It has been entirely too long since I have posted. What I was hoping would not happen happened- I let too much go by and it became overwhelming to post. But it's time. Let's do this in 3 parts. Part 1: Belgium. Part 2: Exploring Scotland. Part 3: Halloween to Guy Fawkes day. So here we go. Part 1: Belgium.
Stirling has a lot of great things going on, but the best thing they came up with, by far, is the mid semester break. It's genius! Split up the already short semester with a week-long break! It's brilliant! Those who want to go home and visit family, can! Those who want to do homework, can! Those who want to sit on their ass and do nothing, can! Those who want to go to Belgium and tour the highlands of Scotland, can! AND WE DID. It has been truly an amazing break. Full of eating yummy things and climbing awesome hills and spending time with old and new friends.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Thursday- 5 hour flight delay, crazy man
Friday- First waffle, Bruges, Delirium
Saturday- Aunt Val/Pam!, Grand Place, Mannekin Pis, Gallerie de la Reine, Belvue Museum, Mussels for dinner, people watching
Sunday- Comic museum, atomium, De Wand station, Sushi
Picture link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/106047267595190685755/Belgium?feat=directlink
So my travel buddy for the Belgium trip was CPH. If you recall, he is also on the USAC program here. We don't have any classes together, we are just on the same program. We have hung out before, but never one on one, and so deciding to travel with him for 3 days could have been a disaster. But as it turned out, it worked out perfectly. We were totally compatible travel buddies: both wanted to do a lot of eating, easy going, into moseying around, and enjoy a combination of touristy and non-touristy activities. Plus, I liked the comfort of traveling with a dude and he liked that I was a girl who liked eating a lot and drinking beer. So it worked out rather well. It's just a funny thing to be traveling with someone you don't know much about going into it, and on top of that, spending a weekend with someone of the opposite sex without it being in a dating setting.
First of all, it is important to say my expectations for brussels pretty much included consuming the following: WAFFLES, POMME FRITES, MUSSELS, CHOCOLATE, BELGIAN BEER. so look out for those along the way.
So anyway, we made it to Edinburgh for our flight to Chaleroi (the airport outside of brussels that ryanair takes you to). But because we were flying on Ryanair, our flight was delayed. You want to guess how much? No, more than 2 hours. Nope, not 4. It was 5! I know, can you believe it?! 5 hour delay. Oh right, you can believe it because with Ryanair, you get what you pay for. But because they are just so nice over there at Ryanair, they gave everyone a voucher for a--- no, not a free flight or a night in a hotel-- a snack. 3.50 pounds to pick up a snack.
Though I do love snacks, they didn't really think this one through. At midnight there is only 1 place open to get food, and its the pub. And when an entire flight of people want snacks from a pub, you get things like old croissants and weird cookies. But we claimed our prize, and sat down for a beer and some nachos (we never actually had dinner). Soon enough, this man (whose name is still a mystery) sat down with us. He was such a mystery. it was unclear as to whether he was drunk or an ex-drug addict or just crazy, but he was rambling a lot and making jokes. The whole experience was mostly a blur of me jokingly being mean to him without him realizing to cut the awkwardness. He had us watching the board to let him know when his train was boarding, though he didn't get up until the gate was closed. But we assume he made it because he probably would have come back if he had missed it. Here is a picture of him hugging CPH goodbye. weird dude.
The flight itself was pretty normal, (mom, I still sing the bumpity bumpity hold on tight song) but once we got into the airport, it was too late to take any public transportation into brussels (about an hour away). Luckily, we shared a cab with 6 other people and split the fair. One of the people was a nice belgian guy who spoke french and english and was able to help us out with directions and get another cab for us to the hostel. Thank goodness he was coordinating because neither of us spoke any french (I can count to ten and say a few phrases I learned from that flight of the conchords song, but that's pretty much it) and we were tired and disoriented.
The hostel was in a good location and very hostely inside (cute communal area etc) and we pretty much just made as little noise as possible and slid into bed. 10am the next morning we were off for a day trip to Bruges. We walked to the Nord train station, which was a perfect distance from the hostel, and had just enough time to get our FIRST BELGIUM WAFFLES and get on the train.
SO DELICIOUS. Figuring out the bus system was surprisingly hard once we got off the train, but travel tip number 1: don't pretend you are smart enough to not ask the information booth. But we made it to the town square. It was a beaauutttifull day with toy story clouds and jaunty walkers abound. Our first stop was the typical european tourst trap tower (say that ten times fast) with a million steps and a beautiful view of the city.
We climbed 336 steps to the top of the Belfry (belfort) Tower in the main square.
