomium and Mini-Europe on Saturday. I'm going to put all of these pictures on another tab I think, because Mini-Europe is actually exactly what it sounds like- a mini tour of Europe. They took all of the major buildings and scaled them down into a walk through park. It's actually pretty cool. Naturally, I took a photo with every single monument.
Here's an example-
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| Got the Leaning Tower! |
This is Atomium. It was built in 1958 to symbolize an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times. It's 330 feet tall!
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| There's even a restaurant in the top! |
That night, we got some seafood at this outdoor stand. I think this is the way to do it- the food was fresh and so good. We tried the scampi, mussels, catch of the day, and more escargot!
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| Scampi and escargot |
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| Catch of the Day |
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| The Mussels from Brussels |
Then we headed to Delirium! This bar has over 2,000 different kinds/flavors of beer- honestly anything you can imagine. We tried peach, cherry, raspberry, chocolate, cookie, amber, dark, triple, and I can't remember the other ones. All four of us got different ones and tried each others, so we had quite the selection. Raspberry was my favorite- I'm such a baby when it comes to beer. Anna was going for the amber, dark, and normal flavors, while I did the fruity stuff.
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| There it is. |
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| A cherry beer and the book of flavors. It's a BOOK of beer. Holy Moly. |
It was a great experience all around. We made it home safely AND got our homework done for class on Monday :)
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