Je t'adore, Bruxelles!

I’m on a train again. My new favorite train activity has got to be blogging, replacing laying my head on the rumbling window listening to my iPod. This one is going from Brussels to Amsterdam. Takes about 3 hours. I’m just rolling right along through the low-lands countryside of this beautiful country. So, last blog I was on the train to Brussels from Paris which seems like so long ago, it really was just a couple days ago. Crazy how time flies but also seems so distant. Now I’ll update you on what I’ve done since then. One of those things has been eat a lot of waffles.

After arriving in Brussels on that train, we left the train station heading towards the hotel, and got to walk through an interestingly sketchy part of town in the process. Sunday was touring day in Brussels. We started out by walking through the Grand Place, of course, then traveled down the road to get a glance at the Manikin Pis. It’s a statue of a little boy peeing, but it’s by far the most famous in all of Brussels. Legend was that there was a great fire and he saved the city by putting it out with his pee. Legend…dary. After him we walked backed the Grand Place to visit the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate. Besides getting tons of free tastes and smells, and a demonstration, I also learned a ton about the process of chocolate making, where it comes from, and even the healthy aspects of it!

2 in 1: Mannekin Pis meets Belgian Chocolate

More touring followed, saw the Royal Palace, EU Parliament building (which was real neat after spending a whole course on EU Politics this semester), walked through some nice spacious parks (Parc du Bruxelles, Parc de Leopold, Parc de Cinquantenaire), walked through the famous squares like Sablon with all its chocolate shops, then saw a couple churches, St Michel of course being the best because he is the patron saint of Brussels, and we share a name in common. Parc Cinquantenaire was great because as we exited the park into Montgomery Circle, where they have a statue dedicated to General Montgomery who liberated Brussels in World War II, there was a carnival fair going on that was real cool. It had an awesome flea market of interesting stuff from medieval armor to classic LP albums, then tons of mini-rides for kids, concerts, and of course all the waffles, fries and beer you could imagine. I’m going to take this opportunity to remind people that French fries are Belgian, don’t let the French in the name fool you. That was just some dumb English translation, everywhere else in the world they’re just called ‘frites’. And obviously Belgium also does waffles and beer better than anyone else too. After getting my fill on all of that, we went back towards the city to check out a brewery that TripAdvisor rated as the 2^nd best thing to do in Brussels but when we got there it was boarded up closed. So, we just walked around some more and enjoyed the nice day we had out. At night, we went to some bars to test out the local beers (Palm, Jupiler and Kwak were my favorites) as the sun set then went to a big restaurant area for a good spaghetti bolognaise dinner.

Early evening Kwak beers & peanuts

My brick on the Walkway of Memories

 Monday was one of my favorite days of the trip so far. First stop was going to my old school ISB (International School of Brussels) at 10am for a tour of it. After having to switch trams twice and lots of walking to other tram stops because of tram-car accidents on the track ahead of us, we finally got there a little past 10. It was so crazy walking up to it, the place I went to school every day for years but hadn’t been back to in almost a decade. Everything definitely seemed smaller, the parking lot, the playground, the hallways, I felt like it used to take me much longer to walk across the campus but I guess my legs have grown since then. Not too much had changed, except more security, cooler playgrounds, newer buildings, oh and the fact that everyone grade 5 and above gets a laptop or tablet (their choice) now, so cool! I got pictures of my old favorite places, my favorite teachers room etc, I was talking to the guide (who happened to be the older sister of one of my good friends from when I lived in Belgium – such a small world) and for the most part all the teachers I had that I asked about weren’t there anymore. I really enjoyed that part of the day, it was so cool seeing the swing set, or the chairs in the library knowing that I had been in those exact places before, all the way here in little old Belgium. Then the best part of course was going to the brick walkway of memories where we had a brick put in with our name on it. My official mark on the country of Belgium, I got an awesome picture of me with it, facebook profile picture material for sure.

BruPark from Atonium: Planetarium, MiniEurope, Oceade &The Village

After grabbing lunch there in Boisfort, we took the tram and then metro to the other side of town to Heysel Park (or BruPark). This place, the area from the Worlds Fair in 1958, has so much cool stuff to do and is a must for anyone traveling to Brussels. First off, The Atomium, a 9 sphere architectural wonder in the shape of a crystal atom magnified like 100 billion times, is one of the coolest sites in the whole county. You can go to the top and get a great view of the city and then there are neat exhibitions in the other spheres and you get to take awesome escalators in between them.

After that was MiniEurope. Another must. I’m serious. You learn about all the different countries of Europe and at the same time how the EU works, its history, and what makes it unique. All the models were 1/25^th scaled down so you can easily compare their sizes and see that the Eiffel Tower towers over everything in Europe. Checking out my facebook album from that will make you feel like you took a quick tour of Europe-do it. It was neat seeing the places that I was just recently at like in France and Italy too. After that was the Planetarium (we’re still in BruPark, this stuff is like 2 minutes walk from each other, so convenient). There was a neat thing on the universe and asteroid attacks there that we saw, which is related to the course I’m taking next semester at UMD titled ASTR220 – Collisions in Space and Asteroid Impacts. You all know how I love my astronomy. Then, after grabbing a good Belgian beer in “the village” a restaurant/bar area of the park area, we went to the Exposition Center for a thing on King Tut and his tomb which was also really neat. So much cool stuff in that small area, I didn’t even mention the water theme park Oceade that’s there too. Well now I did, but it’s also real cool, we didn’t do it though. Then we went back to the village and ate dinner at a Mexican place that we used to go to a lot when I lived here (remember Los Amigos, Mom and Dad? – with that cool car inside that I’d always want to climb in) so that was good and nostalgic. We went back to Brussels downtown area, did some walking around some more then settled down at a bar in the Grand Place for some more Belgian beers. I got a sampler of four house beers and they were all so delicious, the amber beer being the best.

Happy Hour Perfection

I hope you guys can tell how much fun I had this day through this blog, it was really fun. I’m petitioning hard for Brussels here because I’m sick of people always telling me they’ve either never heard of it or don’t think there’s anything here to do. There is! I swear! Come to Brussels – capital of Europe for a reason!

Sunset in the Grand Place

Well, still have 2 hours left of this train ride, not sure how I’ll spend it, I’ve written enough here to even make myself not want to have to proofread it so my apologies for it being a little long. I’m not sure if people are even still reading this blog anyways, I haven’t checked my stats section lately. Congratulations again to my sister and all the 2011 graduates! I can’t wait to see all you real-people soon! 4 days from now I’ll be on a plane back home to America, (as long as this volcano eruption in Iceland isn’t a repeat of last year’s air traffic debacle.) I’m not starting work for about a week or so, so if you want to hang out with me before I get consumed by work every day again, send me a message and let’s make it happen!