Brussels, Belgium

Okay, so I had originally planned on taking a 7PM train to Brussels (from Paris), which would get me to the hostel a little before 10. However, the early trains were booked up, and the only thing I could get was a 9:55 train. Not good. The hostel surely wouldn’t allow check-in later than 10 or so, and I was due to arrive well after midnight. Without the phone number to the hostel and no internet, I was once relying on luck that I would be able to get in. Arriving in Brussels, I was again completely confused by the transportation system. They always seem to get me – this time there were trams, trains, day lines, night lines, and a mess of other things to figure out. When I finally found the right tram, I hopped on board and we set off for the northern part of town. From the tram window, the city looked pretty bleak and depressing. Everything was dimly lit and there weren’t many people around. As I got off at my stop, I followed the directions that were given to me by the hostel, which ended up being completely wrong. I spent an hour and a half walking around the neighborhood, backpack on, at nearly 1 in the morning. A man opened a door to let out his dog, and I jumped at the opportunity to get some help. Luckily he spoke English and pointed me in the right direction.

The hostel actually turned out to be a guesthouse, and as I arrived, all the windows were dark and the door locked tight. I was fairly convinced that I would be spending the night on the street, and was trying to figure out the best way to go about it. However, a young guy was sitting outside next door smoking a cigarette, and told me that the guy who runs the guesthouse is really nice, and just to ring the bell if I needed to get in. After a few rings and a bunch of knocks, a light came on and someone came to the door. Ah, success! He was pretty cool and didn’t mind too much that I woke him up. He showed me to my room and I immediately passed out, beat after a long day of traveling.

The guesthouse is actually another really awesome place. It’s a different environment than a typical hostel; it’s more of a bed-and-breakfast. There were no house rules (within reason), we could come and go as we please, and we could use anything in the house that we wanted. Karel (the owner) also had an awesome dog, named Cezar, who would always be laying on the tile floor at the top of the steps when you came in the front door. It was more relaxing and quiet than the places I was used to staying at.

The next morning (June 7) I decided that instead of taking the tram, I would walk to the city center where most of the sights are. I pulled out my compass and just started walking southwest, knowing I would hit it eventually. I saw some cool stuff along the way, including a massive open-air flea market (apparently they’re huge in Brussels), a nice church, and a really cool garden. Brussels is very different from Bruges; whereas Bruges spoke primarily Dutch and English, Brussels was strictly French. And where it was French Fries in Bruges, it was Belgian waffles in Brussels. They adore their waffles here, and put everything you can imagine on top of them. The most common, however, is with caramelized sugar, which I picked up for only a euro. It tasted better than any waffle I’d ever had. Also, in my travels, I found a store that sold 250 different beers, so I picked up a bottle of the Belgian trappist ale that I’d mentioned in my previous posts.

After a few hours of wandering, I eventually stumbled upon my destination: the Grand-Place. It’s another big square, with impressive buildings on each side. While I was in the square, some kind of weird parade came through, with big paper mache dolls. And bringing up the rear were a bunch of people that I have concluded to be pilgrims wearing ponchos.

A few blocks away, I visited the fantastically over-rated statue of the Mannekin-Pis, a small boy who pees water, all day, everyday. There are all kinds of stories about why he’s there, and the town dresses him up in all kinds of different outfits. The most popular ones are kept in the city museum on Grand-Place. But no trip to the Mannekin-Pis would be complete without seeing his female counterpart, the Jeannekin-Pis, who is much less sought-after (and slightly more disturbing) in an alley a block or so away. As I was leaving the Jeannekin-Pis, however, I ran into a familiar place that I had heard of many times before: The Delerium Café. My buddy Ryan went to it last year and said it was amazing, so I really wanted to find it. They’re in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most different types of beer commercially available, with 2,004 beers. That was a few years ago, and they now have more than 2,600. I stopped in for a few of the local brews, and it was a great place. I even saw a University of Maryland dollar while I was there; apparently I wasn't the only one from UMD who made my way to Brussels. I was there at 4pm and people were already singing and rowdy. I resolved that I would come back that night. But for now, I headed back to the house.

When I got back, I started talking with my Canadian room-mate, named Fab, and he said that he’d go back to Delerium with me that night. In the meantime, I did laundry, showered, and booked my hostel for Berlin, where I’ll be headed after Amsterdam.

That night was a ton of fun; Fab and I had some Belgian beers at the house, then walked all the way to Delerium because the tram was taking forever. We got there around 11, and started with a beer and two flaming shots of absinthe. Those were really cool – you dip a sugar cube in the absinthe and the place it on a slotted spoon overtop of the shot glass. Then you light it (the absinthe is 80% alcohol!), let the sugar caramelize briefly, then drop the flaming cube into the shot, igniting the entire thing. You let it burn for a second, then blow it out and take the whole thing down. It’s pretty strong stuff, and has an overwhelming taste of licorice. It was definitely unique though. We ended up doing another round of these later on in the night.

After a few hours at Delerium, some people that we had met invited us to go to an Irish Pub with them that was around the corner. I was excited, but it was nothing like I expected. It was just a small techno dance bar that happened to serve Guinness. It was hot, cramped, and expensive, so Fab and I decided to leave after a half hour or so. On the way home, we found a sandwich shop that served cheap Gyros, so we each got one. It may have been the best sandwich I’d ever had, but unfortunately Fab was suffering from temporary amnesia, and thus, does not remember getting his sandwich. Haha, I’m sure his was pretty good as well. We took a taxi home, as the trams had stopped running, and it was only 10 euro, which wasn’t too bad.

This morning, we woke up and both got ready to check out of the house. As luck would have it, both Fab and I are going to Amsterdam today, and then to Berlin, so we’ll be spending the next 8 or 9 days together. We’re in different hostels, but inner Amsterdam is fairly small so we can meet up easily.

So just to recap, I'll be in Amsterdam, then Berlin, and then Vienna, Austria where I'll be meeting up with a good friend of mine from my fraternity. He's been backpacking for a few weeks as well. I'm really looking forward to that.

To see all 78 pictures I took in Brussels, click here.