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Published: January 23rd 2006
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Well knowing Luke and I of course a weekend away to a European country is going to include exciting times and of course small problems too. To put it another way, we almost didn't even make it there!!! Now I don't wanna point the finger of blame at anyone in particular (largely because it was my fault!). To start off with, we got up a little too late (ahem...Luke) and were rushing around to get ready in only half an hour before we had to walk to the train station. In the kafuffle and rush, it was only when we were a third of the way to the station that Luke asked "Did you bring your passport?" Of course I didn't, I hadn't even thought of it in all the rush. I ended up having to run all the way to the Guest house to get it and ran all the way back so we could continue our journey to the train station.
When we arrived we realised that we would have to wait 20 minutes for the next train that would arrive at 9:15. We needed to be at the Eurostar station at 10am for our 10:43am train journey to
Brussels. Of course the train wasn't going to go any faster, and in fact went even slower than usual so that we arrived in London at 10:10am. We then had to catch the tube twice to get to Waterloo station. To end a long story we got there too late!! We had missed our check in time.
But wait.....Luckily our puppy-dog eyes and dumb-ass Aussieness allowed to be put on the next train without any extra charge. Phew!!!!
So after 1 and a half hours waiting time we were on our way to our first visit to a European country (not including UK of course).
The train ride wasn't all that interesting as we were under the tunnel most the time and then all we could see was the country side. I slept most of the way. When we did arrive we thought it was going to be a short 5 minute walk to our hotel, like we were told it would be, however we had no sense of direction what so ever, and when asking for directions from the info lady at the train station, she wasn't much help at all!
We ended up walking around for about half
an hour, if not more. I was busting for the loo and getting angry at Luke for taking us in all the wrong directions and not asking anyone for assistance, and he was angry at me for getting angry at him! Eventually I got him to ask for help and we finally stumbled on our hotel!!
It wasn't in the best area of Brussels and we were almost worried that our weekend wasn't going to be as good as we expected it to be. It was dead and we hadn't seen a pub anywhere, and everything seemed to be shut. We decided to take a walk to see if we could find the Grand Place which we read was meant to be a happening place.
As we were walking we discovered that we were situated in some sort of Arab district. We continued walking and eventually the streets filled with more and more people and more and more pubs!
Then we found the main city centre of Brussels and it was great. Many, many shops and a lot of people. The smells were fantastic! Waffles, pastries....we were hungry! We stumbled on an area where there was a block of restaurants
with people standing out the front (like in Lygon St Melbourne) trying to get you to go into there place to eat. We soon discovered that the going deal was a 3 course dinner and a complimentary drink on arrival for 12 euros. We decided to go to one of the first ones we went past.
The meal was pretty small in portion (considering everyone told us that meals in Belgium were generally French Cuisine with German portions!!) but not short on flavour. Yum! I had some sort of cheesy croquette thing for starters, grilled chicken with a yummy sauce for main. Luke got garlic prawns for starters, and steak for main. With the main meals they also bring out a large bowl of chips and for dessert we both got a piece of some sort of vanilla/chocolate cake.
After dinner Luke decided it was time to try out some Belgium beer! (a guy I work with had written down a list of beers that he had to try!) We found this really cool looking pub called "Drug Opera." We couldn't figure out exactly what that meant, but inside it was great. We sat up at the bar and Luke
ordered a Westmalle Triple and I ordered a hot chocolate. They didn't have bar attendants at this place but more like bar waiters, and they would bring out your drink on a tray and pour it right infront of you. Lukes little tray even came with a small bowl of nuts, and my hot chocolate came with a small chocolate and a waifer biscuit and the pot of hot chocolate was large enough to pour me two large glasses. It was really cool!
We left and decided to wonder around a little more and we came to the Grand Place, which is like a huge square court yard place surrounded by cafes and pubs and fantastic looking buildings. We decided to come back the next day so we could take some good pictures. We began to walk home and accidently came across another Brussels landmark "Mannekin Pis," a small stature/fountain of a little boy Peeing! We decided to continue walking home and went to bed shortly afterwards.
In the morning we were impressed with the hotel breakfast of Chocolate croissants, scrambled eggs, bacon, break, french sticks fruit juices, coffees and teas, etc. We stuffed our faces and head off for
the day. We decided to begin by looking for a building we could see from our hotel window. On our way there we came across a huge market place. After wondering through we continued on and then stumbled on yet another market place!! This one was more of an antique market (you would have loved it mum and dad) and more interesting to look through. Luke even bought some packs of cards.
We kept going along a main road which we knew had some interesting landmarks we could look at. We came across an immaculate looking garden which had a fountain that's ice had frozen over, and statues of important Belgium figures. We then went past a cathedral, a palace and a park.
Brussels is a quite small place so we were able to walk everywhere. We continued walking to the Grand Place where we came across another market, this one more touristy, and took some photos of the building surrounding the Grand Place. Then Luke decided it was time to try out some more beers! I decided it was time to try out some Belgium waffles! And let me tell you, I have never had waffles before, but I
am sure these would be the best in the world!! I got waffles with icecream, cream and chocolate sauce. The sauce was actually melteed belgium chocolate.
We ended up buying some great souveniers. Luke got some Belgium beer and glasses (he was fascinated by the fact that each beer has its own shaped glass), and I got us some Belgium Chocolate which are mainly Prailines (we tried a piece last night and nearly died it was sooooooo good!!!)
Well I don't want to bore you with anymore details. We had a fantastic weekend and it is now a place we can tick off our list (although I am sure we will visit other places in Belgium just so we can stock back up on chocolate and beer!!).
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