This last weekend I traveled to Brussels, Belgium with the group. We left Friday afternoon on the Thalys for an hour and a half train ride over to the what Belgians like to call the capital of Europe, Brussels, home of the European Union, waffles, fries, mussels, Manneken Pis and beer. We arrived Friday around 5 and took public transportation to our hotel which was located a bit outside the city center, settled in and then headed to explore a bit in the area. After a little while we headed back to the hotel for dinner. Before we left we had voted on a menu for each of our two nights which included some traditional Belgian food. But instead they took it upon themselved to change the menu to something they thought American teenagers would enjoy. Mistake number 1, we’re not teenagers. Mistake no 2, don’t overgeneralize/stereotype, as of right now we’re more Parisian in degoustation than American. SO we had chicken with come tomatoes and peppers, leek soup, frites and for dessert ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate. Not a whole lot to write home about but it was nice to have something other than a tart. After dinner a bumch of us headed to the Grand Place, which is the city center, for some night life. Saturday morning we arose nice and early for a little bus tour of Brussels with a British tour guide. We saw Manneken Pis which has over 700 outfits which are changed each morning and each evening accompanied by a police brigade playing the national anthem. We saw some great Art Nouveau buildings, a comic strip museum, a piece of the Berlin wall, the future site of the European Parliament and a bunch of other stuff. We were done about noon so we went back into the city center to find some lunch. There is one street that is just full of restaurants serving mussels, one after another all about the same price with the same menu. We were stopped by this guy who was like come, eat, free champagne for all the ladies, so we were haggled into eating there. We got a menu for 12.50 euros which included garlic scampis, boiled mussels, flan and kir royal. I decided to be adventurous and try the mussels to discover that they’re not really my style. It was good to try once but they look kinda gross and I don’t like eating sand with my food but hey it was an experience. After lunch we wondered through the Grand Place visiting touristy shops and chocolate shops, some of the group stopped for waffles but I decided I’d get one later, well I left Brussels without eating a waffle but I think I’ll live. There were two parades going on in Brussels Saturday, the Gay Pride parade and also some other one that had these weird tall doll things and a bunch of people in white pants, it seemed like they were Kiwanis, or Masons/Shriners, or some group like that. At the end of their parade we happened to be by Manneken Pis who was dressed in a different outfit than the morning and was now pissing beer! Only in Belgium. Interesting fact, Belgium since 2002 I believe has had gay marriage legalized. They city is very progressive in many ways with their social planning and housing of the European Union. Anyways, we headed back for dinner which was these cheese croquettes for appetizers that were like glorified mozzarella sticks made with really creamy cheese. Then we had some lamb taco/burrito/wrap thing that was really good but really heavy, frites from the local fritery, and coffee icecream with a shot of espresso on it. By this point in the weekend my stomach was about to explode from so much heavy food, not at all like the French cuisine we’re used to and the portions are enormous compared to those in Paris. Maggie and I stayed in Saturday night while a bunch of others went out because we could barely move we were so full, it was like Thanksgiving. This is probably how I’ll feel when I get back home and eat American food again. Sunday we got up early again and headed to the art museum where they had an exhibition of the British Royal Collection. We told the guy we were students and he asked what we were studying, we told him art and apparently there’s a bigger discount for art students so our tickets which should have been 10 euro were just 2.50 a piece! After the art museum we went back to grand place where I still couldn’t force myself to eat a waffle and I got some waffle cookies dipped in chocolate for my host family. Then we met everyone back at Michael Collins for some burgers that we had seen the first day. Maggie and I split an enormous burger which was definitely a good thing! So after that we headed back to the train station and were on our way back to Paris.
