Belgium

I am on the train right now to Metz! I got up at the crack of dawn to catch my 7:00 train (I had no idea how long it was going to take me to check out, walk to the train station and find my platform. Finding my platform was a bit difficult because according to my schedule the train was supposed to be labeled to St. Louis but it was actually labeled to Basel since its final destination is Basel. Very confusing, I am assuming I am on the correct train, hehe. I have been really enjoying my time in Europe so far! Brussels was not as impressive as I had hoped. It probably would have been more spectacular if I wasn’t jet lagged and the weather was better. Don’t get me wrong I did really like it but my travel to “major” cities in Europe has been cities like Paris, London, and Amsterdam all which have several million people and are huge, Brussels was much smaller. That being said, because it was smaller I got to see everything in two days and it was very easy to navigate and you could walk anywhere in the city in less than an hour. I really did like what I saw but don’t feel the need to go back anytime soon. It was also tough walking around by myself all day, it gets a little lonely and I don’t plan on repeating that anytime soon. Now it’s off to Metz!!!

Today was my last full day in Brussels. I decided, since I had seen all that was important to see to visit some places that weren’t in the guide book. The first place I went was the Basilique du Sacre Coeur. I had seen it from the Palais du Justice and it was all by itself on the other side of town. I walked there first thing in the morning, it was much farther than it looked. When I finally found out what it was, I was unlucky enough to discover that it was closed to visitors during service. After this I walked back to the center of town to check a few things out. I walked through the botanical gardens, which were rather plain as the weather still hasn’t warmed up here enough. I walked around town some more and was off in search of some lunch when I saw an arch in the distance, now I don’t know how this thing was not in my guide book. It was magnificent. I am still not exactly sure what it was but it was attached to the museum of royal arts (closed on Sunday) which was a nice structure as well. There was a park around the arch and I laid there for awhile and took a rest since I had been walking around for almost 4 hours straight. After laying there for awhile I headed to a grocery because I was too tired to go out to dinner. I bought a sandwich, some petit ecolier(those biscuit cookies with the chocolate kid on top), some thai sweet chili lays and a big bottle of Evian. I discovered the ease of the metro and took that back to my hotel. I laid there and ate my dinner in my room and now I have to go to bed because I have to get up at 5:30 to catch my train to Metz!

Today was my first full day in Brussels. I woke up a little too early, about 7 and promptly ate breakfast at the hotel and left before 7:30. I decided to walk up to where all the sights that I wanted to see were, it was about 1 km. I used the Palais de Justice as my guide as it was on top of the hill in Brussels and had a distinctive gold roof. On my way I walked through the grand place on the way. One of the original squares in the town, it houses the town hall and other administrative buildings, many of which date back to the 1400’s. At this point the grand place was totally empty because it was only 8AM and nothing opens until 10 on the weekends. I then continued on my way to the Palais de Justice. I walked around it… But you couldn’t go in. After this I marched around the area for awhile until I found the Parc du Bruxelles where I walked around for a little, not as pretty as it would be in the sun but still quite nice. Surrounding the park were several old buildings (note: all buildings in Brussels are old as most date before 1700). The coolest looking of the bunch was the Royal Palace, unfortunately the current king and queen do not reside there but it is quite the place, again it isn’t open to the public until later in the year . After this I walked around the marketplace area where I found a neat little waffle shop and got my first real Belgian waffle!! It was delicious. As it was still raining I went and found the Musee des Beaux Arts (Directly translated: Pretty Art Museum… sounds better in French). It had an interesting mix of paintings. As I know very little about art my description probably does not do it justice. The paintings were very interesting. I have seen dutch paintings and many of the paintings were similar to the dutch masters paintings which are dark and creepy looking but many of the paintings were a mix of dark and light styles. As I said my descriptions do not do the paintings justice but I really enjoyed them. After discovering the Museum I went and grabbed some lunch at a traditional Belgian restaurant. I had some good sausages with “stoemp” which is some sort of mashed potatoes with some sort of squash or sweet potatoes mixed in, very good, especially when mixed with a nice Belgian beer. After lunch it was off on another adventure. I walked and found the city cathedral and the Parliament building of the European Union. Both were very impressive!! After this I wandered around by the Grand Place for awhile and stumbled upon the Belgian GLBT festival and walked around that until I felt too uncomfortable to enjoy the music anymore. On the way back I found the Manneken Pis which is kind of what it sounds like. It is a fountain with a statue of a boy peeing (yes the water comes from his wee-wee/dong/whatever you want to call it). There are many legends of why this fountain is what it is but nobody knows for sure. The cool part is on many days of the year, he gets dressed up in an outfits to take on the day. Today he was in a bright orange rain suit. After seeing the manneken I headed back for a good night’s rest. But before I got to sleep I got trapped into the Eurovision song contest on TV. For those who have never heard of it, you are lucky! It is basically a battle of the pop-stars between all the European countries. It was on every channel in every language on the hotel tv. After each country performs there is a ½ hour to vote for the “best” group. The trick is you can’t vote for your own country. At the end of voting they go through each country and announce how the votes in that country came out, the top 6 or 8 score points (12 for 1st, 10 for 2nd and so on) after this happens for nearly an hour, the group with the highest score wins. The best part is how the countries vote. The voting ends up being in blocks. The top votes in the eastern block countries go to their fellow nations, ie Serbia gives its top points to Russia, Bosnia, etc. This was particulary amusing because there were only a handful of western European countries in the final and they all finished in the bottom ½ because nobody voted for them. This was unfortunate because some of the better groups like Finland and England scored almost no points.

Today I arrived in Europe! It took two flights: Seattle to Copenhagen and Copenhagen to Brussels. Both flights went very smoothly with almost no turbulence. Passport control was easy, it consisted of the customs man asking me why I needed a visa and stamped the passport. Customs was even easier, after grabbing my bags, there were two exits: one for people with an EU passport and one for non-EU passports. As I walked towards the exit I realized that there was no guard or checkpoint, I just walked out. It was very easy! After “customs” I walked downstairs to the train station, pretty easy. I got a “free” ticket (my rail pass covered the train) and only had to wait about 10 minutes until the train came. Taking the train to my station, Gare du Midi, should have been really easy, however I was unaware that the signs at the train stations are ½ French and ½ Dutch (Belgium is bilingual) so I read the Gare du Midi sign as Gare Zuid (Apparently Zuid is Midi in Dutch) and promptly realized my mistake after pulling out of the station and seeing a French sign indicating Gare du Midi. I was able to get off at the next station and along with two German girls who made the exact same mistake as me, managed to get on the next train in the other direction. After getting off the train I found my way to the hotel, only backtracking once. I checked into the hotel problem free. After cleaning up and resting for a bit, I went out in search of dinner. I found a neat little “snack” place about two blocks from my hotel. After that I came back and went to bed!