Mussels in Brussels

This post is LONG over due, so I'll keep it fairly short. After the weekend in Amsterdam, my friends and I took a late bus to Brussels, Belgium for a couple days. It was interesting going from dutch to french in just a few hours, and the city was much more than we had expected.

Our hostel was pretty small but it was right around the corner from Grand Place, a square with a lot of magnificent buildings surrounding it. The way our room was designed, I ended up sleeping in a loft with a window and my own little light. It was cool!

Sunday we started the day off right - with some Belgian waffles. They were scrumptious and covered in chocolate and icecream! We then decided to wander around the city to find a few big monuments. First, on the way to the Cathedral, we found a cute little street market typical of all European towns. There were a couple stands with bird noise makers and tons of art. The Cathedral was very pretty, and at the time we went mass was about to start so we heard the organ!

Bird Noise Makers

Me, Taylor, and Carly in front of the Cathedral

Afterwards, we got lost looking for the famous Manneken Pis, a little statue of a boy peeing. We wandered around the city for awhile and somehow found the little bitty guy in a corner, surrounded by people. It was St. Patrick's Day, so he was all dressed up in proper attire.

Festive Manneken Pis

Clearly our next stop was to find some amazing Belgian chocolate. Our hostel had told us about some random street that had stores from all the main brands, so we went and sampled our way through the chocolate of Brussels. It's true - Belgian chocolate really is amazing!! There were cheap brands like Godiva and Leonidas, and extremely expensive brands like Neuhaus and Pierre Marcolini. Basically this part of the day was like walking through dream land.

Chocolate shop!

Towards the end of the afternoon it started to rain a little, so we found shelter in Little Delirium, a bar full of Belgian beers, like Delirium. We spent a few hours here getting cultured on Belgian beer before we left when creeped on by some Croatian balding men.

We ended the day with some fries - also largely known to be great in Belgium for their wide selection of sauces. As we walked home the little Manneken Pis guy was naked, stripped from his Irish attire.

Monday morning Taylor and Carly left, and I stuck around to spend the day with my friend Nicole, who is studying in Louvain-la-Neuve, a college town about 45 minutes outside of Brussels. The day was spent wandering around the city and catching up on our study abroad experiences, and ended with some delicious mussels! The mussels in Brussels for some reason are known to be fantastic - and they were! Nomz.

Nicole and I at Manneken Pis

Brussels was a very gastronomic city and very quaint. I kept thinking how weird the culture is; it's this small little country that speaks french with people that could be from anywhere. It was definitely an interesting place to visit! If I ever find myself back in Belgium, it will probably only be for a few hours - just enough time to grab a waffle and some mussels!

Mussels!!