Fall Break: Brussels

After Paris, we hoped on a train to Brussels. We arrived around 5 pm and went straight to our hostel to freshen up. We had a mixed dorm this time around, and we met a group of girls who were also traveling around on fall break. Not that My friends aren't awesome, but it was refreshing to meet new people. That evening we went out for mussels in brussels, and while they were tasty, I think the waffles we had the next morning were much more memorable, but more on that later. The food service in brussels is much better than anything we had experienced up to that point. In fact, it was nearly on par with service from American waitresses competing for good tips, so If you're ever in Brussels, go to Chez Leon for dinner. After the mussels we went to bar called Delerium, which is famous for having over 2000 types of beer available. At one point in, they actually had 2004 types actually available in the bar on one day, which is a guiness world record. It's kind of the beer equivalent of Bernie Bots every flavor jelly beans. Yes that's a Harry Potter reference. Anyway, we thought about venturing out to other places, but we ended up staying there for the remainder of our evening, as we knew we'd never run out of beer to try. We even ran into friends from AUR and as well the girls from the hostel. If you're ever in Brussels, go to Delerium, it's the place to be.

Don't worry mom and dad, I did more than just eat and drink in Brussels. The next morning we were up bright and early to see the sights, and by this point, we were getting pretty good at covering lots of a city in a short amount of time. Brussels is small, so we walked around and still saw a ton.

Our first stop was a small hole in the wall waffle place for delicious Belgian waffles. It's not just a rumor, Belgium is actually known for waffles, (and mussels); a man we met on the train who works in Brussels confirmed this. My waffle had bananas and chocolate sauce on it, and though I could practically tastes the grains of sugar, it was delicious and worth it.

We also saw the statue of the peeing baby, though its really small, it's actual baby sized and it was kind of underwhelming. I'd put a picture of it here, but ask yourself if you really want to see that. However, I will put pictures of some of the other stuff we saw:

After seeing a lot more buildings that look like the one above, we decided to get some chocolate on our way to the train station. At this point we were really rushing to get back to the train station on time and weren't sure we'd have time for chocolate. However, we realized that was a stupid thought, and chocolate was more important than getting to Amsterdam an hour earlier, (slightly). The chocolate was definitely delicious, much better than your average chocolate bar from a grocery store. Jamie and I split a variety pack of 20 pieces, and it actually lasted us about 2 more countries before we finally gave in and ate the rest. Don't judge, it would probably have melted by the time we made it back to Rome anyway.

Overall, Brussels was my favorite city even after seeing nice, Barcelona and Paris. The people are friendly and the city is small enough to be walkable. It's modern, but still charming in the way parts of ancient Rome are. On top of that, we were able to get waffles, mussels, and chocolate, the big 3 of Belgium. I enjoyed it and hopefully I'll go back someday. For now, onto the next place: Amsterdam!