The view was great and we felt accomplished at climbing stairs and checking something off our must see list.
It also sported these awesome iron balcony gates that we saw on some other buildings too.
At the base of the tower was this awesome guy playing what looked like a didgeridoo and a flying saucer, which ended up being I think my favorite street performance here.
We spent the next couple of hours walking around, enjoying the beautiful day, taking pictures, and looking for the perfect place to eat.
We stopped by the canal, which we originally wanted to take a boat tour of but enjoyed just sitting for free instead. This picture, I am actually semi convinced, is the same as one of the default photos on my nikon.
We ended up eating in the main square because all other options weren't significantly cheaper enough to justify not eating in the sun in the beautiful square and people watching.
I got french onion soup! The cheese and the bread weren't cooked into, though. The cheese came in a little bowl to be added and i had to order the bread separately but it was delicious.
After a leisurely meal we set out for another checkpoint on the must see list. We both had breweries in mind but no specific location. We walked in the direction we thought they were and were enjoying the wandering for a while. We asked people in random stores if they knew what we were looking for, followed some contradicting directions, and then finally, ended up in some quiet square with a brewery. I was looking for the place where they brew Brusges Zot beer (on recommendation) and CPH was looking for a brewery under a different name/one that had something to do with a moon, according to someone's directions. As it turns out, they were all the same place. Apparently it has at least 3 names. We got our BELGIAN BEER and enjoyed the fire place.
Because it was it was getting dark and we had an hour long train ride ahead of us back to Brussels we made our way back to the train station. It got super dark and super cold while waiting for that stupid bus. But we finally made it back to the hostel to regroup and head out. We got a late dinner based on the recommendation of the desk at the hostel. We had 3 criteria: cheap, on the way to Delirium Cafe, and dinner sized portions (none of this bistro shit). The guy at the desk recommended this place called Suki for a heaping pile of noodles for under 10 euro. SUCCESS. we found it really easily, and dove into steaming piles of noodles. Delicious pad thai. Reasonably priced.
and I'm pretty sure I heard a mashup of the ghostbusters song and an eminem song. We were full of noodles and ready for action, and so we head out for Delirium.
Here's an awesome building in Brussels at night. right near the stock exchange.
Delirium holds a guinness world record for most beers available for sale at 2,004. Pretty impressive. Delirium is also home of the adorblae pink elephant logo, and Delirium Tremens, voted best beer in the world in 1998.
The place was 3 floors, all pretty packed and dimly lit with really cool decor of different types of beer advertisements.
GREAT song line up. First song was no diggity, followed by fugees, biggie, that song come my lady/come come my lady/your my butterfly/sugar/baby, jump around, california knows how to party, and shimmy shimmy ya. We eventually found a seat at a table made of a large barrel and made friends with the people around us. We tried as many as we could without breakin the bank and enjoyed the atmosphere and new friends.
We were both really excited to get there all day (CPH loves beer and I know lanni loved delirium so I could only assume I would feel the same way) and so to be there finally and for it to be freaking awesome was a great treat.
After a quick stop at the McDonalds for a snack and to pee (I'm not proud of going to McDonalds, but it was just so convenient) we made the trek back to the hostel. The guy in the bed under mine came in after us and we chatted briefly. When I said I was from Pennsylvania a voice came out from the darkness and said, "where in pennsylvania?" which was followed by a short conversation to someone I couldn't see about how we were both from phillyburbs. Unfortunately she was gone when we woke up so I may never know the mystery neighbor.
We jumped out of bed and went through the obnoxious check out process (bring down your sheets, but leave your pillow, bring the towel, leave the duvet, show your receipt, walk up a million stairs blah blah) and hustled to rue de midi because AUNT VAL AND PAM ARRIVED!
I left this until now to reveal because of the excitement factor. How great is it that Aunt Val and Pam (valpam from here on out) were vacationing in Belgium while I was studying in Scotland and that we could meet up and spend a wonderful 36 hours together?! SO great is the answer. We got slightly lost on the way to the hotel (meeting time was 930am- meeting times are funny when you can't communicate by cell phone) but found them and had a splendid reunion (well, i guess just a union for cph)
Our first activity was eating obviously- we stopped at a cafe and ate some sandwiches.
Aunt Val and I both had a V8 in the proper chavenson way. After some catching up and brainstorming, we head out to the Grand Place (main square, aka Grote Markt in Dutch- everything is labeled in french and dutch).
Little did we know, but we would be visiting that lovely square at least 6 more times over the course of the weekend. Attraction #2 was the Manneken Pis. For those of you who have not heard of this lovely little guy, it is a toiny statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain. yes. you read correctly. He is supposed to be an emblem of their rebellious spirit.
