Ask anything just not about waffles

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So we took about a 3 hour train ride from Amsterdam to Brussels and got to see what the country side looks like. There were a lot of small garden plots that seemed to be all veggie gardens. When we finally got there we get out of the train station and we were in the middle of the city at rush hour with no map and Shelly's limited knowledge of french. We ended up walking around for a bit trying to find someone who Shelly could understand by a little Frenglish. It was a little difficult but finally we found the hotel. We were staying right by the St. Mary's Cathedral which was beautiful!

While we were there we got to try Belgium beer, chocolate and seafood. We were just walking down the street that had most of the restaurants on it trying to figure out what we wanted and we were getting hailed down by every restaurant owner, finally someone mentioned first drink was free and we had a winner! We sat down to a 3 course meal, fresh salmon for appetizer and mussels for dinner topped off with a chocolate mouse for desert!! Amazing!! Then the rest of the time we were there we pretty much just ate bread, cheese and veggies, it was great! we got to try a typical Belgian waffle which was, what we learned, not a breakfast dish but a very sweet pastry-like thing that can be served with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and fruit.

We explored most of the city by foot just traveling up and down the main areas and the surrounding areas as well. We went into the backpackers tourist office and they gave us a really nice map that had tours mapped out on it so we walked a few of those. We ended up in some interesting areas. We noticed in all the souvenir shops that there was a picture of a little baby peeing on all the trinkets so we asked what that was all about and learned that the old legend is, when there was a fire in the city the little boy peed to put it out. Well we thought that since it was on everything it must be this really cool statue or something so we set out to find it. When we finally got there it was a little tiny statue about a foot tall peeing into a little pond, it was kind of a let down but just as we went to turn away we heard a marching band start. We ended up in the middle of a parade that was coming down that road. When they got to the statue they were chanting and saying things in french that we couldn't understand, finally we asked one of the guys what was going on and didn't really get an answer. They just handed us a shot of gin to take with them. This celebration continued for a little bit and the Belgian people were so funny.

Our last day in Brussels, we had to take the train to the airport for our flight to Porto, Portugal. We got there early so we could go through checking our bags and going through security and still be able to grab a bite to eat before we boarded. We asked the ticket guy what train to take to the airport, got our ticket and took a half hour ish ride to the airport. Once we got there we took the escalator up to the 4th floor to departures and wandered around trying to find what gate our flight left from...... we realized.... our flight didn't leave...... EVER!! It wasn't posted on the board anywhere! We searched through our stuff to double check the ticket that it was suppose to leave at 16:35 like we though... ok we were right about that, so where is our flight? We ran over to the gate people and showed them our tickets as we did the train ticket man. She explained that our plane didn't leave from the airport we were at, but one just 2 hours south of where we were. SOOOOO seeing as we had doddled around getting to the station it looked like we had approximately 2.25 hours to get to our destination of 2 hours south so we took off towards the train station window and just as we arrived the train that we needed to catch was leaving 😊 perfect right.... So we ran with our 40ish pound bags on back up the stairs to where the taxis were. We took a cab with a really nice guy driving, told him we needed to rush and by god he did. He ran every red light, told us he could make it, swerved in and out of traffic and then all of the cars in front of us came to a complete hault. We went through 2 traffic accidents, a detour and complete road closure which made us turn around and go there with 1 minute to spare before our gate closed. Sitting in the back of the cab, we were panicing checking our watches and the meter simultaneously every 30 seconds. we threw our cabbie the money (the same price as our plane tickets) and ran inside just as the cops pulled up to talk to our cabbie that they'd watched peel into the airport. We tore our bags off and chucked passports at the people behind the counter. They checked our bags and we ran to security, and of course there was a line about a half hour long, we politely asked in our panicing voices to cut in front and everyone was sooooo nice and let us. We then ran from security to our gate and panting as we arrived we noticed we were just in time for the boarding.... what a wonderful day!! Moral of the story.... ALWAYS GIVE FULL DETAILS ABOUT FLIGHT INFORMATION TO TRAIN TICKET PEOPLE 😉

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Photos

Date Night
Rach with her wine cocktail concoction thing.... it was pretty good! It was called the House Cocktail

Date Night
Shelly with her Leffe Blonde beer. yummmmm

Waffles
The waffles were served as a dessert with so many different types of toppings to chose from.

Waffle Baby
This baby was on everything, and at this waffle hut it was dressed up with a waffle in its hand. We thought it was funny.

The actual baby
This was the actual statue of the baby which was quite the disappointment after all the hype.

The tiny stairway to our room
This stairway fit one person with no backpack on, it was TINY!