Chocolate, Beer and Waffles

The title of this post says it all! A country that specializes in beer and sweet treats. What's not to love?

Manneken Pis

So upon arriving in Brussels, Belgium, we had a slight problem to face. We had nowhere to stay, for the first time in Europe, I had come to a city without a reservation for a warm and cozy bed. I had trusted some other members of our group, who were more experienced couchsurfers to find us a place to stay... only they hadn't. So we scrambled around town all afternoon searching for free wifi and hostels with available space but to no avail. Finally we got a hit from the SOS couchsurfing page which is reserved for those who find themselves stranded in a strange city with no place to go. A very nice and slightly eccentric man took us in. That evening, he brought us to an old carousel house that had been converted into a venue for music and dancing. He even arranged to get us into the Latin concert that was taking place there for free. After attempting to dance a little bit and finding we were to only ones in the room with two left feet, we parted ways with our host in search of some late night waffles (which were absolutely delicious!) and returned to our host's apartment utterly drained. But going to sleep wasn't the first thing on our host's mind. He is a film director and fancies himself a musician, specializing in percussion. So, we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning learning how to play several types of drums and tambourines despite our drooping eyelids. This man was probably one of the most interesting people I've met since arriving in Europe.

In Bruge

The next day, we set out for Bruge which is a small city an hours train ride from Brussels that looks like it was taken straight out of a story book. We wandered the city, explored the churches and admired the quaint town square with its massive bell tower before catch a train to Gent, another nearby town with beautiful churches, and it's very own castle! After wandering this city until dinner time, we set out back to Brussels and finished the night with more waffles, of course!

Town Hall at Night

The Arch

On our last day before returning to good 'ol Switzerland, we ran all over Brussels to see anything and everything we had missed two days before, when we were busy finding a place to sleep for the night. We saw the famous fountain with a sculpture of a baby peeing the "Manneken Pis" and the Park of Brussels, the arch of Half Centenary, the Federal Parliament, the Royal Palace, the Palace of Justice as well as some churches and museums along the way. We finished of the evening with a view of the Town Hall by night, which was absolutely beautiful in the way that is was lit against the night sky. My only regret about Belgium : not eating enough chocolate!



With love, from Lausanne

Mindy