Weekend in Brussels

Here's a recap of my weekend trip to Brussels, Belgium:

Friday night, Meg and I took the train from Amsterdam to Brussels. The train stopped in Rotterdam also, so Dan and Bryan hopped on there. We made it to our hotel, the Euro Capital, which was next to the south train station in Brussels (Gare du Midi). Not the best area of Brussels, but the hotel was nice (and a decent price) and we were still within walking distance of everything.

We checked in around 9pm and then headed out to find somewhere to eat for dinner. We ended up at a restaurant close by the opera in the center of the city. We lucked out because everyone cleared out about 5 minutes before we got there to go back to the opera, so the place was dead. By the time we finished dinner, the opera was over and we left just as the place filled back up.



After dinner, we walked to the Grand Place and saw that there was a light show going on. Very cool. On weekend nights, they play songs and do a light show against one of the buildings, the Town Hall. Dan got a great video of it that hopefully, I can post here later.



Ater the light show, we decided to find the "24/7 bar"... it's actually named L'Aca. It's a bar just outside of the touristy area and is mostly filled with locals, which makes it less crowded and cheaper. This is the place where Matt and Dan went when they were in Brussels two years ago and tried just about every beer on the menu. Throughout the course of the weekend, we drank quite a few different beers, too. I took a picture of each of them (of course!). Here's Meg and I with our first Mort Subite Kriek (Sudden Death Cherry beer):



Saturday, we walked around and hit some touristy spots. First, we went to the Cantillon Brewery... they make kriek beer (cherry) and gueuze (blend of 1,2,3 year old lambic beers) and some other varieties. We walked through the brewery and got a tasting at the end. The beers seemed a little harsher than what I had been drinking in the bars.



After the brewery tour, we walked back to the Grand Place and had some gluhwein (warm wine)... it was freezing cold outside! We all had a belgian waffle, which were really messy. I got nutella and bananas on mine... no picture of that because I had too much chocolate on my hands to get the camera out.



We saw the Mannekin Pis (the peeing boy). There are many stories as to what the history behind this statue is, but most stories have something to do with this little boy saving the country in a war because he urinated on the other soldiers to distract them or on their bomb to difuse it or something ridiculous like that.



Then we stopped in a chocolate store to buy some goodies...



We ended up at L'Aca again drinking some more beer... big surprise. It was raining and we wanted to be inside somewhere warm. After the first round, Dan went up to order Bryan and himself another beer... the bartender didn't speak English well, so Dan tried out his French. Something got lost in translation with the bartender because Dan came back with a glass of white wine for Bryan and a beer for himself. Bryan was a little disappointed. It was very funny... well, maybe not as funny to Bryan! : )



After that, we just pointed to what we wanted on the menu. While we were sitting in L'Aca, some sort of global warming protest went by. There were thousands of people in this thing... it lasted over 30 minutes.



After a few more Belgian beers, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and took the metro to Place du Luxembourg. There is a bar there called Fat Boys that plays all kinds of sports... NFL, college football, English soccer, etc. We had gone there last year to watch the Michigan v. Ohio State game and the place was packed. Unfortunately, this time it was dead. There weren't any major games going on. We had burgers and fries and more beer.



We went to another bar called The Sphinx and had a few drinks. The place turned into a club, so we left. We found an Irish pub and spent the rest of the night there. Meg and I left around midnight and the other two stayed out.

On Sunday, we were supposed to check out at 11am... about 11:10, Meg and I were sitting in the lobby and the guys were not. About 11:15, we started to think that they may not actually be awake. Good assumption. We went up to knock on the door and Dan answered half asleep. It took him a second to realize what was going on... yep, it was after 11 and yep, it was time to go. They made it down to the lobby super quick and we were out the door. Of course, not before the doorman could hit on Meg a few times. He really liked her... a lot!

Sunday was a little sunnier, so we went to a Christmas market. There was a ferris wheel and an ice skating rink and tons of booths set up with food, gifts, etc.



There was this crazy carousel for kids. The carousel had animals, boats and planes that the kids could ride. There was even a cockroach that a kid could ride in! Instead of the typical boring up and down that carousels go, these things go up and down and sideways and through the top of the carousel. It's very strange. My favorite was the space ship... it took off and went through a hole that was cut out of the roof of the carousel. There was this kid on the ride in the space ship and he did NOT like it at all. He was bawling inside the ship every time he went around... we kept watching and thought it was so funny... so, of course, I took a picture. You can kind of tell in these pictures that he's crying. Poor kid! : )





We took a ride on the ferris wheel, which gave us a great view of the market and the city.





After that we had some more warm wine, this time with amaretto mixed in. So good! We ate another beglian waffle and had some awesome cheesy potatoes that they were cooking in these huge pans.



We went to catch the train back to Amsterdam, but the schedule had changed and it left from a different station than where we were (figures!)... so at the last minute we had to jump on another train to take us to the North train station (along with everyone else going to Amsterdam). Luckily, they held the train for all of us and we managed to get on. We all crashed a little on the train ride home!

For more pics, click here.