Destination #4-Bruges/Brussels, Belgium

Well, it took me a couple of months but I finally took a trip outside of the UK. To be quite honest, before I came over to London, I didn't really know much about Belgium and it was therefore, not really on my list of places to see. Yet, due to a simple "yes" from a friend's invite, it happened to be the first non-UK destination I went to.

Three companions set out from London, Friday eve......

Two friends that I have met over here, Sasha and Nicole, both Aussie's, joined me on this journey. When we arrived in Brussels, unfortunately none of us had really planned out what to do after we got to the airport. As stressful as the task may have seemed, it turned out to be quite easy to get to our hostel. Luckily, we got on the right train to central Brussels and hopped in a cab from there to our hostel. I'll be sure not to make that mistake again though. The hostel we stayed in that night was actually pretty decent. I think it was almost brand new and the staff were quite friendly. My poor friend Nicole, however, got barely any sleep due to some loud snoring in her room. Stay tuned to here how the rest of my sleeps went.

The next morning, before we departed for Bruges, we got some breakfast at a cafe. Not sure if they just pumped a lot of butter into it, but I probably had one of the best cheese omelettes here. This is also where I decided to do my Belgian Dip. You'll need to have seen Austin Powers 2 to understand this.

We then took the train over to Bruges and arrived safely at our hostel. Although this hostel didn't have a "new feeling" like the other one did, it was actually really nice and we had no issues with it, apart from having a snorer in the room for the 2 nights and me getting barely any sleep. After settling in, we ventured over to the city square of Bruges, or rather, 'Markt'. The square is quite beautiful and I really got a feeling of almost being there as if it were the 18th, 19th century. While filled with lots of people, there was also plenty of horse drawn carriages going around that only added to the amazing personality I was observing of Bruges. Next, we wandered over to a museum called Choco-Story. It was basically about the origins of chocolate and it's journey to present day. All we most likely cared about was the fact that at the end of the tour, there was a chocolate making demonstration and we got to try one of these freshly made chocolates. And yes, it was delicious. For dinner, we went to what seemed like a traditional Belgian pub. You should have seen the selection of beers this place had. The book looked like a large photo album. Finding it too hard to make a choice, Sasha and I settled on a beer taster consisting of 4 different types of Belgian beer. And yes, that was delicious as well. Somehow, and this will be prove to be a common theme in this trip, we decided to ignore how full we were from dinner and went to a chocolate store following dinner, bought a bag of chocolates each, and ate nearly half of it in the square. AND YES, those chocolates were amazing too.

After grabbing a few Belgian beers (as you might gather, this trip was mainly eating and drinking), we headed back to the square again as there was a lightning storm, but it was not raining.....yet. All three of us decided to be super cool (note the sarcasm) and try and catch pictures of the sky while lightning flashed. Believe it or not, all three of us were able to grab pictures of the millisecond of lightning that flashed across the sky. Our patience in trying to grab these pictures came back to bite us in the @$$ though. We were standing in the square and literally looking at the top of this building where a light was shining and through the light we could see heavy rain pouring down on this building. How strange though, we weren't getting rained on....nevermind! Took us a second to process what was going on or what was about to happen as we ran for cover.

The following day, after a very filling breakfast, we decided to climb the Belfort tower as it was probably best to try and get some exercise whilst eating all the food. It ended up not being too bad climbing the thing as there were breaks in between and the view at the top was worth the journey as it provided stunning views of the city. This building was also built sometime in the 1400's so that made it all the more interesting.

Next, can you guess? More food. We for some reason thought to go to a fry museum. In the end, it was really all about the end because you can purchase their 'famous' fries. We, of course, did not miss out on this opportunity. Now, the next part of this day I'm going to tell you about...in fact, the rest of this trip is really all about food, so if I'm making you hungry, stop reading. All the while, we did do lots of walking around between these stops, honestly! The city is absolutely stunning with all the old architecture and the canals that flow around. Some of the views were breathtaking and you will see that when I post pictures, although pictures won't do it justice. After walking around, we did a tour of an old brewery. Pretty cool to walk around the deep underground levels they had to make beer and all the intricate steps it took to make the brew. How people came up with idea in the first place to make beer is beyond me. The tour guide was this old lady who I thought was grumpy at first but she turned out to be hilarious. Of course, the end of the tour resulted in being the best part as we got a free glass of beer. After dinner that evening, despite our stomachs telling us they couldn't handle anymore, we decided to seek out some Belgian waffles due to the fact that it would be preposterous if we went home without having a Belgian waffle. Eventually, we found a place that our tour book had suggested and as good as it was, it was too much. Where I just had chocolate and ice cream on top of mine, the girls had ice cream, chocolate, and strawberries. We went back to the hostel that night defeated and ready to burst.

The next day, we headed back to Brussels before catching a flight back to London. It's funny to point out that I think Brussels is more well known than Bruges and our tour book made that clear as it made a huge deal out of Brussels and Bruges was merely a side note. Apart from visiting Brussels city square, which was beautiful as well, and seeing Mannekin Pis, a famous Belgian statue, we really couldn't find anything else to do in Brussels and it was no where near as interesting as Bruges. I would definitely recommend Bruges over Brussels if anyone plans on visiting Belgium. A day in Brussels, however, did not exclude more waffles and beer.

When we were flying back to London, the three of us shared a strange feeling. We weren't flying back home, but we told people we were because I guess London is our new home, for the time being. When really all I was doing was continuing my extended holiday back to where I flew from, it was a comforting feeling we were headed back to London. I'm having a hard time putting this into words really. I guess I want to say that usually at the end of vacations, you hate that you have to go back home. Well for all three of us, going back home was London and we were totally okay with that.

Further to my last post, I will be moving into my new place on Sunday. The following day, I will be showing up to work at a brand new office. I'm super excited and it's going to be great kind of hitting the reset button. I have signed the contract so now I'll actually get paid to go on holidays but the worse part is that I get paid on a monthly basis. I guess it will force me to budget. Next trip is Brighton (again) in a couple of weeks and then Oktoberfest in Germany at the end of September. If anyone wants to catch up with me directly, please do not hesitate to email, facebook, whatsapp, iMessage me, I love hearing from people back home. If you want to skype, I would welcome that as well but it will depend on hour of the day/how busy I am but I would certainly make time for it.

These photo's are courtesy of my iPhone and Sasha. I will hopefully upload all my pictures next week on both facebook and flickr.