Brussels

We took the train from Amsterdam to Brussels successfully. Even though that should be a normal occurrence for us it sadly never is. I did what I did best on the trains--slept. I did happen to wake at quite an interesting moment....a lady wearing close to nothing was cleaning her large window (that was strange I thought) and then I gave my eyes a good rub and got out the crusties, and continued to see rows of windows.... OH!!! hahaha. Yes the lady is indeed cleaning her window, as a couple men are walking down the sidewalk. Let's just say that the trains are faster than the men and that was a good thing.

So this is Brussels huh??

Besides the whole ladies in windows thing... Brussels started off on a sad note. Jess was leaving us. After 18 days as traveling as a group of 3... we were left to explore Brussels with just two of us. Jess had to head back to England for her rehearsal for the play or musical? Chess. Plus, she had already been to Paris, and when you are traveling this much.. you don't have "extra" money laying around to go to the same place twice (besides London of course). The sweet thing about Jess leaving was that she got to take Eurostar.. a high-speech train that traveled under the English Channel. Instead of a 10 hour bus/ferry ride, it was only a couple hours. That's pretty sweet. We will miss Jess and it will be weird taking on Brussels with two of us, but we won't be two for long (stay tuned).


If I had to describe my Brussels trip in one word it would be: food. We had been traveling for 27 days straight and Brussels is the 28th day. I have seen the churches, statues, art, etc. etc. etc. We didn't know a whole lot about Brussels going into it, but we had heard of some good food they had. So Sophie and I said that's it.... and we ate....

Ok, Ok... we did pass a few building on the way...

The photo below is of Albertine Square

Albertine Square is where we made our first stop if you know what I mean....

Sophie's first pick of the day is waffles. We had heard from other people that there was an amazing waffle man, but I don't think we ever found the exact truck. I was particular about what I wanted for a waffle so I didn't eat with Sophie (don't worry I had my chance later on).

We continued up a little hill to explore a little more so we got to see some of the city and didn't waste our whole day.

We checked out the Royal Palace 

And this giant pot that I almost bought for my grandma's wonderful backyard (I got jokes).. but really this is just craziness. There were a ton of them! 

This awesome clock that at the top of the hour all those little people did different things. I have looked for the name or a youtube video to show you the clock, but I have failed. If someone can find the information, let me know! 

And of course we took a selfie. It didn't happen if we didn't document it. Plus, there were only two of us and Sophie doesn't like taking pictures alone :( 

Ok, Ok.. down to business....

This is the cute road that we will be finishing our taste tour on.

It had a ton of different cafes, shops, and little dives to run in and get.....

Frites for example! 

I decided to get mine with onions.. I'm not quite sure why I decided to go through with this decision. Yes, I do love onions, but I could have said no to them for once. I mean I didn't need that many off over my frites! Luckily they give you cute little forks (the green one) to eat them with. I believe that is ketchup and mayo. You you live in England for 6 months and not be addicted to mayo??? Nope. 

This is where we got our frites! They looked pretty popular, so we knew that had to be a top contender. 

We finish our frites... YUM. I needed like 8 more of those. But I sucked it up and we ran into... 

CHOCOLATE 

EVERYWHERE THIS IS CHOCOLATE! 

Where do you even begin when you turn around and every other store is a chocolate store??? 

We decided to go with the Classic Belgian Chocolate.. we picked a pretty good store too because they had free samples. So my question is... how many samples is too many before you have to start paying? Well, let's just say I had my fair share, but to be the good person that I am (sometimes) I bought some chocolate to take home for my family. I had my fill for the month anyway.

I mean, how many different kinds of chocolate and different chocolate bars can their be in the world? 

So it is around afternoon time... Sophie had a waffle, we both had frites, and we have both had our share of "free samples" there was something missing.....

Oh YEAH!

A BEER.

So we set off to find the perfect spot to have a brew. We run into this magnificent place called The Town Place (city center basically). It is AMAZING. Is it squared in by buildings that are just stunning to look at and then there are little cafes lining the sides and it was all too much to handle. So we had to sit and have a beer to let it all soak in..

I am showing you some different angles I got of this place. The buildings were just amazing (I know you get the point.. I've said it 10 times)

So here is the little place that we decided to have our drink. We had a sit on the patio and it was fine while the sun was out, but it was starting to get a little chilly. The wind really started picking up...

So the more we drink of our beers the lighter they got.. and bam! 

The wind is blowing things around we are making sure all of our stuff is good, when shatter goes Sophie's glass and bye-bye goes the beer. Don't worry, they gave her another glass :) We can never go unnoticed that's for sure.

We finish our beers and there is only one thing left to do before we head to the train station....

I got my waffle with whipped cream and strawberries. yummmmmmmy!

We walk to the train station (early--go us) and we have to pick up our bags. The train station had a place where we could store them for the day since we weren't staying the night (we would have kept them in our hostel before) which was really handy.

We are heading to PARIS! I can't believe it. We are on the last leg of our eurotrip. Now I mentioned that we will not be traveling as 2 throughout Paris... our wonderful friend Katie (from Canada) will be joining us. Back to 3!! We will meet in Paris at a train station to find the people's house we are staying with. I'll let you know how that goes for us ;) 

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Excuse me. This is the time in my trip that I started burning myself out. I was tired. I wanted to sleep all the time, but obviously we all kept on.  However, I didn’t keep on keeping on with writing out my blog posts. I will now go from memory, so I apologize in advance if they are a little dry.

We arrived in Amsterdam. I was excited because it was a city that we didn’t have a whole list of things we wanted to do. Besides walking around the city (like we did for all cities) the only thing on the list was Ann Frank’s house.

We first checked into our hostel. We had a little trouble navigating it, but eventually found it. There was some construction going on in the street that we had to work around. The hostel seemed a little sketchy at first and I think the men that were running it were a little odd. And the stairs leading up to the main room were so steep that it was an interesting adventure every time especially with the boot and crutches. But we had a place to sleep. We were in a 6-person bedroom with our own bathroom.  That was handy. 

This was how it was everywhere. Down every street. It was nuts!! 

Many different styles of riding/bikes. And people!

We decided to walk around for a little while. I was (we were) amazed at how many bikes/bikes there. I hardly saw any cars!! And when I did see them I was often times bigger than the car. Now how ‘bout that.  I had my "first" Burger King burger here. I used to get them all the time when I was younger, but haven't touched fast food hamburgers in many many years. It was actually pretty good! I think I had two in Amsterdam!! haha. It was in Burger King that I picked up a paper and on the front page was the Boston Bombing. 

The best part of Amsterdam was visiting Ann Frank’s house. It was so touching and just horribly sad. The Holocaust was very real.  Pictures were not allowed to be taken inside of the house.  I would have loved to shared with all of you.  It took us through every room and where the families were hiding at the time. They were so close to making it to the end. They were ratted out. The only person to have survived was Ann’s father.

Ann Frank's front door 

We did some fine cheese tasting here 

Amsterdam was the last stop that Jessica would be joining us. She had already made her trip to Paris and had to get back to Birmingham. From here Sophie and I would stop in Brussels and then head to Paris for 5 days. Our friend Katie would be joining us there. We are getting closer to the end of our trip. I am excited to go to the remaining countries, however, I am still counting down the days until Birmingham.  Like all of our stops Amsterdam was a short one. I would say that we maybe averaged a day and a half in most countries besides Spain, Italy, and France.

I should also mention that we did go to the Red Light District. It was interesting to say the least, but not as bad as I was preparing for. Maybe it was because it was daytime?

On to Brussels.