Weekend in Brussels, Belgium

This weekend we took our first excursion outside of Paris and went to Brussels, Belgium! It was a very last-minute trip, we only bought our bus tickets and made hotel reservations a few days before departure!

Friday, March 16

Mark and McKenzie had gone on ahead and left Thursday, but since I didn't want to miss my Thursday night Japanese class and Allie had her field placement Friday morning, we took the 3:00 Friday bus together and met them in Brussels. The bus ride was fairly uneventful; we had to wait a while at the La Défense bus station though, before we started, and during that time the bus driver talked to us (in French) and it was interesting. He told us stuff we had to do while we were there, like go to Bruges.

We arrived in Brussels Friday night and had to make our way from one station on the tram system down to another station, which was interesting because we got there and everything was in French and Dutch, and Dutch is so strange looking when you're not prepared for it, and that was a little overwhelming. The Brussels tram system is confusing too, there's like a million different lines and the maps look so crazy. Fortunately Allie was thinking and we were able to just ride one line several stops down and get to the right station. Once we got there, we called our hotel and they sent us a shuttle bus to come get us, which was good because it turns out that hotel is in THE SEEDIEST PART OF TOWN. aaahhhhhh, what a TERRIBLE location! The hotel itself was mostly fine, but you just couldn't walk around there after dark, which is kind of a problem if you want to actually... leave. It's called the Hotel Van Belle--never ever EVER stay there, even if it's the cheapest option. Not worth it.

So we called Mark and McKenzie and went to their room--a hilarious ghetto affair in the creaky ATTIC of the hotel, with a shower/bathroom not even attached to the room, but down the hallway. Considering my and Allie's room is way nice with an attached bathroom, I didn't really get this. Mark and McKenzie promptly told us what had happened to them today, and in summary, Brussels is a crazy, crazy place. They also confirmed the seedy location of our hotel. They'd explored the city that day and were full of crazy stories about how weird it is here.

Saturday, March 17

We had breakfast in our hotel in the morning (it was free, a buffet, and fairly good, one of the few good points about that hotel) and then set off for Bruges, a small town a train ride away from Brussels that's supposed to be beautiful. We got our tickets at the train station and then just hopped on! The ride was about 45 minutes and then we were there, it was a great sunny cool day and we immediately found this nice park area with a river and just sat on the banks relaxing there.


Bike rack outside the station. Crazy!


By the river

After that we wandered the town. There's a church there with a sculpture by Michelangelo in it, one of the few outside Italy, so that was cool. We had fries at a restaurant (they are Belgian, you know), walked around checking out souvenir shops, had waffles (mmm) somewhere else, and bought boxes of chocolate at a chocolate shop on our way out. Mmmm, Belgium produces so many good things, I love it!


Friiieesss...




Swans!


Waffles!

Around 5 or so we headed back to Brussels and set out to find a nice Irish pub to settle into (it was, after all, St Patrick's Day). After walking through la Grande Place (one of like, two "things to see" in Brussels, basically this big plaza with a lot of official government buildings you can't go into):


...we found one that wasn't too crowded and got dinner there too along with Hoegaarden, Belgian beer (which is really good!). Allie and I split a hamburger and fries and it was DELICIOUS. The fries just melted in my mouth. So gooood...

We stayed there a bit longer but were disconcerted to notice that by 8:30 the place had more or less emptied out. What in the world!! It's St Patrick's Day, and the Irish pubs are cleared out by 8:30??? We could not figure it out at all! Just another reason why Brussels is a weird, weird place...

Sunday, March 18

Our last day in Brussels, and Allie and I still hadn't seen much of the city itself, so we set out to find some places (after breakfast and checking out--the hotel let us keep our bags in a side room). Unfortunately it was raining steadily and we only had two umbrellas for the 4 of us. Kind of miserable. The places we wanted to go to (a record store and a thrift shop) were all closed too, being Sunday. We did go see the statue of the peeing kid, the OTHER "thing to do in Brussels." We took refuge in this cafe which turned out actually to be really cool, with these awesome decorations and tile mosaics in the basement bathroom area. The seats were cushions on benches, it was great. After that it had mostly stopped raining and we went back to get our bags and then walk to the station. We had to walk through this flea market by the station, it was crazy. Then we had to figure out the trams again, but we did it, and got to the Eurolines bus area with like an hour or so to spare. Then bus ride home to Paris.

The most important thing this trip did was make me realize just how good I have it in Paris, and made me appreciate Paris a 100 times more. Before that I had been yearning to get away, thinking I was so sick of Paris, but after going to Brussels which is seriously such a horrible depressing place (though we made the best of it and had fun), I woke up to how awesome Paris truly is. I will never doubt you again, Paris!
(However, upon returning to Paris, I DID realize that there was one museum in Brussels I really wanted to go to, because it has a painting that a poem I like was written about, and I completely didn't know it was there and didn't go!!!)