Sadly I spent the beginning of last week in bed with some sort of stomach bug. I feel like everything is more glamorous when it's done in a foreign country. It turns out, vomiting is just as awful no matter how beautiful or exotic the locale is. I only missed a day of classes, and it was a mild 24 hour bug, but miserable nonetheless. I self medicated with water and season 5 of Friends and was feeling better in no time.
Our flight left Friday morning out of Rome at 8:45 and there was no way we could make it down there in time so we had to leave Thursday and spend the night in a hostel right by the airport. It was nothing to exciting, just a place to sleep. Friday morning we were up bright and early to catch the bus to the airport. Our flight was delayed a little, but nothing too bad. We flew into an airport 45 minutes outside of Brussels because Ryanair is cheap and doesn't believe in major airports. However there was a coach bus to and from the city, so that was easy enough. We managed to find our hotel successfully. It was a really smooth journey and the hotel was pretty nice for the price (free breakfast!). We put our stuff in the room and set off to explore the city.
The city is gorgeous. It has a very French feel to it, but it has so many different cultures and I heard tons of different languages as we walked around. Every menu is in four languages (French, German, English and Spanish) and there were restaurants with every type of ethnic food. All the waiters, shopkeepers and vendors seemed to speak a minimum of four languages. It made me feel like an idiot for struggling to speak even two languages. I've resolved to improve my Italian, if only so that I don't feel so linguistically inadequate when compared to seemingly all of Europe. It was also very disorienting to hear so many different languages. When I came to Italy it was weird to hear people speak Italian because I wasn't used to hearing it everywhere I went. In Brussels it was disorienting to hear people speaking something other than Italian. I would occasionally overhear some people speaking Italian and I would get weirdly excited. It was a strange comfort. When we would watch TV, it was all in French. To me, French sounds like the same 4 sounds repeated in different patterns. All I wanted to do was speak Italian! It was strange and oddly gratifying to realize how ingrained the Italian language is becoming in my mind. I've decided to rededicate myself to semi-mastering Italian.
Anyway, we spent most of Friday just wandering the city and taking pictures. The weather was pretty miserable. Cloudy, drizzly and windy all weekend but I've lived in worse.
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| Center Place - The Main town Square |
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| More of the Main Square |
The best part of the city was the main square called Center Place. It couldn't get a photo of the entire square because it was too big for my camera, but these are some of the pictures I managed to take. The detail on the buildings is crazy. In the summer there are tables outside of all the cafes and flowers everywhere. It was still pretty in the freezing rain though.
Saturday we woke up pretty early so we could venture over to Mini Europe for a few hours of comical pictures with miniature landmarks. The buildings might be miniature, but my excitement was ginormous. We took the metro, managed to not get lost and we were at Mini Europe!
Only problem, IT WAS CLOSED UNTIL MID MARCH! I'm still recovering from the grief I experienced. This was pretty much the entire reason I came to Brussels and it was CLOSED.
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| Mini Europe - OF LIES |
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| You can't see my face, but I'm crying a little bit |
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| The Atomium |
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| The mini adventure that could have been |
We went in and rode an elevator the the top where we got some great views of the city and of Mini Europe (of LIES).
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| The photos don't do the city Justice |
There were also some cool exhibits in the Atomium about the World Fair and Space. It was really cool, but the only thing that could mend my broken heart was a Belgian waffle (A.K.A. the other reason I wanted to visit Brussels).
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| With chocolate, strawberries and whipped cream |
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| It doesn't know what's about to happen |
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| Mmmm, tastes like adult onset diabetes! |
It was amazing! I felt like I was going to toss my waffle after I finished, but it delicious. The whipped cream was fresh and the chocolate was warm and the waffle soaked it up like a sponge. The strawberries are fruit, so obviously it was a light, healthy snack!
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| It was a waffle massacre |
I didn't manage to finish the whipped cream, but I ate the entire waffle and stopped short of licking the container it came in.
After Waffle-fest '11, I needed to move because if I sat still I feared I would fall into a sugar coma and never wake up. We had read about a family operated brewery nearby that had self-guided tours that ended with a beer tasting (A.K.A. the other, other reason I wanted to visit Brussels). The Brewery was very interesting. I learned a lot about how beer is made. This Brewery specialized in making a type of beer called lambic that is low in carbonation and has a sour taste to it.
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| The bouquet was a bit robust...oh, wrong alchohol |
After we finished the tour we got to try two different types of beer. The first type was a standard lambic beer. It had a sour taste. It wasn't disgusting, but I won't be buying bottles of it anytime soon.
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| Cherry-flavored-sour-beer. |
The second beer was a lambic that was flavored with cherries. It was unlike any beverage I have ever consumed, let alone beer. It had a fruity sour taste to it. It didn't taste like any beer I've ever tried. Again, not gross but I'm not dying to drink it again.
After our brewery adventure we shopped for Belgium chocolate (not a reason I went to Brussels, but a delightful addition). We stopped at the hotel for a quick break from all the walking, grabbed a quick dinner and then head off to find a pub where we could try more beer. I guess Belgium is knows for their light beers (I could be making that up) but I prefer light beer so I was interested in trying some different versions. TripAdvisor (don't judge me! It's my new favorite website!) kept talking about this pub with a name I cannot pronounce or spell. We tried twice to find a table, but had no success so I guess it's popular for a reason. We ended up walking across the street to another pub that looked popular. It was filled with a bunch of people from various parts of The UK watching a soccer game and yelling. So we grabbed a table and ordered two blonde beers and a sweet amber beer. I liked the amber beer best.
After a few drinks we headed back to the hotel because we had a long day of traveling ahead. The trip back to Italy went smoothly (It was wonderful to hear Italian again!). It was 65 degrees in Rome and absolutely gorgeous. I wish I could have stayed and enjoyed it. The only hitch in the entire weekend (besides the Mini Europe travesty) was that our train broke down on the way to Perugia so we ended up getting back about 2 hours later than intended. But we made it back safely and with most of our sanity in tact, so I can't complain.
I know this post is long, but it was a great experience and I just wanted to share as much of it as possible. I've decided I'm going to try and blog more frequently, even if it's just a short blurb about my day or an experience I have. Not every day can be an epic multi-country adventure (no matter how much I wish that was the case).
Stay tuned for more adventures! I'll be heading to London in about two weeks!
Ciao!
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