Belgian Bliss

Seeing as its Fat Tuesday, I find it fitting to blog about my weekend in Belgium, as it was a celebration of indulgence. I arrived in Brussels late Friday night, to find that the public transportation system workers were on strike, along with the taxi drivers. A scab crammed 7 of us into his small taxi and drove us to our hostel, charging an outrageous price, but we literally had no other choice. As soon as we got into the hostel, we found a drunk American student yelling about how he had just been robbed at gun point and the desk clerk was about to give him a ride to the police station. The two girls I arrived with, and I, grabbed our keys and towels, ran up to our rooms, and cowered under the covers until we fell asleep.

In the morning, we walked the short distance from the hostel to the Grand Place, where I enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee and my first real Belgian waffle. It was indescribably amazing, and it makes me sad thinking that I may never have one like it again…which is why I had to have two more before the trip was over.

Café waffle

Truck waffle

 Street waffle

After breakfast, I explored the beautiful architecture around Grand Place and made a first stop at the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate to see chocolate making demonstrations, health and nutritional benefits, chocolate fashion, and history. The next stop was the Belgisch Stripcentrum, a comic art museum. My favorite exhibits were obviously the ones featuring Tintin and the Smurfs. Then, I went to the Museum of Belgian Brewers, which provided a thorough overview of various Belgian beers, and a free glass of special beer at the end. The last museum I went to was the Musical Instrument Museum, which had four floors of antique, rare, and exotic instruments. A headset was provided that played a sample of the music for each instrument you walked toward.
 

At this point, it was time for frites. As I approached the street stand, I placed an order for frites with curry sauce. The guy taking my order, clearly a New Yorker, told me to take it from him and get this other sauce which he still had “no idea what it’s made of.” I took his advice, and it was delicious. He was really friendly, but somehow had the preconceived notion that I was a New Yorker and I had to set him straight.

Then, I walked around the bazaar and picked up some chocolate truffles (I had to, you know), on the way to Delerium Café. This pub won the world record having the most beers on tap. Flipping through the enormous menu, I settled on the Floris Cactus beer. It was absolutely delicious and stunningly green. I wish I could have it, as naturally green beer, on St. Patty’s Day. 

Leaving the pub before any of us really wanted to, we stopped at de Bier Temple to pick up some unique selections. After a quick kebab and the third waffle of the day (shown above), we headed back to the hostel. When we started tasting our beers, a French guy, named Lionel, came over to us and asked if we wanted to make friends. We said “sure”, so he and a German guy (I never got his name) pulled up their own chairs and beers to our table. We talked all about traveling Europe, their jobs (the Frenchman is some sort of airplane engineer and the German works for a European group “commonly confused with the European Union”…but that’s all I got), our studies, etc. At this point, the conversation turned to music, and everyone turned their attention to something else, except for me and this German. He started talking to me about Dream Theater and Metallica, then did a 180 and mentioned that he loved Metric and we discussed Emily Haines’ solo career vs. her involvement in the band. At that point, it was clear that I had found my musical soul mate, and the conversation was lost to music for the rest of the night until the common room closed and we were forced to go our separate ways.

At the crack of dawn, we headed to the airport. Like all good dreams, our trip to Brussels was over too soon. 

 

 

One of my favorite things about Brussels was all of the street art. It gives the city so much character and makes it exciting to turn every corner. I took probably too many photos of streets images, but here are my favorites: