chocolate, fries, and all that jazz

The warm weather is now distant memory, but I am loving the cold and I really hope it snows here. Speaking of the cold, I'm already wearing fuzzy socks at home. I love fuzzy socks.

Two weekends ago, I made a brief escape to Belgium with a friend thanks to a cheap flight ticket. This time, I was able to go to Brugge, where it was surprisingly very sunny, despite the cold temperature.

So, our train on Friday night was gloriously delayed by almost an hour. Not sure what happened, but because of the delay, the train didn't stop in Lille and directly went from Paris to Brussels. I guess we made up for lost time during that detour. Either way, by the time we got to our hotel, it was already past midnight. Waking up the next morning around 6h30 was a joy to catch the train around 8am to Brugge. During the entire hour train ride, we had to listen to a bunch of Spanish people talk while we were trying to get some sleep. They spent about 30 mins debating on the finer points of how to say "Brugge."  Half asleep, we heard, " So is it 'Brrrruge?' Brruha?' 'Bruuje?' For 30 MINUTES.

Brugge was beautiful, almost like Annecy but with a North European flavor. Beautiful and quaint little buildings with SO MUCH CHOCOLATE. I'm all chocolated out.

Beautiful little canals

Center square

Cute house

After visiting the chocolate museum and the diamond museum, we made our way back to the train station and headed back to Brussels to enjoy the rest of the time there. Having been there nearly four years ago, I still remember streets and sights and of course, Tintin. We mostly spent the rest of Saturday wandering about old town and visiting a lot of chocolate stores. THERE WERE SAMPLES OF EVERY CHOCOLATE in most of the stores.

We decided to skip going inside the Centre Belge de la Bande Desinée as I've been there before and my friend was content on going into the bookstore in there.

There's a musical instruments museum in Brussels featuring all different kinds of instruments from all over the world. I'd say that was a favorite of mine. Some instruments were pretty trippy though and makes you wonder how sounds could possibly be made from those.

From street musicians to fries to music in Brussels, I'd say it was a pretty good trip. Looking forward to more adventures to come in the next few weeks. The Fete des Lumières is the first weekend of December! I'm definitely looking forward to this as I've missed it for the past 3 years.

Paris tomorrow! Bon weekend, everyone!

going here, going there in brussels, belgium

The first big trip I organized in October of 2010, 2 months into our study abroad. Apparently we get a week break at the end of October called les vacances Toussaint. And oh boy, what a crazy week it was. The week before vacation, there was a massive strike in France because of the retirement age. Because of the heavy and violent strikes school closed a week early. I actually left that Thursday.


So, Brussels... How can I do you justice in just a blog post? The capital of Belgium, the seat of power of the European Commission. A place to go to for Belgium waffles and fries. I'll spare you all the details of how we got to Brussels, because it was one big mess. Anyways, my travel buddy and I arrived at the Brussels Train station: Midi-Zuid around 11h-ish and spent the time wandering around, sight-seeing and going downtown since our couchsurfing hosts weren't going to be home until later in the afternoon. So, carrying our backpacks and a map taken from the train station, we set out determined to get started. (Sidenote: I really admired the person who helped us get a map at the train station; she spoke probably 6 languages - one day, I will get there). As we walked out the station, some random homeless person stopped us and asked if we needed help and where we were from. To that, I promptly said we're French travelers because he left us alone after that. It was an overcast day but luckily not raining. Also, most people generally tend to function in French, German or Dutch here. 

The streets of Brussels

This is to commemorate the Moroccan immigration

I couldn't resist taking this picture.

Random building art on streets

There are a lot of these random building art on the streets of Brussels. In fact, you can get a sheet of paper following trails of comics on buildings. We followed the trail a bit, but it was taking too long being we only had 2-3 days in Brussels so we made it just to a few of them. 

Notre-Dame Chapelle

Where am I made in???

Belgian Fries.... 

BELGIAN WAFFLES. NOMNOM

Palais de Justice (Palace of Justice)

View from the Palais de Justice

WWII memorial

Jewish museum in Brussels, I believe it was 3 euros for students. 

Hotel de ville

Hotel de ville

Another street art

Our couchsurfing hosts' cat (and according to Christina, the boiled egg thief)

Our couchsurfing hosts were super nice people. Both spoke French, the wife also spoke Dutch. It definitely was nice to get some French practice during traveling. They had 2 floors in their apartment, as the lower part, aka the basement was theirs as well, so that's where we stayed. 

Farmer's market

Brussels metro station

To the European Commission!!

Musée Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire

Musée Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire

One thing about this museum is that it is gigantic. It tooks us over 3 hours to walk through and I think we weren't even done yet. But it's a good thing we went to this museum that day because it was pouring rain. There was a vast collection of artifacts from all over the world.  

Protest against the new Congo government outside the European Commission

Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée (Belgium Comic Arts musuem)

Price was 8 euros, but you can check here. 

Tintin!

Eurolines: the bus company that we took to get to Amsterdam, the second part of our adventure

And that only cost us 12 euros for a 4 hour trip. Great deal.

Well, there you have it, our brussels trip, a crazy trip, but fun nonetheless. Despite the setback early in our trip, the rest of our trip was fantastic!