What a day, flight from Brussels went very smoothly, I took an ambien when I boarded my flight even though mom said I should wait until after they served dinner. I told her I would be fine and needless to say I was passed out before I even knew they were thinking about serving dinner, then I woke up for a moment while everyone was eating and decided to get up and go ask the flight attendant for a meal and almost passed out because the ambien made me soooo dizzy, mom was right yet again! Guess I should believe her, she is quite the seasoned traveler. Got in to Brussels on time and met up with Jenna right in baggage claim and then we walked out and met Natalie right outside of baggage claim so that was super simple and quite the relief considering I was worried I was going to be wandering around like a lost puppy dog looking for the girls in a foreign county where I totally don’t speak the language. We picked up our car and headed out to the hotel. Natalie brought a GPS so we got that set up which was a life saver and we officially named her Rue La Poo, because of course every GPS must have a name so you can yell at it if you are frustrated with it. Once we got settled in we headed out for a cappuccino since Jenna and Natalie had been up early and I was SUPER jet lagged feeling. Once I got some caffeine in these veins of mine we headed out towards the Grand Place which is the main square of the town and where there are always markets going on like flower markets, farmers markets, live music, a ton of cafes etc. We took the Metro over there which is similar to the New York subway and was super easy to figure out. Right next to the Metro Station where we got off was St Michaels Cathedral which was really beautiful and large. On our way to Grand Place we made a couple pit stops. First we saw a place called the galleries which was a building with a bunch of shops and this cool open ceiling. We then made our way to have some lunch on this super cute little street that had bunch of cafes and really cute cobblestone streets. We sat outside and had mussels (moules in French), Frites, and beer! That took two of the few things Belgium is famous for off my list that I wanted to eat, fries and beer. After lunch we made our way to this bar called Delerium which is famous for winning the guiness book of world record in 2004 for having 2004 different kinds of beer to choose from. It was such a cool place and we defiantly killed a couple hours in that bar. We decided to each get different beers each time and share them so we ended up having Duvle, Rodenbach, Cherry, Apple, and Mango Floris, Chimay, Blanche, and Leffe Brown. They were all delicious and the bartender who was very cute I might add thought we were nuts for mixing so many different kinds of beer. After quite a few beers we headed out for grand place. It ended up being such a neat square with beautiful baroque guildhalls, and a bunch of outdoor cafes. From Grand Place we went to a well known tourist attraction called Mannekin Pis which is literally a bronze statue of a boy peeing into a fountain. It was pretty hilarious and random. I also had my first Belgium waffle here with strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate, sooooooooo delicious!!!! You know me and my sweets so this was basically heaven for me. To top of the sugar high we also bought some Belgium chocolate there that we saved for later but that was SOO good!! From there we decided to go to dinner on this little street by the hotel with some wonderful outdoor cafes and we ate at a delicious Italian restaurant and enjoyed some wine in the beautiful weather. We were literally so exhausted by the end of dinner that we were delirious and acting like rutards so we decided to head back to the hotel and relax. While starting our trip I have decided that I am going to learn French along the way haha and so I have been asking Natalie how to say everything haha and im sure she is going to be annoyed with me by the end of the trip. The two things that have been hard for me to get used to and always is in Europe is the lack of public restroom facilities and the lack of water when you are out to eat. You have to buy water and cant use restrooms unless you are eating or drinking at the establishment. Its like they don’t want you to drink water so that you don’t have to pee, quite the little sneakies they are and im convinced that everyone in Europe must be severely dehydrated! It was a fabulous first day and there were defiantly some memorable quotes that we do not want to forget…including Natalie hating a picture of herself and thinking her arm looks fat and saying “is that my arm or a ham hock”, them making fun of the chef that was “solicitating” massages to me (yes jenna said solicitating instead of soliciting in our drunken state of mind), jenna stating that she is proud of her americanness, Jenna prancing around Grand Place saying “Wi Wi Wi, huh huh huh” in a French accent and saying it was from Gaston in the little mermaid when in fact Gaston is from Beauty and the Beast! Haha! Off to sleep I am exhausted and have so many more fun things to do in the next week! Au’revior!
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