"Wait...I think we're going the wrong way...where is North on this map?"

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I must admit that my first impressions of Belgium were not particularly favorable. I blame that on the fact that I had to get up at 3:00 am to get there.

Our plane left at 6:40 (an ungodly enough hour, if you ask me). Fine, but you always want to arrive at least an hour and a half ahead of time, right? All right...so we wanted to get to London Stanstead airport around 5:00-5:15am, if possible. Sounds simple enough, but oh, wait, Stanstead is a good hour and a half bus ride outside of London proper. Meaning we want to catch the...oh, right, 4:00 bus from Victoria station to Stanstead. And what's that? Our hostel was quite a distance from Victoria and the Tube doesn't run that early? Ick. Add all this up, and what do you get? The need to catch a bus at 3:30am. And the need to get up at three to dress and try to cram everything back into my backpack so they'll actually let me on the plane.

But I digress.

We made it to the airport, we made it onto the plane (which was a LOT better than I was expecting, actually...people had led me to believe that RyanAir jets would be held together by duct tape and sheer willpower, but this one was actually a pretty decent plane), and I even managed a quick nap...but then, the flight took less than an hour, so there wasn't much time for that. Factor in the time difference and we arrived in Brussels South Charleroi airport before 10:00am! Got our passports stamped, bought tickets into town (like Stanstead, Charleroi is a good distance out of town), managed to find the correct bus, and *finally* actually got to Brussels around 11:00 Wednesday morning.

It was overcast and pretty darn cold, and we were tired and cranky, so we stopped at a little cafe in the Gare Midi (A misleading name...it is NOT located in the "middle" of town, but at the southern end) where the bus had let us off. I had my first of many delicious croissants (with ham and cheese...YUM), and we regrouped. And by "regroup," I mean we tried to read the map in our hastily-purchased-on-a-whim guidebook. It seemed simple enough except, of course, we had no idea which direction North was. In real life, that is, on the map it was "up."

So we walked about two blocks the wrong way before I stopped and was like, "wait...I think we're going South..." We were actually going southeast, but we got ourselves turned around and headed in a vaguely northern direction, and started walking. Couldn't check in to the hostel until 4:00, so we had a lot of time to kill.

Which works out well when you have no idea where you are.

It actually paid off, though. We walked by some nice little housing/shopping areas, and ran into the Musee des Instruments et Musique and Musee des Beaux Arts and the Palais Royale and the Parc du Bruxelles all completely by accident! The Palais Royale was unfortunately closed to the public (it's only open during the summer months), but it was nice to look at. We did go into the Musee des Instruments, though. It was very impressive-- four floors of old musical instruments, from prehistoric stringed things to a collection of early 20th-century clarinets, all housed in a gorgeous art deco building!

Then we went and had hot chocolate in the Parc for a few minutes to rest our feet. I had been pretty grumpy all day (lack of sleep, tiredness, re-culture-shock, take your pick) but I started perking up after this. Especially since it was about this point we discovered that what our map made to look like about a two-mile hike to the hostel was only about a half a mile! So we meandered our way there, waited about ten minutes for the clock to strike four, and got checked in.

The hostel was NICE. (The 2Go4 Hostel in Brussels, if you're interested) The staff weren't as friendly as most of the ones I've stayed in so far, but it was more than made up for by the cleanliness of the place. And the fact that we'd booked a private room with an actual attached private bathroom with shower didn't hurt, either. It cost us about thirty bucks a night each, but as far as I'm concerned it was WELL worth the money. As was the fact that nobody snored loudly, or came in at two am drunk, or got up to leave at six am, or anything.

A nap was in order. And then we went to Pizza Hut down the street. I know what you're thinking-- why didn't we go to a Belgian restaurant and have Moules-Frites or something? Well, first of all, because I don't like seafood. And second of all, because neither of us felt like adventuring too far afield at that point. And thirdly, because pizza sounded really good. But Pizza Huts in Europe and the UK are way different from ones in the US...for one thing, they don't deliver. The topping choices are slightly different, too, as are the dessert choices (I've never seen anything remotely resembling a "dessert pizza" over here!). But it's still good pizza.

And then we went to see "Shoot 'Em Up." Again, you're wondering why we didn't do something more cultural. Well, frankly, I was tired, didn't feel familiar enough of my surroundings to go out looking for a bar or whatever, and had been wanting to see this movie for ages. As had EM, my flatmate/travelling companion. It was really good, by the way! But afterwards, we called it an early night and went to bed.

The next day we headed out to do all the "touristy" things we could (although really, there's not more than a day and a half or two days' worth of that kind of stuff to do...we pretty much saw it all. Although I'm sure there's loads of "off-the-beaten-tourist-track" stuff to do if you look): We went to the Musee des Bandes Dessines (the comic book museum) which was very impressive, but would have been more enjoyable if I knew the first thing about Belgian comic strips. Then we found ourselves a smallish cafe and ate lunch (food was good-service not so good): I got an actual Croque-Monsieur!!! For those of you who've ever taken a high school French class, you'll know this well as the preferred exemplar of French food. And they're really good. For the rest of you, it's a grilled cheese sandwich with ham. With it I had some darn good coffee...aside: all the coffee I had in Brussels was amazing! I'm pretty sure it's all espresso, made just when you order it, not drip coffee at all. But it's not as strong as espresso. But it's absolutely delicous...so smooth I barely needed to put sugar in it at all!.

Then we headed to the Grande-Place...a big square courtyard surrounded on all sides by beautiful old buildings that were once headquarters for the guilds in Brussels. We eventually found the Chocolate Museum there, which was disappointingly small and not too impressive...but that didn't stop me from buying some chocolate!!! It was fantastic, too. We also saw Mannekin Pis, a statue of a little boy peeing. It was absolutely packed with tourists, and apparently it's the most famous thing to see in Brussels, but I didn't really get what was so special about it. I did enjoy the fresh, hot waffle covered with melted chocolate that I bought from a nearby vendor, though!

After that we wanted to go to the Musee Des Beaux Arts, but we couldn't find it (apparently it's harder to find on purpose than it is by accident) until about half an hour before it closed, so we decided it wasn't worth it. We sat in the Parc des Bruxelles again, instead, eating chocolate and taking in the scenery. Then it was back to the hostel, dinner at a pasta shop a block away (the most delicous canneloni carne EVER!!), and an early bedtime again.

The next day we slept in, checked out, and meandered back to the Gare du Midi to catch the bus to Charleroi. We had plenty of time, but now that we knew exactly how to get there, we walked straight there from the hostel in about 20 minutes. It was only about a half a mile away, following a main street.

We'd only gone about two miles out of our way the fist time. 😊

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