Why I Like Brussels Sprouts
Trip Start
Jan 12, 2008
1
14
22
Trip End
Jun 18, 2008
Brussels,
Belgium
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Of course, the first thing I did when I got to Brussels was get a waffle. And then I got several more throughout my weekend trip - I couldn't resist, they were so delicious! They sell them just about everywhere, and even in the most tourist-y places, I couldn't seem to find a bad one. In fact, the whole city smells like waffles, which believe me, is lovely. You can get anything on it, from powdered sugar, to ice cream, to fruit, to chocolate syrup. mmmmmmm! And speaking of chocolate, it's the other food that Belgium does best. The hundreds of chocolate shops were decked out for Easter this weekend, with chocolate eggs and bunnies galore, which was really fun to see. And they don't taste half bad either! Chocolate, waffles, and beer: who wouldn't like this place?
Besides the waffles, Brussels is also known for its seafood (especially mussels. Brussels-Mussels - Ha!) which I got for dinner the first night. Belgian beer is also very celebrated in the city. There are over 300 breweries in the city, and some bars have over 2,000 different types of beer! They have a beer for every season, including all kinds of fruit flavors (raspberry, cherry, peach, etc.) which are great.
Me and Carol at Botanical Gardens
Yes, I tried as many many Belgian beers - so I had a grand time, as you can imagine! :)Although it was pretty cold and rainy, we still got to see a lot of the sites (excluding Mini-Europe, an amusement park where they have 1:25 scale models of all of Europe's great monuments - 10 ft. Leaning Tower? awesome! But it was closed for the winter, to our great disappointment): Including the Cathedral, the European Union Parliament Building (Brussels is the capital of the EU), The Grand Place (what Victor Hugo called "the most beautiful square in the world), the Botanical Gardens, and of course, the Mannekin Pis (the fountain-statue of the little boy peeing!).
Overall, Brussels was a great experience and a very relaxing weekend. I even got to break out some of the old high school French! (French and Flemish are the languages of Belgium) Even after being so submerged in Italian for the past 3 years, French came back surprisingly easy to me, especially after I heard people speaking it on the street/on TV. When I got back to Italy, however, I had a little trouble getting back into Italian-mode; I mixed up oui and si, and scusi and excusez-moi a few times, I'll admit! But it's nice to know I still got it!
Au Revoir de Bruxelles - A tout a l'heure!
