Brussels, Belgium 2/3-2/6

My first trip outside of Italy was a success!!

I went to Brussels, Belgium with some of the USAC kids this weekend. Over all it was a good trip but I don't see myself going back anytime soon.

Friday morning we left at 4:30am and arrived at our hotel in Brussels at 1:30pm. To say the least, it was a long day! Hannah, Jessica, Lauren and I were roommates at the hotel. It wasn't really a hotel. There was one full bed which Hannah and Jessica shared then there was 2 twin beds that I got and Lauren. The blankets on the beds were giraff and zebra print. Pretty sweet if you ask me but a little gross (who knows when they were washed last). Also the bathroom door was an accordion, which broke. The "cleaning ladies" put it back on when they came to make our beds but the minute we tried closing the door, it would pop right off. I guess that is what you get for 70 euro for 3 nights.

Anyways about Friday, we left the hotel around 2:45pm and ventured off to find the main square. On our way there, we got lost down the muslim area of Brussels. One of the girls was starving and couldn't want to eat so we stopped at this one restaurant. In Brussels they don't speak English...I still don't know what they speak. Super culture shock reading a menu and not being able to pick anything out. The guy gave us this "deal" where we got soup, some random type of meat and dessert for 9 euro each. Seriously have no idea what type of meat I ate. Luckily I didn't get sick but I also didn't finish the plate.

It ended up being perfect timing because once we finished lunch, it started to snow! Yay, I love the snow!! (No, I actually hate it). Of course none of us had umbrellas so we were freezing. The snow made it really hard to site see because when I would lift my head to look up, my face would instantly freeze up. On our way to the square, we met up with Krista, Chelsea, Manya and Marcella who had the room right next to us. They were in a bar which had a big fire. Since it was snowing, we just hopped from store to store trying to stay dry and warm. We ended up stopping at this one cute bar which had a fire and got some cheese and salami. Plus a beer! We were there for probably two hours until we decided to go to the Delirium Cafe. (This cafe is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having every type of beer, vodka, tequila and rum). It was super cool!

When we got to the Delirium Cafe, there was a convention for computer nerds. The drinks were 3 euro each if you were apart of the convention, so of course we said we were! Hannah and I went to get 5 drinks for 15 euro but the guy gave us 6 drinks! We were pretty stoked. Mandi and Cameron told me to try the La Rulles beer and take the glass home. Sadly I didn't get a cool La Rulles glass and it wasn't my favorite type of beer. I did get a Delirium glass though, it has red elephants all over it. After 3 drinks, we were all tired and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday morning we jumped on the train towards Brugge which is a city about an hour and 15min away from Brussels. There was a huge beer festival there for the weekend. Tons of people were on the train who were going there. Hannah sat next to guy who was going with his friends, when we got off the train, they took us to the festival which was super nice of them! Once inside, there was two options for getting drinks. You could pay 10 euro, get a glass with 4 beer chips or pay 20 euro and get 2 glasses with 10 chips. Hannah and I did the 20 euro so we each got a glass plus 5 chips. This place was huge!! Plus there was about 60 stands that all had 4-5 beers that you could taste. I am not use to Belgium beer, it's very good but thick! After 3 beers I felt so full. Jessica and Hannah ended up buying my last 2 chips from me. We met a lot of people who spoke english as well which was a nice change! Lauren and I met these two really nice guys who live in Brugge, they already found me on Facebook.

We shopped around, got lunch and tried a bunch of chocolate in Brugge until we got on the train around 8:30pm to head back to Brussels. It was so so so cold when we got home. I couldn't feel my toes or fingers and my head my frozen. The girls were saying they all wanted to go out but the last thing I wanted to do was venture off into the cold. Luckily once we got back to the hotel, everyone started to get tired and no one went out. Which was nice because we slept in and went site seeing on Sunday.

Sunday we woke up and got ready to really see Brussels since it wasn't snowing and the sun was actually out! Felt good to get some Vitamin D on my face. We walked down the main square and got a famous Belgium waffle. It was a heart attack on the plate but it was worth every bite! I took pictures of everything (I'll post them on Facebook). After our waffle, we went to see Manneken Pis which is a little boy peeing statue. It was super little...not what I expected but it was still nice to see. Then we took the metro to see the Atomium. The Atomium is "A seminal totem in the Brussels skyline; neither tower, nor pyramid, a little bit cubic, a little bit cubic, a little bit spherical, half-way between sculpture and architecture, a relic of the past with a determinedly futuristic look, museum and exhibition centre; the Atomium is, at once, an object, a place, a space, a Utopia and the only symbol of its kind in the world, which eludes any kind of classification" according to the little pamphlet I took. The Atomium was as a super cool place. The pictures are unreal!

After the Atomium we headed back to the square for dinner and then went back to the Delirium cafe where we instead of hanging out with all of the beers, we went to the Absinthe room. I took a shot of 70 proof Absinthe. It was green and we got a sugar cube with it. You dip the sugar in the Absinthe, then place it on this little spoon with holes and lit it on fire. The fire melts the sugar into the Absinthe then you put the rest of the sugar in the shot and crush it up. 1, 2, 3 and you take the shot! It wasn't bad at all, my heart was just racing before hand! Just knowing it was 70 proof made me more anxious! After that shot, we headed over to the tequila room (yum, I love tequila) and made friends with the bartender who gave us 9 shots for 20 euro. Krista, Manya, Jessica and I had two shots and Hannah had one. Again, not bad at all. But after those two shots I was feeling good and warm which was a nice change.

We left the bar at 10:30pm knowing we had to wake up at 2:30am to get a taxi to take us to the bus which took us to the airport. I got two hours of sleep which was rough. Our plane boarded at 6:15 and landed in Torino at 7:50pm. It was about 20 minutes early which was great because I had class this morning at 9am. We all ran to a taxi when we got off. Still in shock that I made it to school on time. But i am now exhausted and can't wait to sleep tonight.

This trip gets 7.4/10 rating!