Well, this day started off with a nice 6AM wake up call! Packed up all my stuff into a hiking backpack that Jordan let me borrow. And was off to catch a 7:25am bus to waverly train station. I was meeting Shannon and Rebecca there, and I hadn't heard from them other then that the night before I was told it was a 7:50 train to glascow - where we had an 1130am flight. So I arrived at the train station, bought my ticket, then walked toward the boarding areas. I see one train leaving at 7:46am to glascow queen street, and a 7:56am to glascow central. I quickly text Rebeeca one last time to see what train it is, as it is 7:42am. The doors close on the queens street train, I am quickly walking beside it now to see if I could see the girls inside the train. At the same time I feel my phone vibrate with a text "queens street", so I immediately push the door open button and hop on the train! Not 5 steps later it departs. Only then to find out that the girls slept in and caught a train two trains later at 8:10. Precious sleep! No big deal really though, we met up at glascow station around 9:10 and then we were off to catch a bus to the airport. Another good 45min-hour away. When we finally arrived at the airport there was no waiting at all, we were in the lobby waiting for our plane 20 minutes later. Off to brussels.
We landed around 130-2pm. Only then having to catch a bus into the city center, a wopping 22 euros round trip! We made it to the city just around 3pm, and after a 30 minute scouring to find our hotel, we made it. After some lie down time and getting situated, combined with rummaging around our area for some food and things to do (which we were unable to find).. we finally realized we needed to get a metro to the main area. Which turned out to just be two blocks down, but that was unknown at the time. In the metro station we all had our first belgium waffles from a vendor, they were delicious. When we broke the surface from the underworld, it will filled with bright lights and rambunctious people. We popped into the first food place we saw, I believe it was called the food factory... and since the name indicates it produces food, I was game. I had a simple tuna sandwich and a huge white Belgian beer, equal in price but exceeding in amazingness. After eating we decided to check out the night life, we found a local Irish pub, (because we all know those are the best) it was absolutely packed. There was what seemed as a rave going on upstairs, with some live and laid back live guitar down stairs. Unfortunately, Europe didn't hear that smoking kills, and the pub seemed to be in a foggy haze. We got two rounds of 1 euro beers, and then by that time, exhaustion from the journey combined with headaches from the smoke sent us to an early bedtime.
We woke up around 11. It was snowing and around -5 degrees Celsius. But no big deal for me anymore, as I am a cold weather veteran now! We went to a little bakery nearby for two different kinds of croissants, coffee, and orange juice for only 3.50 euro! The best deal on the whole trip, I think. It was great. We began our walking shortly after, saw tons of chocolate and bakeries... but still really no sights. Until out in the distance we saw the steeple of one of the buildings in the pictures. We followed it like the north star, and soon we uncovered the street of tourism and cool stuff. Waffle shop after waffle shop led to Mannequin Pis, the magical peeing statue, which was for some reason dressed up in a demon/dragon/warrior costume... and then onto the grand square. It was breathtaking at first glance, huge towering buildings encompassed 100sq yards. We enjoyed that for a while and then headed into one of these buildings for a beer museum! It was 6 euro, and the guy said a beer was included and then jokingly said and there will be a quiz after the exhibit. The exhibit sucked. But the beer was delicious. We were drinking in a little room no bigger than a decent sized kitchen, there were about 6 old belgium men drinking around the bar and we joined on a nearby table. After we finished our beers, I asked what about the question for another round?! He said "you actually believed me?!" But, after some prying he shot off a question. Ironically enough, this question was definitely not in the exhibit, yet Rebecca had just read it in a tour-guide book. He asked how many types of trapiest beers there were (5, they are brewed by monks and only in Belgium)... we were even able to name them all off. Much to his dismay he poured us another round and the guys around the bar congratulated us. From then on it was a very friendly atmosphere filled with a ton of banter. We even got a few pictures with the belgium guys and our winnings. We headed out after an hour or so...
Now we had a better grounding on where we were and what there was to see, from there we hit statue after statue and giant building after giant building. Seeing huge cathedrals and even a venture to the european union. We saw everything there was to see in brussels! And of course we were a bit famished after all this running around, into frit'n toast we went, a local fry shop. We ordered a round of frit-something-special... they had globs of mayo, ketchup and onions on them. Definitely not my favorite meal of the trip, but they were enjoyed none-the-less. From there we waddled into Chocopolis, lured by the "free sample" sign. We all bought each other Valentines day gifts, covertly of course, but not really. After that we went back into the grand square to see it at night time, it was even better. The steeples and walls were lit up in an impressive glow. We continued walking around now, saw a full street of Turkish food, it is known to be the late-night-munchie street. By now Mannequin Pis was uncovered, and we saw him as he was meant to be seen. We headed home for some showers and rest. The girls went out, but I stayed in due to lack of funds and an early wake up.
It is now Valentines day, and we woke up around 9am. Followed by a quest to find breakfast, seemingly EVERYTHING was closed. We finally stumbled into a grocery store where we stocked up on croissants that were no doubt devoured before the next block. We just had one last thing to do on the agenda today, see Atomium, which you see in the last picture. It was a 165 billion times scaled model of an atom. Pretty damn cool! We were able to go inside of all the balls, each holding a different exhibit and then a viewing area at the top where you could see all of Brussels. Not bad at all. After that we headed to the train station to catch a train to Bruges!
No comments:
Post a Comment