Belgium - Brussels and Bruges

Ok, I apologize for not getting this post out earlier. I hope I haven't forgotten much as it is now Monday night. But anyways, let it begin.

So Friday afternoon, we (as in I and about 59 other Miami students) got on a bus toward the Belgian Ardennes. We drove to the caves of Han-sur-Lesse, where we were taken on an hour long tour. It was pretty cool - lots of interesting rock formations and a really cool light show in the giant gallery. 

From there, we got off the bus at the Arlon train station, which is in Belgium, but it's right along the border.   Now, that was a cluster. The guy at the counter spoke no English, so I had to step up and bust out some francais. Anyhow, so what we got was this like Go-Pass, which allowed 5 of us to get to Brussels and back round trip for 10 euros each. So, we hopped on a 6:43 train toward Brussels. We didn't exactly fill out the ticket right, but the conductor was real nice. So anyways, we got into Brussels around 9:00, which was ok, except we didn't really know where we were. 

We got off at Bruxelles-Central, which was good, but I couldn't find us on the map. So I asked this guy at the counter, and he was kind of a jerk about it (by American standards) but he gave us a new, more legit map. So we wandered for a little bit around the city, walked through a park, and finally got us to our hotel. Yeah, that's not a typo, we actually stayed in like a budget hotel. So it cost us 27.50 euros for the night, but it was definitely worth it to have our own private room and our own bathroom. Also, we had a sweet balcony with a sweet view of the Rue du Congres. It was like this:

So yeah, then we were starving. So, we just started rolling out into the city. Thankfully, we ran into this lady walking down the street with what appeared to be a burrito with french fries in it. We walked in that direction and came upon the most glorious Snack! shop I've ever seen.  We had a delicious burrito type thing crammed with french fries. The guy who ran the place was also really friendly and nice to us, which was real cool. Then, we wanted to get some "drank", so we stopped at a convenience store and bought some beer to take back to our hotel (of course, I first had a conversation, en francais, with the store owner about which was the best Belgian beer). So we got some Jupiler and some Maes. Finally, I went to sleep, on the top bunk of a bunk bed, in a closet, at around 1:30. Then, we got up really early, and had free breakfast in our hotel. It was nice.

Then we walked around the city for a bit, checked out some monuments. These included such things as a giant cathedral. The inside gave it a cavernous feel, here it is:

And the Belgian Beer Weekend festival was also going on in the city center. There were a ton of English-speaking people walking around, so we got to hear some cool things. We talked to this one lady who was telling us how crazy the beer festival had been the night before and how we needed to come back later (since we were there at 10:30 am). So then, we waltzed on down to the Mannekin Pis, which is a little statue of a peeing child. It was a lot smaller than I expected, but it was cool to see some parade thing going on there. From what I learned later, every week they have a small ceremony to commemorate this little boy's heroic actions. (Interjection: just had to take like a four hour break from typing. I've told the story like four complete times now, so I'm making sure I go slow enough to get everything in there).

Ok, back in it. The next thing we did was get our waffle on. I had just a plain waffle with powdered sugar on it, which was incredible. We walked back to the city center, and then visited a few chocolate shops. I didn't purchase anything (yet) but I did have a nice conversation with one store owner about where all his chocolates came from. His store stocked chocolates from ten different Belgian chocolate makers. We then walked up to park we had been in the night before, just to get some sweet pictures, like this one: 

From there, we decided it was about time to bounce, so we walked over to Bruxelles-Central, which was a lot easier to find the second time, during the day. Then, we hopped aboard an extremely crowded train to Bruges. I ended up sitting next to this really nice man and his wife who live in Oostende, but were on their way home from Rome. I tried to speak a little french to him, but he immediately asked me if I was English, and when I told him I was American, he said I spoke french with an English accent (which is cool I guess?). So then we talked for pretty much the whole hour long train ride, literally about everything. He had only been to New York in America, but we talked about the USA a lot. I ended up explaining to him the Electoral College system, and he was explaining to me the quagmire that is Belgian politics. To give you some background, Belgium is basically split into two large cultural groups: the Walloons in the south and the Flemish in the north. And actually just today there has been huge press over here since the president of Belgium was dismissed, so now there are actually talks about splitting the country up. So yeah, this guy was really chill and had lots of good advice about things to do in Rome  (where I'll be later this semester). All in all, it was a sweet train ride.

