So for our first day in Brussels, since we couldn't really visit any museums, we wandered about, had greasy Greek food for lunch, browsed a comic book store (Belgians are crazy about comics, who knew?), gazed at the Manneken Pis (the little pissing boy statue), and had a delicious three course dinner during which I finally had Mussels in Brussels!
Some details that made this day especially great:The Chocolate Crawl: Rick Steves recommended we go on a chocolate crawl in the main town center square in Brussels. Stop one was Godiva, where I shared a delicious chocolate covered strawberry and banana stick with Lu.
Stop two was Neuhaus, where I discovered speculoos for the first time. It is a type of cookie/biscuit that sort of resembles graham cracker but tastes infinitely better, and even more delicious when combined with chocolate. At Neuhaus they embedded the speculoos into a little chocolate, which was the most delicious piece of dessert I have ever tasted. Looks plain, but tastes insanely good.
Third and fourth stops were Galler and Leonidas where there was more delicious chocolate tasting.Visiting the EU: As per usual, we were a pretty loud and obnoxious group when we were getting ready to listen to the tour guide's presentation at the EU. As we were getting off the elevator, we were all giggling about something or other and the lady directing us to our meeting spot shushed us and told us to calm down. I felt like I was in kindergarten...but then again that feeling was deserved because we were acting like we were five. Oops again.
Delirium: There is a bar in Brussels that is probably the coolest drinking establishment that I've been to. There are 2004 different varieties of beer here, all with their own unique glass to enhance their specific flavor and accompanying drinking experience. Here I discovered Floris, the sweetest, yummiest beer I've ever tasted. The first night I had chocolate flavored Floris, and during our last night I had honey flavored Floris, which was my favorite.
Belgians, like many Europeans, take a lot of pride in their beer. Each beer goes through an intricate process half resembling science and half resembling art to create a truly unique product. I definitely appreciate beer and the work and love that goes into creating it more since visiting Europe, but especially Belgium.On our second day, we took a day trip to Bruges. Our first order of business was, as is always, food. We stopped by a place recommended by Rick Steves, Laurent, to eat the best waffles ever! I had a waffle with powdered sugar and chantilly.
After a canal tour, and visiting an old church (where we ran into a troupe of kung fu performers), we went on a tour of the only brewery left standing in Bruges, the Half Moon. We had the most darling tour guide who took us through the entire process of creating beer, and some of the history of brewing in Bruges. It's here that we learned about the different glasses and how they are designed to create different effects on the beer and make each tasting session special. Our favorite part, of course was the tasting portion. Here's a picture of their mini beer museum.
On our last day, we visited the awesome Comic Book Museum, the Belgium history museum and a strange place called Parking 58, which was on our tourist map of notable places to visit. We got to this destination and found that indeed, it was literally a parking lot. It looked like the kind of place where a lot of unsavory characters would congregate and make drug deals and shoot people (we, of course, fit right in). However, it did offer a really great 360 degree view of the city.
And that pretty much sums up Belgium. The food was really great, and it was here that I really started to appreciate beer. I was so pleasantly surprised by how much I liked visiting this country because I thought of it more of a brief stop over on our way to Amsterdam. But Belgium was charming, rich in history and most of all, delicious.
that max kid sounds like a savior. and he sounds really, really strong
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