Day 24: Brussels, Belgium

It was an easy two hour drive this morning from Amsterdam to Brussels, Belgium. I've been looking forward to Brussels and France because I took two years of French twenty years ago back in high school, and I finally have a chance to use a little bit of it! It took us a while to figure out how to get to the hotel due to lots of one-way, curvy roads and road construction, but we finally were able to settle in. Our new hotel is again in a great location, very close to the "center" of town, with lots of touristy-type stuff and beautiful old buildings to see.

We wandered randomly trying to find a good place for lunch, and we decided on a very small, humble-looking bar/pub type place with almost no one inside. The proprietor didn't speak much English, and my terrible French didn't seem to be a good idea, so finally she managed to ask if we wanted "mussels" or "steak." We went with steak. In just a few minutes two steaks came out of the kitchen, along with two gigantic piles of French fries. This made us both pretty happy, actually, because "French" fries were really invented here in Belgium. We ate about half of our plates, and then the cook came out and asked us if we wanted MORE fries. Geez, it was like the Mt. Everest of fries in that place.

We then came back to the hotel for a little afternoon nap, then ventured back out to see the city. We walked around for about 30 minutes, got lost, and I managed to ask a guy (in French!) where we were, and how to get to where we wanted to go? He was super nice and helpful, and I understood about 40% of what he said, which got us going in the correct direction. We finally hit the "Grand Place," the main city square with the typical beautiful buildings, churches, and tons of people milling around and taking photos (including us).

We wandered around the square and little pedestrian alleys with shops, enjoying the atmosphere and cool evening air. We then decided to stop in a place for some Belgian beers. I don't actually like beer too much, but they have delicious fruit beers here that I enjoy. I got a great raspberry one.

We then went around the corner and I got "Belgian waffles," which I'm sure aren't too authentic, but hey, it's part of the experience. I chose one with strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. It was good. We then wandered around some more, drank more beer (cherry this time), and finally went back to the hotel.

We didn't do anything "official" in Brussels, and we didn't visit any museums. But I had a great time here! Below are just a few of the photos I took of buildings near the hotel and/or in the Grand Place.