We arrived in Bruges, got on a bus into the main city market place, and got our bearings. It wasn't far at all to our hostel, Snuffel Backpacker Hostel. The place was sweet. It had a nice little bar on the first floor, nice rooms, free wifi, and free breakfast. Oh, and it only cost us 15 euros to stay there. So we put our stuff in our locker, and then we headed back toward the main part of the city. Bruges is really easily navigated since there is a giant tower right in the center of town, so wherever you are, you can just look up and walk towards the tower. Here is a sweet picture I took of the statue in the center of town, with the tower in the background:

So then we just kind of wandered (which is really fun and interesting to do). (ok, another interjection, it's now Tuesday night, it's been a long day, but I'll try to get some more of my thoughts down).

I think it was at this point that I had another cool encounter with a stranger. So I was wearing my FC Barcelona jersey (a soccer team), and some random guy on the street walked up and was like, "Yeah, Barcelona!" And he didn't speak very good English, but I understood that he was from the south of Spain, and that he was a Barcelona fan. Then he said he was a philosopher, and asked what I was doing with my life. So I told him I was studying math, and he thought that was pretty sweet. We shook hands, and parted ways. So for dinner, we had some nice food at a cafe near the town center. I had mussels and french fries, a Belgian specialty. It was real nice, especially because I was drinking Jupiler as well. It did cost a lot though, but whatever. We then just hung out in the center of town for a bit, before heading back to our hostel's bar for their 9 o'clock happy hour. As it turns out, all the other Miami students had the same idea, so for an hour, Miami University took over Snuffel's. After that, a group of us decided to go wander the city at night, which was really beautiful. We got back around midnight, and then went right to sleep. 

I woke up at about 7, and took a shower in the hostel. It was no big deal, the showers were just set up like the dorm showers at Miami. So, after getting all freshened up, team victory met downstairs for another free breakfast in our bar. Then, we had to check out, so we loaded up, and headed back into town. We decided to spend the four euros and climb to the top of the tower. It was really hard with all our stuff, but it was worth it, because the views looked like this:

Then, we went to some church to see Michelangelo's Madonna and Child, one of his only works that is outside of Italy. It was cool, and the church it was located in was also really beautiful. We then had some fish and chips for lunch, and decided it was about time to head out.

We got on the train toward Brussels, and this time, it was much less crowded, with just a few crazy, loud french boys drinking beer in our railcar. We didn't talk to them. Anyways, then our groups split, since some of us wanted to chill in Brussels for a bit before going home. So we walked back to the giant park, watched a puppet show, in french (language didn't matter much, since they were performing Little Red Riding Hood). Then we just chilled by the fountain and people-watched. Now that was entertainment.

Cultural note: public displays of affection are much more acceptable in Europe, from what I've seen so far. I mean, people just make out all over - in the park, at the train station, in courtyards in Bruges. It's strange to me, because I think we Americans keep our romantic relationships somewhat hidden, and even go so far as to scorn people who make such displays public.

So then we got back on a train toward Luxembourg city, and had to buy a three euro ticket to get back across the border. We arrived in Lux city around 8:00 pm, but were starving. So after grabbing a bite to eat by the train station, we caught the 9:20 train toward Differdange and I got home around ten. I slept incredibly that night.

My gear all held up well. I brought enough clothes, and didn't get lost (that much). All in all, the weekend was definitely successful, and has made me optimistic about traveling more in the future. Sorry it took so long to post this and that this is such a long entry. As always, you can see all the pictures on my facebook page Jimmy's Facebook Profile Page. Thanks, and I'll write more later!