Ryanair... great prices, shitty airports. Not exactly shitty, but when they list Brussels as a destination, they mean an airport in Charleroi, an hour bus ride away. No matter, I was in Belgium! Hooray for waffles and chocolate! Did anybody invent chocolate waffles yet? Because I think someone should. |
"Bruxelles (Brussels)"
Ouch. That's the nasty oil burn I got while cooking in Killarney.
Hopefully it'll be a scar for life. Good memories.
Arriving at the train station in Brussels. There's something really funny
about this picture that I didn't realize until I got home and sorted through
my photos.
I took a long walk from the train station in the general direction of the
hostel, on the other side of the city. I ended up always doing that when I
arrived in a new city, just to get a feel for its size. It also gave me a chance
to absorb all the little things I'd miss if I hopped on the public transport.
My feet hated me for it, but they don't call the shots.
Brussels is a very multicultural city, which was a huge shock
after Ireland. They have the European Union Headquarters there,
so there's a strong international community here. Belgium also
has
three official languages... French, Dutch, and German. So it's like
the signs were saying, "Welcome to Europe, here are 3 languages
you can't understand, have fun."
I didn't have much planned in Belgium because it was
just the starting point of my travels in mainland Europe.
I really didn't know what to expect either. All I wanted
to do was have some chocolate and waffles so that I can
say I had Belgian chocolates and Belgian waffles...
in Belgium!
Here's me standing in Brussels' main square. This is when the
rain started coming down. Boo for rain.
Hooray for multiculturalism. She looks like she just stepped off the set of
a Jackie Chan movie.
A tall fashionable woman.
Some beer museum. I didn't feel like paying €5 to enter it, so I just
took a quick picture and left. I'm not a big fan of Belgian beers anyway.
Fuckin' rain. The rain jacket was the last thing I grabbed when I packed; glad I did.
My backpack is water resistant, but I figured it best to protect it, so I used my rain
jacket in the most interesting ways.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. I don't know why there'd be a statue
of them here since they're characters from a Spanish novel.
I'm never too far from home anywhere in the world.
When I saw the giant flower bed in the middle of the square,
I thought it was always like that. Turns out to be a temporary
exhibit only up for a few days. Lucky me.
That's Zack from Ohio, I met him and his friend Dennis
when I finally arrived at the hostel soaking wet. After
drying and relaxing a bit, we headed out to look for
food and tour a bit.
Pretty.
Belgian chocolates. We can buy Godiva at home though, so I waited out
for something more unique.
Details... something as simple as a cobblestone street
is why Europe is so fuckin' awesome.
The one thing Zack and Dennis wanted to visit was
this little statue called the Manneken Pis. It's a little
statue of a boy pissing from hundreds of years ago
with a lot of history behind it. When we got there,
we were like, "That's it?"
I think I make a much better Mannekan Pis.
We came upon a waffle shop in the street and decided to have our
Belgian waffles experience. I didn't expect much. They smells delicious
and looked awfully pretty, but that did not prepare me at all for what
my taste buds were about to experience. Oh my fuckin' god. Imagine
the best waffle you ever had, and times it by 10. The warm golden
waffle was coated in a thin crispy layer of caramelized sugar, topped
with fresh whipped cream, and drizzled with a rich chocolate sauce.
Oh my god, I want one now.
We finally found a place to eat. Some fake Greek food. It was the first
full meal I had in 2 days, so even the waffle couldn't spoil my appetite.
Haha... Dennis there is a pretty big guy, so it was funny hearing him
comment on how much I could eat.
It was freezing and miserably wet out, so after walking a bit, we gave
up and took a taxi. Three Americans trying to direct someone who
didn't speak any English was no easy task, especially when we didn't
even know the street our hostel was on. We somehow at least got him
in the right direction, when I pulled something incredible out of the
back of my head... I remembered how to say hostel in French from
my Montreal trip, "auberge". That was enough for him... and a few
minutes later, warmth and dryness.
It looked and felt like college being in a room with 2 american guys.
Zack and Dennis were really funny though, always bickering like a couple.
The thing I mentioned earlier that was funny to me... look at that picture...
Yeah, they'd also just come from Dublin.
Some Belgian beer. Too sweet, too nasty.
Some more fake Greek food. Actually, I'm not quite sure what it was.
Could've been Turkish or Lebanese. They all fit under the Mediterranean
fast food category. Anyway, we were hungry, it was cheap and good.
Backpacker Rule #7: Kebab [gyro,souvlaki] are a hungry backpacker's
best friend.
Self portrait
Not only did Zack and Dennis fly in from Dublin like me, their next
destination was also Amsterdam. So we all headed to the train station.
This was my first time using the metro (subway, underground) in Europe and
what surprised me was that there were no turnstiles or people checking tickets.
The system is entirely trust based. I could've easily gotten on for free, so it
annoyed me that I just spent over $2 for the fare.
