WEEK 11: Brussels - City of Chocolate, Waffles, French Fries and Beer

Brussels, you were good to me.

The city known for waffles, chocolate, French fries and beer...and wow did we embrace that. Angie and I had planned Brussels back in January and really had not done any researching. We went into Brussels with a couple suggestions from friends and were pretty much open to seeing and doing anything. We flew in on Thursday night pretty late and after getting to the airport, we were ready to head to the hotel. The last train had already left for the night, so we hopped in a taxi and told our driver our hotel in the City Center. "You know that's not a good area," our taxi driver says. Wait what? "It's where the prostitutes are at night. With the red lights." A red light district? In Brussels? Angie and I looked at each other...very confused and as we approached our hotel, our driver pointed to the street behind it where there were windows with red and blue lights and girls posted up in the windows. How did we miss this when looking at the reviews for our hotel? Dear God. We contemplated switching hotels but knew that we wouldn't spend much time there and it would probably end up being a waste of money. It was a sketchy area though and definitely would not suggest getting a hotel there hahaha.

On Friday, we had plans to meet up with our friend Trevor from high school who is studying in Maastricht, a city in the Netherlands about an hour and a half train ride away. We slept in a little bit and ended up meeting him at Delirium Cafe around 11am. If you haven't heard of Delirium, it's a bar with over 3,000 beers, the most anywhere in the world. We caught up for a little bit until Angie and I decided to get Mango and Banana(!!!) beers which were so good and pretty strong. We had a quick bite to eat at a cafe and then Trevor showed us literally all of Brussels. We had waffles at Le Funambule and it was probably the best thing I've ever tasted....topped with bananas, chocolate and whipped cream...all of my favorite three things combined together on a waffle. We saw the Grand Palace, Manneken Pis, Cinquantenaire, the Royal Palace, the Town Hall and so much more. We definitely would not have been able to see all we did or known where to go without his help so it was so fun to hang out and catch up and hear about his study abroad experience. He left around 4pm to catch a train back and Angie and I walked around some of the shops a little bit before heading to Delirium because we heard that it gets really busy early. We ended up hanging out there for 3 1/2 hours....drinking the famous Tremens beer, meeting Italians in town for a wedding and hanging out before going to dinner at place called Hemgie's that had gourmet burgers and craft beers. After dinner, we went out to a couple bars in the area before calling it a night.

Saturday, we had plans to visit Bruges. Everyone person we told that we were going to Brussels insisted that we go to Bruges for a day. It was about an hour and fifteen minute train ride away, which was really easy. We had no expectations or plans at all so once we arrived, we followed the mass of people walking towards the town. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch because we needed to have french fries and we were STARVING. The restaurant had Wi-fi (Thank God) and we looked up different sites in Bruges that we wanted to see and map our directions while we had internet. We ended up going to the Frietmuseum (french fries) and Choco Story...a museum all about chocolate. We got chocolate to taste at the beginning of the museum, chocolate to take with us, and a hazelnut filled chocolate to try after they showed us a demo of how to fill chocolate. It was awesome. Apparently the type of chocolate that I should like best is Venezuelan chocolate after taking a quick test based on my preferences. We walked around some more, saw a couple churches, went into some shops, and eventually settled on stopping into a chocolate shop to purchase some because....when in Belgium, you need Belgian chocolate to bring back. They had everything from dark chocolate hazelnut to milk chocolate with pistachios and even had these chocolate blocks with spoons stuck inside them and they gave you hot milk for you to then stir the chocolate in for hot chocolate. We left stocked and headed to a bar in the area with live music before heading back to Brussels. We got back and headed straight to the City Center to see the different building with the lights at night and it was beautiful. We had waffles (again) and then went to a local pub to hang out after having a long, exhausting day.

We came back early Sunday morning to sleep, get homework done, do laundry and rest before El Clasico - the soccer match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. People in Spain go crazy over this game. It started at 9pm and we thought getting to a bar at 7pm would be fine.....no, it wasn't. Everywhere was PACKED. We ended up finding a place and having a good time and FCB won! So it was a good night. I'm just exhausted and have a pretty busy week finishing up things before Spring Break next week. I cannot believe it's already Spring Break. It's going wayyyyyyyyy too fast. I don't want to come home.

WEEK 3: I went to Switzerland

So I went to Interlaken, Switzerland this weekend and learned a couple of things.

You can OD from chocolate.

You guys. I ate so much chocolate this weekend. I'm actually kind of burnt out for a while i think. If you are good friends with me, you know that I am notorious for having a sweet tooth (and finishing friends' froyo while they are inside a grocery store). I don't crave pizza at 11pm or chicken nuggets or fries. If I am craving something, it's ice cream or s'mores bars or chocolate. Well Swiss chocolate really outdid itself. We went into random chocolate stores and got samples, had free chocolate on the plane courtesy of Swiss airlines, and bought chocolate bars at the nearby grocery store. Even though my favorite type is dark chocolate, Swiss chocolate is notorious for its milk chocolate and it was really good. I was kind of disappointed that we didn't have chocolate fondue, but you win some and lose some.

"Depends on weather conditions" is a real thing.

I was finally going to skydive. My friend Mary (top right) convinced me into doing it even though it was going to cost me my life because its the Alps and if you run a skydiving company in the Alps, they can charge whatever they want. I had it booked and I finally convinced myself to do it. Well, it got canceled three times because of the weather conditions being too foggy and each time the anticipation made me so anxious. Instead, we decided to the next best thing and went paragliding which was still amazing and the views were unreal. Freezing, yes. But the scenery was something I will never forget.

Switzerland took all my money.

I actually feel robbed from this weekend. How does Switzerland get away with charging whatever they want? I have no clue. Anyway, I was at the ATM a few times and learned that drinks are more expensive than you think. Overall, I convinced myself this was going to be the most expensive trip and decided not to think about it. Key to saving money...split everything and take advantage of happy hour prices when possible. Also, so disappointed in Swiss fondue. We thought it was going to be really good and ended up being so much money and so random.....Hence the picture on the bottom left. So cute Ang!!!!!!!

You CAN become a local within two days.

When in the town of Interlaken, you can only go to the Irish Pub so many times. When skydiving gets canceled...Irish Pub. When happy hour...Irish Pub. When waiting for friends to finish skiing....Irish Pub. When every cafe is closed on Sunday and your hostel made you check out at 10am...Irish Pub. We did have an amazing beer as a suggestion from the bartender called Grimbergen. Also, we became best friends with the owner of the chocolate shop who gave us free truffles samples. 

Hostels really aren't that bad.

Pictured below is the infamous Balmers hostel. Apparently it's ranked one of the "Top 49 Most Famous Hostels in Europe." Whatever that means. It wasn't actually that bad besides for the breakfast which consisted of bread and jelly. Literally that's it. And of course I managed to lose my room key within the first ten minutes of being there. Underneath the hostel, there was the "night club" where everyone went both nights and was actually a great time. They also had Wi-Fi, hot showers, and heating so that was a plus. There was a pizza place and Thai food restaurant next door...so the first hostel experience wasn't anything to complain about.