There is also some folk tale about a little boy who went missing and whose father said that if anyone saw the lost child to create a statue of whatever the boy was doing in the location where he was sighted. I think the former is probably more accurate, but the latter is definitely more entertaining. There is also a fun tradition that follows the tiny urinater (urinator?). On certain occasions or after a certain amount of time, the city will change the little dude's outfit. They save all of his past outfits in the town hall museum. When we were there, he was dressed in the robes of an academic institution of Brussels (the name is escaping me right now. i know it had the word corporation in it. and the region they were from. sorry i dropped the ball on that one) on account of their 45 year anniversary.
There were toasts and chants and robes and songs! and even a beer tap! we also saw this gem:
Our next stop was the Jason's elusive Toone Theatre. Let me explain. When little bro bro jayman was in Europe playing tennis over the summer, he had this awesome meal/experience at this restaurant in Brussels. He has explained the location to me on several occasions. It went something like this: "We were just walking around the main square, you'll know what i mean when you're there, and then we just decided to walk around, through this flea market, and we took a straightish left. Then we went through this shopping area that has a glass ceiling and expensive shops. its sort of outside and inside at the same time. at the other end, we stumbled on this alley on the left filled with restaurants, and between the 3-10 restaurants, somehwere on this street was this smaller alley. we went down that alley, and came to an opening. there was people eating food and drinking beer. silently. no talking. just sitting and eating and experiencing it." More recently, closer to the date of my departure to Brussels, I had Jason give me a few more clues on how to get there. He added something to the beginning and something to the end. He said in the main square there is a statue of a guy with a dog. Go in the direction of the gaze of the statue. He also gave me a picture of him inside the alley. So we went for the challenge to find this secret oasis. it was AWESOME. everything checked out. We found the statue:
Turns out it is a pretty famous statue that everyone rubs for good luck. The statue is of a past mayor of brussels who refused to give up the keys to the city in order to defend it. He died defending his city, and so people rub the statue to receive good fortune from his misfortune. kind of depressing. but we rubbed it and follow the gaze. Took the straight left through the flea market, where saw these awesome guys:
and walked through the window-ceilinged shopping aread (which was actually the famous Gallerie de la Reine:
and then took a left at the end of the gallerie onto rue de borchers, which was the alley with all the restaurants.
just like he said.
And guess what. between 3 and 10 restaurants on the left was a small alley. with a sign that read TOONE THEATRE. we made it!
unfortunately it was closed.
But it was an awesome scavenger hunt and it felt awesome to find it under such awesome directions without any real street names.
After our journey we went BACK to the grand place (for just about the 4th time of the day) for some hot chocolate in a warm restaurant.
The much needed refuel got us going to the Belvue Hotel, which houses a museum about Brussel's history. I really enjoyed it- there was a mix of multimedia material, as well as unconventional displays of photographs and general information.
They had a booklet with descriptions of everything in english, which i enjoyed, because I like to know what I am looking at to totally grasp it. At this point, Valpam had been up for a few too many hours after their red eye flight, and the giggles started to take over. which was awesome. There was a audio visual station with 2 headsets and one video. One of the headsets was broken so aunt val was simultaneously listening to the audio and repeating it back to pam and I. which i can only imagine was really hard because to us it was hilarious.
Sometimes she could hold it together and actually repeat every word, and other times she would spit back the important stuff or what she could hear over our laughter, with a few verbal slip ups thrown in there as well. Some gems included '10,000 shoulders were killed in battle.' (to which pam asked what about the knees and toes), or awesome strings of generic history words like 'Bureaucracy...weapons...bloody...rioutous celebration.' Quite entertaining.
See picture link for full photo documentation. We stopped for a quick lunch in the museum cafe and did some walking around/windowshopping/souveneiring/picture taking and went back to the hotel to regroup for dinner. We ate on rue de bouchers on recommendation by the hotel concierge in response to a request for MUSSELS. The street was pretty silly- lots of awnings, fish on ice, and hosts calling out to passerbys to eat at their restaurant.
The place we went to was called Old Brussels- it had a cool staircase in the middle and it was DELCIOUS. we got beer, POMME FRITES, and 3 BUCKETS OF MUSSELS
all with different seasonings. also, our waitor's name was daddy. which was awkward. but silly. he took this picture.
After dinner Valpam crashed and Chris and I went to a pub that had outdoor seating with a heat lamp and an awning and people watched. totally enjoyable.
