Brussels

After spending a few days in Bonn and Cologne, Marie, Nick, Brian, and I jumped on a train and were off to Belgium. It took 4 separate trains to get there…one that looked like it was built in the 1930’s. Our first order of business was to check out the Grand Place. It is by far the most beautiful plaza I’ve seen…so far. When we first walked into the plaza we were in awe of its beauty and architecture. As we were admiring the buildings, music started to play the Hallelujah Chorus. We all knew this was going to be a once in a lifetime experience and such a memorable moment. After seeing the plaza, we walked around to a few other sights, the peeing boy, his sister, the peeing girl, but shortly realized Brussels wouldn’t be complete without a Belgium Waffle. We indulged ourselves in a few yummy treats, then ventured back out to sight see. We ended up at the Delirium, the bar that has over 2600 beers. We all tried too many exotic beers, ranging between 8-13% alcohol. The beer was so good, it had to be, Marie drank 5…that has to be a record! (and I thought the bar held quite a record) Haha!

The next day I forced everyone out of bed so we could get to the Atomium as early as possible to beat the lines. This is a HUGE metal structure which resembles an atom and serves no purpose. It was built for the world exposition, like the Eiffel tower, but is anything but romantic or beautiful. We were able to go inside and go into the different areas. The view from the top was great, but the Atomium was not that impressive. The only thing impressive is that someone actually had the idea to build a giant atom that would serve no purpose…

We headed back to the city and checked out a few churches, including one that it is famous for peeing on. That’s right, you are allowed to pee on the church. It actually has pseudo urinals. And yes, you guessed right, Brian put them to good use. We then decided to venture out to the “best French Fries in Brussels”, but were a little disappointed that it was closed. With our hunger building, we decided Mussels in Brussels were the way to go for dinner. We all tried the mussels, including Marie! No one actually liked them…except Brian!! He’s becoming quite the seafood lover… We decided to head back to the hotel early, since we drank all of the beer in Belgium the night before and had an early train ride to Paris this morning. We’ll be in Paris for the next 2 days and are excited for our next adventure!