Weekend in Belgium!

On our walk to our hostel in Bruges:
Eating fries in Brussels:
Chocolate shop in Brussels:
Last weekend I took a trip to Belgium with Heather, Jasmine, and Christina. We met at Gare du Nord at 6.30 am to board our 6.55 am train. Because the train station is only a 10-15 min walk away from my apartment and Heather's new apartment (she recently changed host families) is on my way, we planned to meet in front of her place at 6.20 am. Heather has a tendency of being 10-15 minutes late to pretty much everything, but I figured since this time we actually had a train to catch, she would be on time. Wrong. I was running a few minutes late myself, so when I left my place at 6.17 I texted her, "Sorry, I'm running a few minutes late. Are you already outside?" The intent of this message was two-fold: to let her know I was going to be a bit late and to encourage her to go outside if she hadn't already. After all, it's only about a 5-minute walk between our apartments. Lo and behold, I get to her apartment and there's no sign of her. I call her phone, but she doesn't answer. I wait for about 5 minutes, and then I start frantically calling her repeatedly. She doesn't answer. 6.30 rolls around, and I'm not exactly sure how to walk to Gare du Nord, so I figured I better just go ahead. But I got extremely worried that Heather was still asleep and would miss the train, especially because she had all 4 of our return train tickets! I started thinking about what I could possibly do...I even considered calling Mme Parnet, the housing director, to try to get the phone number to her homestay. I got to Gare du Nord around 6.35 and easily find Jasmine and Christina. Luckily, Heather calls me soon after saying "I thought you said you were running late?" Aghh yes I was running late, but only a few minutes! Not 15! Needless to say, I was pretty flustered and frustrated at her. Fortunately everything worked out, I didn't need to start calling directors at 6.45 am, and we all managed to find each other at the train station. We even had time to buy some breakfast for the train ride. It just wasn't a great way to start the day...I was so nervous the whole trip would be ruined.

So the train ride lasted about 2 hours to Brussels. When we got there, we followed the directions I had written down to the hostel and found it with no problems. The hostel, 2GO4 (no idea), was very nice, clean, and modern. They had free internet, clean rooms, clean showers, free coffee in the mornings, and beer in their vending machines (just something I thought was interesting). After setting down our things in storage (it was still too early to check in), we set out to explore Brussels. We soon realized what a bizarre city it is. The architectural style is flippant and noncontinuous; some buildings are very beautiful and similar in style to those in Paris, but others are very modern or just downright ugly. We did find a very nice area though, with small cobblestone streets full of chocolatiers, waffle stands, and bars. It soon became very apparent that the "hallmarks" of stereotypical Belgium were everywhere: the beer, the chocolate, the lace, the waffles, and the fry stands. They also had quite a few tourist shops selling EU stuff and Mannekin Pis (a small statue of a peeing boy...) souvenirs. Within the first few hours, we managed to visit at least 10 chocolate shops, have our first Belgian waffles, eat fries from a fry stand, and even try a flavored beer (Belgium is famous for its flavored beers...my favorite was Kriek, a cherry-flavored one that basically tasted like soda). After walking around some, we decided to take advantage of the metro passes we had bought and take a 30 minute metro ride to the Atomium, a huge metal atom that is known as the "Eiffel Tower of Belgium." It was pretty cool, and we found a Mini Europe park right next to it, which was a lot of fun. They had models representing a building or monument from every city in Europe. For Finland, they had Suomenlinna and a sauna. I figured people probably don't get a very accurate idea of what Finland looks like by Suomenlinna, but oh well. The park also had mini-sized Big Ben, Arc de Triomphe, Tour Eiffel, Pisa Tower, etc. So that was fun. After that, we went back to the hostel, showered, and took short naps before heading out to dinner. For dinner, we found a cheap falafel place where Jasmine chatted up the owner, Mr. Falafel in Arabic! Then, we went to a bar called Delirium, known for having practically a million types of beers. I decided to try a regular beer because 1. it was cheap and 2. I wanted to know if regular Belgian beer really is "better" than beer from other countries. (Answer: nope, it's not good in Belgium either.) Delirium was very smoky almost to the extent of being foggy, so after a while in there, we all needed some fresh air. In Paris, bars and restaurants follow the law against smoking indoors. In Belgium they also have this law but apparently do not adhere to it. Right next to Delirium was a tequila bar that was just an incredible and amazing place. Their cocktail list was insanely long, they had frozen tropical drinks, no smoking was allowed, and their drinks were very cheap relative to Paris prices. I had a Frozen Mango Margarita that was incredibly delicious. Tara's friend Min had a Pina Colada that was probably the best Pina Colada I've ever tasted....you get the idea. After that, we were all upset that there was no place similar to it in Paris!

