Chocolate, and Mussels, and Fries Oh My!

This past weekend I went with two other friends (Caroline and Cha) to Brussels, Belgium! It was an amazing weekend but also really busy since we were only actually in Brussels for a day and a half! This was the first time any of us had actually been in another country since we had gotten to France so it was really exciting, but it's not really as exciting as it used to be because Belgium has the same currency as France and because of the "Schengen Space," which is the free travel, work, and study space between the different countries of Europe, we didn't even get our passports stamped which was kind of a bummer! In Europe you almost don't even need to travel with a passport anymore, but we always due just in case we need it for something. The start of our journey to Brussels was a bit stressful. We left Dijon at 6pm on a Friday and the train station was packed. At the train station you have to sit around and wait until your track number or letter goes up for where you are supposed to go catch your train. It was about 5:45 and our number still hadn't gone up and we then noticed that there were 2 trains leaving at exactly the same time for Paris and on one of them there was a number for the track but the other that was supposedly our train had no number. Now it could be possible that two trains were leaving for Paris at the same time since trains between Paris and Dijon are very frequent, but I thought it was a little bit strange. So I went to go and try to ask someone but the lines were too long and we only had 10 minutes at this point. We waited around for another 5 minutes and then we decided that we should just go to the other Paris train and see if it was actually the same as ours. So we went to the track, and at this point it was about 5:59 and the train attendants were like "Vas-y, Vas-y" which means go ahead! So we didn't get a chance to ask if it was actually our train and they just messed up the board, but it turned out to be our train and we were lucky enough to catch it after sprinting to our car! About 30 seconds after we boarded the train, the train started moving! Thankfully after that our switch in Paris to our Brussels train was smooth!
So we finally arrived in Brussels at around 10:00pm on Friday night, and we then had to take a tram from the train station to our hostel check-in place. We luckily didn't get lost and found our hostel check-in place before it closed at 11pm!We then got our keys and walked about 10 minutes to where our hostel actually was which was perfectly a half block away from the grand place which is the famous square in Brussels, and you can see a picture of part of it to the right! We unfortunately didn't take any pictures at night but it was so pretty at night since all the buildings were lit up! Our hostel was pretty nice, it was clean and they even gave us complimentary shampoo, body wash and a towel which pretty much never happens! But we were only in the hostel for about 10 minutes before going to explore the city a little bit! That night we got frites (french fries) at the friterie which stay open until 6am every day! They were literally the BEST fries I have ever had in my life, I miss them already, but for my health it's probably good I don't live in Brussels considering their most famous foods are fries, chocolate, and beer and all 3 were amazing! They are also really famous for their mussels, and I had never tried mussels before but I tried one of Cha's at lunch on Saturday and I really liked them! In Europe my taste is much more varied and I will try anything, and even though I don't necessarily like everything I still try it and it turns out I like a lot more things than I thought I would! So Saturday morning we woke up at 9am so we could start sightseeing early. Our first stop was at a restaurant called "Mokafe" which was on our map as one of the best places to get waffles, and you can't go to Belgium without getting Belgian waffles! These waffles definitely lived up to their expectations, they were the best waffles I have ever eaten - I might be saying this about everything because Brussels had the best fries I've ever eaten, the best waffles, and the best chocolate! Basically it's a great city and everyone should go! They also had at this restaurant dessert waffles for later in the day which had ice cream and chocolate on them. One little boy sitting near us was having this for breakfast, but I decided to go with the fresh strawberries and powdered sugar!
After waffles we headed to Mini-Europe which is a park with over 350 monuments from all over the European Union in mini size! It was amazing and it was also right next to the Atomium which is the monument that is at the top of this post. Brussels built the Atomium for the World's Fair in 1958. But back to Mini- Europe, it was so much fun and we took so many pictures, I can only include some in this post because there is not enough room for all of them, but I'll include some of the more famous monuments! So the one just above this is of the Hotel de Ville in Stockholm, Sweden. The best part of this park was that we got a guide book for free with our tickets so we could see what each monument was.We also did a lot of pictures like the one to the right. This one we all took of each of us trying to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa upright! I also have a picture where it looks like I'm touching the top of Big Ben! I liked all of the monuments but I think my favorite one was the small version of Berlin which showed the process of them tearing down the Berlin Wall which you can see further down. After seeing all the monuments we went into this museum which had the history of Europe and also some games to play! There are also other parks around the same area so when you exit there are restaurants of all different European nationalities, there was a Spanish restaurant, a Greek restaurant, a French restaurant etc...We, however did not eat there because it was way overpriced. Instead, we took the metro back into downtown Brussels and had lunch at a restaurant that was much more reasonable.