That night chris hiked it back to the hostel and I stayed with Valpam at their hotel. I snuck in between the two of them when I came in and used my awesome hostel blanket (thanks aunt val, mom, and lanni. that thing rules).
In the morning we set out to accomplish some serious touristing. First stop, the Comic Museum. It was northeast of where we were staying, so we figured we would stop and eat lunch somewhere along the way. false. something you'll want to know about eating in brussels on a sunday morning. you can't. well at least before 1030. We eventually got some juice and coffee at the cafe in the museum (though the waitress was NOT happy about it) and then just pushed through until we could get some real food. The museum was pretty great. I LOVED the architecture. It was a beautiful art nouveau building with lots of natural light. I took a million pictures of the building but here is my favotire.
In terms of the actual exhibition, a lot of it was only in french, and mostly about cartoons that ran in europe, so some of the meaning was lost on me because of my lack of connection to it, but the comics were at least fun to look at and try to figure out what they meant without reading them! The first hall had a cool walkthrough on the process of creating a comic strip. This was an example of the coloring process (also notable because apparently they have pickey mouse. hilarious).
They also had a tiny aisle on smurfs (i was hoping to see more) because the creator was belgian.
The coolest part was the upstairs exhibition. It was the timeline and story of 4 comics in Belgium, 'the gang of four,'
who worked together in post ww11 belgium writing comic strips.
Something else cool I learned was about Flash Gordon's abrupt end in europe. Flash made it to belgium, but had to be ended abruptly when nazi-occupied europe ended american comic strip imports. Edgar Pierre Jacobs was asked to conclude the story, and then started this new comic, Le Rayon U. pretty cool.
Next stop was the Atomium. We got Valpam's first belgian waffles from a cart nearby.
The poor guy had a really long line waiting, and only one wafflemaker that could make 4 at a time. cmon dude, buy another waffle maker. anyway, the atomium is a 335ft structure built for the world's fair of 1958. It is an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.
The coolest part is that you can take an elevator to the top sphere and travel through the connecting tunnels to the other spheres.
We took an audio tour at the top explaining landmarks on the horizon of the beautiful view, including descriptions of some of the other pavilions still remaining from the 1958 world's fair. What's left of the american pavilion has since been converted into a recording studio.
After all the stairs, and because we never actually had an adequate breakfast, we got some lunch at the atomium cafe. i got a salad and a funny travel cup of salami.
The next thing I wanted to see was a little less obvious. I had heard of this giant graffiti wall, apparently the largest in europe, and it was said to be in the De Wand rail station. We got a cab so we didn't get lost, but had one of the roughest language barrier problems thus far. He had no idea what were saying and we had tried every possible way to convey it. Then all of a sudden we passed a rail station and I totally saw it. So we got off around the corner and there it was! It was raining, but I was able to snap a few shots.
Really cool. I don't know how permanent the art is or how many artists contribute, but I did see some sort of sectioning going on, which I thought was really cool.
I'm so glad we found it. I like to throw in some unconventional touristing every once in a while.
It was raining so we attempted to hail a cab. Unfortunately none drove by, so we stopped in a nearby restaurant to see if they had a number for a company. The closest place happened to be a restaurant called La Pergola! (also the name of a restaurant that both sides of my family frequent back in Jenkintown, PA). They so kindly called us a cab and we jumped in and head back. We did some last minute souvenier shopping and walked around. The last thing I was sure to do was to get sushi.
Thus far, I have eaten sushi in every country I have been to (see list on the right side of the blog) and so I had to continue the streak. I tracked down a place, ordered some salmon nigiri for take out and rushed to grab a cab to catch my flight. And that was it! I hugged and kissed and thanked Valpam for a wonderful time, and hurried off to the airport. Once there, I was super early, so I got some cheese for char
(awesome GIANT babybel- picture is one of a series of her enjoying said cheese hours later) and waited around.
Belgium was so great for so many reasons. I made a new friend, I got to spend time with ValPam IN EUROPE, i got to do some thing that my little brother recommended (such a crazy concept) and got to spend a decent amount of time in one country (As compared to some of our other whirlwind trips). What was interesting about the city was that because it is the capital of europe, there are a lot of government employees living in the city. A lot of the people that I saw on the streets (which wasn't many) seemed to be tourists. I think because so many people get government jobs and move to their job in brussels, it has sort of a transient population that doesn't have a specific identity. A lot of the city's identity lies in the reconstruction after wwII. it has an interesting vibe. It is a lot bigger than I thought (in terms of area) but a lot less dense (not a lot of people for the amount of space there is). It was a very interesting city that I would love to visit again.