Here it is... the first horror story (with a happy ending). When I arrived at the train station, I was all excited about activating and using my eurail pass for the first time. This little piece of paper was going to be my ticket to all the splendors of Europe. When I got up to the ticket agent, I whipped out my eurail pass and passport... and waited. The mature gentleman behind the counter, speaking with a German accent asked, "where is the envelope?". "What envelope", I wondered out loud. "Your pass came stapled inside a blue and yellow envelope. Where is it?", he said sharply. I looked puzzled and started looking through my pack to find it, but in reality, I knew exactly where it was, at home. In all my careful planning to minimize the amount of stuff I carried around, I pulled my eurail pass out of the envelope so it would fit comfortably in my money belt. What harm would it do? It's just an envelope... right? "Your pass is NOT VALID!", the travel clerk said. Try to imagine the German accent accentuating the words NOT VALID. "What?", I asked puzzlingly. "Without the envelope, the pass is NO GOOD! Look here on your ticket", he directed my attention toward something written on the bottom of my ticket. "It is printed clearly on the ticket, 'these coupons are only valid with EURAIL cover and your passport'", he read out loud, as if reading me a guilty verdict in trial. "Isn't there anything you can do?" I pleaded. "I... I have this", pulling out the eurail pass protection plan I bought, something that I thought replaces the ticket if it is lost or stolen. He told me it was no good, and that I'd have to buy individual tickets during my trip, and hope I get reimbursed when I get home. There I stood, dumbfounded, heart thumping, thoughts and scenarios racing through my mind, as he helped the next customers in line. How did I miss that fine print? Did $630 just go down the drain? Can I afford buying individual tickets along the way? Should I go to another counter and hope I get a little more compassion? 5 minutes passed by when the ticket agent left his counter. Dejected, I picked up my bag to leave when he returned a moment later. "You are VERY lucky today", he said as he pulled out a familiar looking blue and yellow piece of paper. It was the envelope. My eyes widened as he took my eurail pass and stapled it inside, validated it with a stamp, and handed it to me. "Next time, read the print, or perhaps you should buy some glasses so you can see better. NEXT!" I tucked the validated eurail pass securely in my money belt and was about to express my thanks, but he was already helping the next customer. Backpacker Rule #8: READ THE FINE PRINT FOR GOD SAKE!!! |
Once my blood pressure dropped down to a healthy level, I said goodbye
to Dennis
and Zack. We were all going to Amsterdam, but I wanted to
stop at
another Belgian city to make the most out of my travel day. The
type of pass I bought gives me 15 travel days in a two month period, so
the more I travel in a single day, the more I get out of it. I headed to the
platform with my eurail pass in hand, Bruges, here I come.
"Brugge (Bruges)"
Fuck. Maybe I should've gone straight to Amsterdam. The sprinkle of rain in Brussels
had turned into a torrential downpour once I arrived in Bruges. I had to make a choice
now, hop back on a train to Amsterdam, or try to enjoy rain-soaked Bruges.
What's a little rain? Besides, it makes the narrow cobblestone streets more romantic.
The strangest performance of "Achy Breaky Heart" I've ever heard.
It was so horrendous I had to applaud them for being able to make
a bad song worse.
There should be a sign inside that says "You've been served!"
I kept the my day bag in front to keep it extra safe. Who cares
if I look like a pregnant Asian tourist.
Ahh... my Belgian chocolate experience. Delicious, but I still like my
good ole' American Hershey's. There's something about the grainy
tartness that burns the back of the throat that I enjoy... no sarcasm here.
Somebody must've dropped a quarter.
Quaint.
There's something about having a Pizza Hut in a quaint European city
that ruins the atmosphere.
A fashionable couple.
A famous bell tower in the city square.
I like cool heraldry flags. I started noticing the European Union flag here. Okay...
I'm going to sound really ignorant, but to my defense, I'm an American...
I didn't know what the EU was. I might have heard of it, but it didn't seem like
anything significant. How wrong I was.
Beautiful
After walking around for a couple hours and trying desperately to find
a bathroom, I had enough of Bruges. As I headed back to the station,
the sun suddenly broke through the clouds. How's that for timing?
But that's not the bad news. While using my camera, it must've gotten
wet (wet in the rain? how'd that happen?). But the circuitry must've
messed up, because the camera kept on zooming in. Imagine having
a finger on the zoom button the moment you turn it on, and not being
able to let go. It couldn't take pictures while it was zooming either. I tried
everything to get it to work, replaced the battery, reset the settings,
smacked it a few times. It didn't work. I cursed to myself, that didn't
work either. For the second time in one day, worry overcame me. I
guess I'll have to buy a new camera when I get to Amsterdam.
But a few hours into my train-ride, a miracle happened... okay, maybe
the circuitry simply dried out, but the camera started working normal again.
It would start to zoom in, but I fought against the button until it stopped.
Looks like I wouldn't need a new camera after all. That's too bad, I was
already planning on which model to get :)