Brussels Oct.9

October 9, 2009
I LOVE Brussels! After arriving late last night after a few minor obstacles we reached our hotel in Belgium! The hostel was so great! Really clean and social. They had a restaurant, bar and ping pong table and there were always lots of young people around socializing. We got an early start and took advantage of the complimentary breakfast they offered of bread, yogurt and granola/cereal. We were ecstatic to see familiar breakfast food! But I must say the very best part of breakfast was the hot chocolate! It came out of a machine, but I swear to you it was better than anything Starbucks could ever make!

We got a map from the hostel and just started walking towards the city center. All of the buildings and churches are all gorgeous! We stumbled across this little outdoor market that had the cutest, most unique jewelry! In the same square we discovered our first of the many chocolate shops in Brussels! Belgium is world famous for its chocolate, so obviously we decided to take full advantage of it! We also discovered that nearly every shop offered samples even Godiva!!! Literally every other store on the streets was a chocolate shop! Many even had the chocolate fountains in the windows! We happened to discover all of this at like 10:00am and were in a chocolate coma by noon. It was insane! We also had to try a Belgium waffle! I mean how many times do you really come to Belgium? The waffle we split was amazing! It was so light and airy, not heavy at all like in the US. They even put fresh bananas and powdered sugar on top=heaven. Everyone is just so nice and more people speak English than in Italy, which is a nice break. The most common language here in French, but it’s been so funny because we kept saying things in Italian! It’s crazy to realize how much the Italian culture has sunk into us!

Brussels is actually the capital of the whole European Union so basically the capital of Europe! As we walked around the city all morning we just kept coming across such beautiful buildings that were all so detailed. We also went and saw this really famous fountain in Brussels that is tiny, but hilarious. It’s on the side of a church and it’s a statue of a naked little cherub peeing out of fountain of water! It’s pretty funny. We all then got a substantial lunch of chicken sandwiches that were phenomenal to balance out the chocolate we had consumed all morning. On our way back to our hostel we also all tried some of the Belgium “frites” or French fries that they are famous for! They were really good and not greasy at all and since I never have fries it was quite a treat! It’s so funny how Europe has such amazing foods, far better than in the states, yet it is Americans who are obese! My food and wine class teacher has been explaining that it’s just because everything here is fresh and seasonal and has no to little preservatives! It’s great that I’m getting to experience so many new flavors and foods. I’ve never been someone who really cared about food, but food is such a huge part of the European culture that it’s rubbed off on me and my palate has expanded so much!

Anyways! We collected our bags from the hostel and are now on a train to Amsterdam! We’ll spend all day tomorrow (Saturday) and most of the day Sunday there before coming back to Brussels then flying home to Florence Monday just in time for midterms to start! Yippee!
Until Sunday ciao or bonjour!!
~K