This past weekend, a group of six of us took to Brussels, Belgium for a few days of sightseeing and getting out of Paris. Don't get me wrong, I'm still in love with Paris, but it was nice to get away. And I discovered that when I'm not in Paris I miss it. It's so strange that a place that I've only been in for two weeks can so quickly feel like home.
We left for Brussels at 8:25 am on Friday. In Europe there's a bus like called Flixbus that, similar to a Barons Bus or a Greyhound Bus, will take you across Europe. We took the Flixbus from Paris to Brussels about four and a half hours. I went on the bus with the intention of reading for my history class but ended up taking a fat nap instead. Shocking.
When we finally arrived in Brussels, we checked into our hotels and changed before going off in search of something to eat for dinner. We ended up at a burger joint where I got my first taste of true Belgian beer.
I was not disappointed. After dinner, we took a walk through Brussels to take in all the sights, taking random turns down streets that looked interesting. Apparently this is the best way to do it, as we stumbled upon the Grand Palace, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, walkways strung with lights and greenery and a mismatch of buildings.
We continued walking and found a street lined with bars that spilled onto the street, where a young boy played American hits on some sort of flute while onlookers watched from their crowded bar tables. We snagged a table of our own in one of the bars and ordered a flight of beer to share amongst the six of us. On brand, I enjoyed the darkest beers the most. I blame my English and Scotch-Irish roots for that one. We also ordered la Corne, which was a horn shaped glass filled with beer. I felt like quite a Viking.
While we were at the bar, we discovered that Brussels is the location or English bachelor parties, better known as Stag Nights. The amount of bachelor parties we saw was insane. The traditions are funny too, the bachelor dressed up in ridiculous girl clothing, like white tule or a hot pink dress with a wig, lipstick and a purse. One particular bachelor party stood in the middle of the street singing the French children's song Alouette, Gentille Alouette in English to the amusement of onlookers. One of the members of their party ended up at our table asking us questions about the U.S. for half an hour before his friends finally dragged him away.
We finished off the night in true Belgian fashion: with waffles. They are truly as good as everyone says, and even better after a night walking around Brussels. The city is so full of life at night, music on the streets and people spilling out of bars speaking dozens of different languages. We heard French, German, English, Spanish, and what I can only assume is Flemish amount other langages. It was so cool! Finally we returned to the hotel to shower before falling into bed, exhausted from our day of travel.
We woke up late on Saturday which ended up working in our advantage, as we only had to pay for lunch since we'd slept through breakfast,. And what did we eat? Waffles of course! These were from the Waffle Factory, which one passerby angrily accused of not being true Belgian waffles, but I didn't care. They were amazing. After brunch we grabbed Starbucks from the location in the Grand Palace and witnessed the celebration of a newly married couple as they released doves from the balcony of one of the buildings in the Grade Palace. We also were witness to a large parade going throughout the city. We saw the Manneken Pis statue, which was dressed in a little costume to help the promotion of some sort of Belgian milk that was going on right in front of the statue.
After some more wandering, we gond our way to the Cathédrale Saints-Michel-et-Gudule de Bruxelles, which absolutely took my breath away. One of my favorite things about Europe so far are how absolutely amazing the cathedrals and churches are. Despite not being able to go into Notre Dame, I've loved being able to see so many cathedrals and feel the power and the sacredness of them all. Sitting somewhere so quiet and so holy in the middle of a bustling city is an incredible sensation.
After our visit to the cathedral, we had to do some shopping of course, and I experienced Primark for the first time. It's amazing how cheap everything is there! I bought a pair of sunglasses for 4 euros, a coin purse for 4 euros, and a pair fo chunky white sneakers for 14 euros. We also stopped by a chocolate shop and bought our first Belgian chocolate. I got raspberry, peach, grapefruit, and rum-filled pieces which were to die for.
After this excursion, we all returned to our hotel to take a break and rest before going out for dinner and drinks at night, taking an elevator up to the palace of justice to look out over the city.
We ended up eating dinner at a little Italian place, where we became best friends with our waiter, a student from Portugal. We ended up asking him for nightclub recommendations, and he told us Big Game was the place to go, to which we responded that he had better meet us there. (Which, he did indeed end up doing). Unfortunately, I think the pasta I ate had a cream based sauce, which hurt my stomach a bit, but in all it was a lovely dinner.
After dinner we went to Delirium Cafe, which was recommended to me by a friend because of the length of the beer list. I was not disappointed, ordering the best beer I've had in Europe, the Nocturnum. I also ordered one called Guillotine, just because of the name but wasn't impressed. We continued our night, making friends at the bar and the club we went to, and danced the rest of the night away before finally falling into our beds, exhausted, at the end of the night, trying to get a few hours of sleep before we had to head back to Paris the next day.
I was truly surprised by Brussels. I had gone into this trip with the intention of going fro Brussels to Bruges, Belgium, as it was cheaper to go to Bruges from Brussels that it was to do so from Paris. However, the price of the tickets and travel time compared to the actual time we would have in Bruges made the extra trip impossible. However, I'm so thankful we spent the entire day in Brussels. I'm not sure what I went into the trip thinking about Brussels, but I truly fell in love wit the city. The food and beer is amazing of course, but the people were so welcoming and nice to us.
I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to do trips like this on weekends and to experience more of the world and what it has to offer. As someone who had never traveled before this experience, I'm learning so much about the world and how people are different from one another and how our different cultures shape our lives.