We retired early that night, but only after stopping by a fry stand for some fries with Andalouse sauce. That sauce is so delicious. It's basically a spicier version of Thousand Island...and boy is it goooood. I miss it already! The first time I had fries I was unadventurous and just got ketchup, but after trying Andalouse from someone else, I never looked back! If you ever go to Belgium, get that. Trust me.

The next day, we got up just in time to check out at 11 AM. We then spent some time benefiting from the free internet in the hostel before heading out. We took our bags with us since we would be walking towards the train station. We went to a few more chocolatiers, of course, and then went to see the Royal Palace. It was quite a trek to get there, and it was raining, so once we actually got to it we were pretty much just like, "Oh that's cool, OK lets go." We had seen a cute little cafe on the hike to the Palace, so we decided to stop there for lunch before our train to Bruges. The cafe was perfect....I had a potato soup and a slice of Hawaiian pizza. We had all been craving soup because of the cold, rainy weather.

Train to Bruges only took an hour. We got off and again followed the directions I had written down to the hostel (mom, you should be so proud of my organization/planning). Our hostel, Snuffel, wasn't quite as clean and modern as the one in Brussels, but it was still relatively nice. There was a bar downstairs, and when we got there, the check-in girl told us we would have to vacate the common room for the concert that would be going on that night. Our hostel is a concert venue, sweet. We left our stuff and set off to explore Bruges, which we soon discovered was infinitely prettier than Brussels. Everything was very quaint, old, picturesque. There was water everywhere (there are lots of canals that run through the city), horse carriages, swans, only white pigeons, cute little puppies, and basically everything was very fairytale-esque. We took tons of pictures and just enjoyed walking around. Of course, they still had the main staples that we had found in Brussels: chocolate, waffles, fries, beer. For dinner, we found a traditional Flemish restaurant where I tried a chicken stew. It was very creamy and delicious, even though they only gave me like 3 tiny potatoes. Then we set off to find "Party Straat", a street that had been recommended to us by our map. It was freezing cold, and because of a weirdly-drawn map and a hidden street, it took us far too long to find Party Straat. But eventually we didn, and we settled on the first place we saw simply because we were so eager to be inside. We had two rounds of beers there (both of mine were Krieks, go figure) and then decided to call it a night. After a cold walk home, we snuggled into our beds in Snuffel and went to sleep.

In the morning, check-out was at 10 AM, so I got up at 9.10 to take a shower. The shower was very weird, kind of dirty, and far away, but I think I really needed it by that point. We ate some breakfast in the hostel, then went to the main square (Markt) where we climbed the Belfry. It was 88m of stairs, but we made it to the top! After coming back down, we felt we had well-deserved some fries! I ordered the Andalouse, and it was so incredible, especially in the cold weather. We then realized we had only really seen a tiny bit of Bruges, so we started walking around. At one point, we decided to follow the horse carriages backwards (AKA walk in the direction they were coming from) to find where we could rent one. We did that for probably an hour before realizing that there were probably many horse-carriage companies and we were probably just walking around in huge circles. Eventually we did manage to find some of the carriages at their "rest stop" and found out that the price to rent one would be 10 euro per person for a 30-minute ride. 1. That was somewhat pricey for a short ride and 2. We hadn't even found the place to rent them, only their rest stop. So we decided against it and looked at the swans in the canal instead. They were so pretty and they came very close to us! Soon after, we headed back to the hostel to warm up, have a few more beers in our hostel bar, gather our stuff, and leave for the train. We were at the train station right as scheduled (30 minutes early) four our 6.05 pm train. We all went home happy and very very full from the deliciousness of Belgium's food. In retrospect, I think our reasoning for visiting Belgium was pretty much rooted in the food. ;) Never a bad thing!

Now I'm back in Paris and eagerly awaiting Nathan's arrival. If all goes as planned (I really hope it does), he should be landing at 10.25 AM on Thursday, which means I will see him around 12.30 or 1! I couldn't be happier that he is coming, and I think it's the perfect time for it. I've been feeling a bit of homesickness and just a general frustration with classes and things, so his visit will be a nice remedy for all of that. :) And now I can actually experience the "most romantic city in the world" first-hand! How lucky am I?