A Cold, Rainy, Sick Day in Brussels

It's been awhile since I've last posted--I think about two weeks, so I'm going to remedy that fact today. I guess I'll talk about the trip I took two weekends ago (seems like a long time now) to Brussels, Belgium. Bianca, Johnny, Josh, and I were planning on taking day trips that weekend to Brussels, Bruges and Gent, and Luxembourg. We decided to head out Friday morning to Brussels. I started feeling under the weather that morning which wasn't helped by the fact that it was cold and rainy the day we traveled to Brussels. I manned up though and decided to go anyway.

A Brussels waffle up close and a Liege waffle in the background

Brussels, to me, seemed to have a more American city feel to it. This was probably because I saw more skyscrapers here than in any other city I've traveled to so far--including London. When we left the train station, the first thing we did was look for a place to eat some nice waffles and drink hot chocolate. Belgium is famous for its waffles and chocolate. We found a place relatively close to the train station and ate some of the most delicious waffles I've ever tasted. There were some Hispanic guys at the cafe with us too; I think they were Argentinian and I got to practice some of my Spanish with them. It didn't go so great. lol I write Spanish better than I can speak it.  

Part of the EU Headquarters

We got lost for a bit trying to find the tourist information office. We walked in circles for a while before finding the office in one of the huge buildings that lined the Grand Market square. I asked a lady at the info booth how to get to the European Union building because I really wanted to take a tour there. After getting directions, we decided to take a bus there. The bus driver didn't speak a word of English (they speak mainly French in Brussels) and I had to end up pointing to the place on the map we wanted to go. When we arrived at the European Union building, I thought it was pretty cool. It wasn't awe-inspiring but simply elegant and aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. Apparently on Fridays the EU does tours only at 10 am and it was already around 1 pm, so we didn't get to go inside. At least we have some good pictures of the outside!

One of the many waffle vans we saw while walking.

Instead of taking a bus back to where we were, we decided to explore by simply walking back. We took lots of pictures on the way and got to see several touristy spots. Apparently Belgium has a king and we got some great pictures of his palace. Once we got back to where we started, we shopped around a bit. We saw sooo many chocolate shops while we were there! It was also Valentine's Day weekend, so all the chocolate shops were decked out in red, pink, and white. There is a place called Agora which had over a 100 stores inside and we decided to check it out. It was pretty much a bazaar on the inside and we were heckled by Middle-Eastern, Indian, Pakistani men left and right. After our bizarre experience in the bazaar (I'm so witty tee hee), we decided to look for a place to grab a quick bite to eat. No one was really that hungry but we all agreed to a light meal. We found an alleyway that was lined with restaurants and decided to check it out. We experienced heckling in a new form. Apparently for 10-12 Euros, you could get a free drink, an appetizer, an entree, and dessert. All the restaurants were offering just about the same thing. I even got a business card from (what I'm sure is his real name) "Mr. Satisfaction" who offered us a wonderful deal that we had already heard about 5 times before we reached him. Fortunately, some of the hecklers realized we were just there to look around and didn't bother us, which made things a lot easier and we got out of that alley as quickly as we could. We settled on a sandwich place elsewhere that had a deal of a drink and sub for only 5-6 euros. This was our best option since none of us were really that hungry. 

After lunch we did some more walking. Johnny wanted to see the Atomium, which is basically a giant steel atom. We got lost several times trying to find it. We walked a lot that day but ended up taking lots of pictures so I guess it was worth it. We never did find the Atomium. By 4 I was exhausted and feeling very ill. The other three decided to call it a day as well and so we headed back. We hopped onto two different trams without paying the fare and rode them to a different train station. Totally beat walking back to the train station we arrived at. From there we took a train back to Maastricht. Thus ended our trip to Brussels.
 Saturday and Sunday I stayed in Maastricht to convalesce. It sucked but luckily my fever broke on Saturday, leaving me able to get some stuff done on Sunday. I'm so glad I decided to take a day trip instead of booking a hostel. I wouldn't have wanted to get sick in a hostel. That would have been awful and a waste of money.

Leaving Brussels for Maastricht