Brussels

Hey Everyone, finally found time to write about my weekend trip, this time to Brussels, Belgium.

For this trip we took the train friday afternoon and got there in the evening. Not much to do then except check in to the hostel and walk around during the night to get a feel for the city.

Brussels is an interesting place; on one hand, it's a ultra modern city with all these new buildings and stuff, and on the otherhand, it's has all these old qualities. A pretty good mix.



On saturday we got up fairly early and first went to the Grand Place. This place is one of the best perserved old european town centers. The buildings here are amazing. When we went they were setting up a scarecrow festival (some weird ones out there) but last month they cover the whole square with flours to make a carpet, it's crazy!









The next landmark we went to see was the Manneken Pis, which is the statue of the little boy peeing. It's pretty famous and can lead to some creative (and bizzare) photos.



While we were walking around we stumbled upon a chocolate demo, we wanted to do those huge factory tours but you needed a group of 20, so this was the closest thing we could work out in a short period of time. They just showed all the steps from the bean to the bar and had some samples and demo of how to make the chocolates, so it was pretty neat.



We also say the Atomium which is a building/structure in the shape of a crystal atom. Unfortunately it was under renovations so we couldn't go inside.



Brussels also has a thing for comics there. The walls of many buildings have paintings of comics on them and they have a museum of European Comics (ie. Tin Tin).








After a long day we just walked around checking out the city, trying to find a good place to eat. Here's another cool building, it's the stock exchange.



For Dinner I got the Mussels from Brussels (mmmMMmmM)...
It was basically a big pot of mussels in a white wine sauce, good stuff. I had some Belgium Waffles but they we're as good as the ones in Luxembourg. The beer was ok, i think i picked a crappy brand since everyone keeps saying belgium beer is the best, I found Oktoberfest beer better.



At night we went to the big church/cathedral thingy again, it was pretty nice inside.







We decided to call it a day after that.



On Sunday we didn't have too much time until we had to catch the train and most things we're closed so we just wandered around. the first place we checked out was the Botanical Gardens. We had come there the night before but there was a rock concert being held there, so couldn't get in. It's was alright, lots of green.




We walked to this big park and found the Parliament and some free museum for a Art Nouveau Architect but they didn't show much. Afterwards we went to a museum about the history of Belgium and some underground castle thing under the parliament.









At about noon we had to catch our train to go home, so we picked up a few Turkish Pizzas and headed towards the trainstation. Continuin our theme of Parliaments, we stumbled across the UN parlament on the way to the train. It was quite nice, but they wouldn't let us inside.





When we went to catch the train we were surprised to find Vance, Richard, Bernard, Tommy and some of their friends on the train. Apparently they were coming home from Amsterdam but it was weird to bump into people like that. For the rest of the trainride home, Vance taught me all about the X-men and their similarities and differences in the Ultimate universe. Weird stuff :)