After lunch we went to this place that had free walking tours. A lot of European cities have free walking tours, and I took one in Edinburgh that was fabulous, but this one in Brussels was not all that great! The tour guide didn't take us to anything famous, he just took us to look at neighborhoods and he would say things like "there's the poor part over there, and then look the rich part is right next to it," and these comments are only so interesting after awhile. Our tour guide was also not a native English speaker and so at one point in our tour he said "We have it tough here in Belgium because we have no government." When he said that, Caroline and Cha and I looked at each other very confused because there is no way Belgium can't have a government. We then tried to figure out what he could have meant, but we really have no idea! I actually looked up the Belgium government when I got home and it's really interesting because like England there is a mix of royalty and commoners in their government but the royalty are mostly figure-heads.
So after not seeing many famous things we decided to do some exploring on our own. We found the famous statue Manneken Pis which is a fountain of a little man peeing. I don't understand why it is quite so famous but it was a cool fountain and pretty funny. The statue is also by all of the chocolate shops so of course we bought some chocolate and of course it was AMAZING! After buying chocolate we went to take pictures of the Grand Place, and then we also found a cathedral and went inside. I don't think it was necessarily a super famous cathedral but one part of it dated back to the 13th century which was pretty incredible.
That was pretty much the end of the sightseeing for that day, and we went and had dinner at a Chinese place! Chinese restaurants in Brussels are like Starbucks in Seattle, there is literally one on every block so we decided we had to try it! It was also a nice change to have food that wasn't French for a change! It was also really good, a lot better than I expected it to be, though I still think the Chinese food is better in the US!
On Sunday morning before catching our train back to Dijon at 1pm, we went to see the European Union Parliament buildings! This was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Brussels because while there are 3 European Union capitals, (Strasbourg; Luxembourg; and Brussels)Brussels is the biggest and holds the majority of the important meetings. Right now a lot of the European representatives are meeting about Libya in Brussels, so it is the place where a lot of the important decisions are made! When we first got there, I was amazed by how huge it was! It was almost impossible to get a good picture because it was so big! The picture just above is only a small part of the Parliament and Commission buildings. I don't know how they had this much land to build on but it was definitely impressive! It was also weird to see a capital building so modern, because when you think of capitals you think of old buildings. But it makes sense that the EU capital is so modern looking since it is a very new institution! I wish we could have gone inside but you have to plan very far in advance to be able to go inside and get a tour and luckily when we go to Strasbourg on our second excursion tomorrow we are going to have a tour of the European Parliament there!
That is pretty much the end of the Brussels adventure! We got to the train station and got on our train to Paris, we then had a delay in Paris of over 1 hour and 30 minutes which was very annoying, but we luckily still got home in time for dinner! When I got back to my house I found out we were having dinner with 4 of my host family's neighbors which made the total for dinner 9 people! It was a bit overwhelming because I was exhausted from traveling all weekend, but dinner turned out to be great, and I was also able to see how much progress I have made in French because I could easily understand the conversation! This is a huge change from the beginning when I would be freaked out having dinner with so many people and I could rarely every follow the conversation! But now I don't even really have to think that hard, now I just want my speaking to catch up to my oral comprehension!
Also a random side note of news from Dijon - a lot of people have emailed me and asked me what it is like being in France with the situation in Libya. First of all it makes me realize how much safer I feel in the US because we are so removed from where a lot of conflict in the world takes place since there is a HUGE ocean between us and Libya. And it's not that I feel unsafe here at all it's just more that I feel much closer to the conflict because it's just across the Mediterranean from France and Qaddafi has even said on the news that he wants to go to war with France in the Mediterranean, so it just feels much closer to home than it probably would in the US. Also we can hear the planes flying from the air base in Dijon to Libya which makes it feel even more close to home! But that being said none of us are nervous, it's just very interesting to experience something like this outside of the US and being closer to what is actually going on instead of being more isolated and being able to ignore what is happening.
Tomorrow we are off to Alsace which is the region of France right next to Germany! WE are going to Strasbourg to the European Parliament and also going to see the town where the movie Chocolat, with Johnny Depp, was filmed!
A bientot!