the good life: Brussels

This weekend was my first weekend trip organized completely by me and my friends. I couldn't be any more pleased (and surprised!) by how well everything worked out!

We had a flight to Brussels leaving from Alicante at 6:55 am on the Thursday. We arranged a cab the night before and they were right on time. Corey and Lizzy slept at my place wednesday night since we had to leave at 5:15... Yikes. Getting the the airport only took about 15 minutes and we were checked in and through security in a matter of 10 minutes. SO easy!

Flying with RyanAir (a popular discount airline in Europe) was quite an experience. Our flight itself was only 60 euro roundtrip, but literally everything else is an added cost. Anything but one carry on item (a small purse counts as one item!) is a 30 euro fee to carry on. As far as boarding the plane, it was literally a mad dash. They called us all up to the front and a mob swarmed the desk. They checked our boarding passed and then people literally started running towards the plane. I wasn't really sure how to handle it. Very bizarre. Also there was no terminal! We went right outside and climbed up stairs to get on the plane. Luckily, we timed our morning perfectly and were one of the first to get on the plane. Instead of sitting 3 to a row, we opted to split up and each take windows.. The first of many GREAT decisions on the trip. The flight attendants dimmed the lights for takeoff and I made my self as comfortable as possible in my 90 degree angle, exceptionally small plane seat.

Shortly after take off, It was revealed how ryanair is able to make their flights so cheap. As soon as we were inn the air, the blinding cabin lights were flashed on. From that point forward, announcements were made literally every 3 minutes. They sold everything from perfume to pillows to smokeless cigarettes. It was ridiculous! The entire flight was like arching 2.5 hours of QVC on a tv where you cant turn down the volume. Luckily I was able to plug in my ipod and tune everything out enough to get some sleep.

We landed in Brussels where we then had to take a shuttle to the center of the city. We flew into the smaller, less central airport because it was 100 euro cheaper. The shuttle was an hour ride but not bad at all. Once we got to Brussels we asked our bus drive to point us in the right direction of our hotel (supposedly a 5 minute walk) We didn't have a map but Corey booked all of our hotels and she had good walking directions. We followed the bus drivers instructions and got post for a good 30 minutes. The upside is that in the process we found an incredible bakery where I had the best chocolate eclair of my life... Yum! We finally got ourselves on track and got to our hotel.. Which was actually really easy to get to if you just know what direction to go in!

Corey really scored on the hotel. Brussels is a small city so really everything is close but we had no more than a 10 minute walk anywhere. For 25 euro a night person it was great! The hotel staff was friendly, the rooms were clean and it definitely felt safe. After dropping off our stuff, locking up our valuables and cleaning up we headed out to see the city.

Brussels is such a great city! The Grand Place is a giant square with beautiful buildings. The buildings are plated with gold and very detailed. It was a cloudy day so my pictures did not do it justice... It's something you just have to see for yourself!

Grand Place, Brussels

After scoping out the square we went to another famous landmark in Brussels.. The Mannekin Pis. This is a statue fountain of a naked little boy peeing. On holidays they give him some clothes and dress him up in fun costumes. I expected the statue to be a little bigger but it was literally a 2 ft tall fountain tucked into a corner in between a waffle stand and a chocolate shop. Very interesting.

Giant chocolate replica of the Mannekin Pis

The Mannekin Pis

This picture really shows how little and insignificant this landmark is. On the
corner of some random street. So strange.

A fake Mannekin Pis peeing out beer... real classy Belgium

That brings me to my next highlight.. Waffles! Belgian waffles were incredible. You could can so many different toppings; bananas and nutella, strawberry and chocolate, strawberries and whipped cream, etc. Etc. They make it fresh for you and it was definitely the best waffle i've ever had, piled with whipped cream and strawberries. The only odd thing is they give you this huge waffle with the tiniest fork ever. It was almost impossible to eat. I can only imagine how much more enjoyable the experience would have been with a fork appropriately sized for humans, not mice. But it was great nonetheless! Also, we ran into someone from college park! Corey recognized him and we chatted for a while - he is studying in london for the semester and visiting brussesls for the weekend as well. This is the 2nd time this has happened to be in a random city in Europe.. Such a small world!

So many waffles, so little time

After waffles we set off on a mission to get some good Belgium beer. Lizzy had heard of a bar called Delirium that had the guineas world record for number of different types of beer served. We asked our hotel guy where it was located and he confidently marked it on our map...... WRONG! We wandered around for at least as hour trying to find this place and began wondering if it really existed. We were cold and tired so we decided to stop in another bar to have a drink. We had one VERY strong beer.. 12% alcohol content! Belgian beer is a lot stronger than the us so while its more expensive, you end up spending about the same in the end anyway. After we finished our drinks we went on our search a gain and Finally found the bar.. No where near where our hotel guy said it would be. Its ok though, because delirium was well worth the journey.

Delirium is definitely the coolest bar I've been to in Europe. We grabbed the last we seats at the bar and started talking to the bartender, and awesome English guy named Charlie. Naturally, we all immediately thought of this video:

Charlie recommended some beers for us and let us try a few before we ordered. We ended up with a blueberry beer, some kind of white beer (char lies favorite) and something else I can't remember. They were all good! After our first round around 4 pm, Charlie informed us that tonight they were hosting the world air guitar championships. Soon after, we made the executive decision to not leave the bar for the rest of the night. (2nd great decision of the trip!) we tried so many different kinds of beer. Some of the most interesting included chocolate beer (SO good) and cookie beer (not so good). It was so fun to be able try so many different kinds and an awesome bartender made it so much better. At one point, we asked charlie for the beer with the highest alcohol content. He thoughtfully informed us that that beer was 32% alcohol and 100 euro.. No thanks! We also ran into our frien from maryland again at the bar! At one point we need to go get some dinner so we asked charlie for recommendations. There were alot of restuarants on that street so we figured we would try one of those until Charlie informed us that they were " all complete shit!" he directed us a few blocks to a small street stand called Fritland. We ordered this awesome concoction of a sub with questionable meat patties, french fries and special sauce. It was huge and so disgustingly bad for you that it was AWESOME. Charlie even told us we could bring it back to the bar, saying they dont care, just want everyone to have a good time. Bars in belgium are not allowed to serve hot food, so i guess that makes a big difference. We devoured our delicious heart attack sub and ordered more beers. We stayed on that bar until 10 when we decided to call it a night, it felt more like 3 am. This was awesome decision #3 for the trip. Our train to amsterdam was leaving at 8 am and I was worried how we were going to handle staying out late and functioning the next day. We didn't plan on going back so early but we all felt like we had had enough so it worked out perfectly!