Fighting Terrorists in Belgium

So last weekend my roommate and I travelled to Brussels, Belgium and kicked the crap out of a few terrorists. Just kidding, we had a fairly uneventful weekend really. My parents were freaking out though.

I got in on Friday night and walked around a little, checked out the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, which is a neat looking cathedral. It was also raining a little, so I headed to my hostel pretty quick. 

The next day I walked through Le Botanique, which is really pretty, I would highly recommend it. You wouldn’t expect it to be so nice since it’s in the middle of a city, but I just walked around the garden and was pretty happy. Then I looked at the inside of the cathedral, which was also very nice. Nothing incredibly special, but a good-looking church. After that, I met up with my roommate in Brussels Park, which is a small but quaint park, and we walked down to Parc du Cinquentenaire. It’s a pretty long walk, and it was raining/snowing the whole way so we arrived cold and wet. We got lunch while we were there, didn’t go into any of the museums beyond the lobby of the car one though. Get the hot chocolate, they serve it as hot milk with chocolate on a stick, it’s great.

Afterwards, we walked back and saw the Galleries St. Hubert. We managed to find decently priced macaroons and speculoos, a Belgium biscuit, inside. Then we did the rounds of the peeing stature, Jeanneke Pis, Zinneke Pis, and Mannekin Pis. There are a ton of waffle places near Mannekin Pis, it’s great.

Then we decided to take the train into Brugges. This was a nice contrast, Brugges is known as “the Venice of the North” because of its narrow streets and canals. We got there while the Christmas concert was happening, so we were very happy and got fries and fried bananas. The stalls also had some really nice trinkets for sale. Other highlights are the City Theatre with its statue of Papageno out front, and the Minnewater Park.

The next day we wanted to go to the Musical Instrument Museum, but all the museums were closed due to the threats going on. So we wandered around Grand Place instead, and bought a ton of chocolate to bring back with us. Then we headed back to Scotland.

I really liked Belgium, it has very nice food which is always a plus. And people told me that since Brussels is a political city it isn’t that interesting, but I liked wandering around checking out all the comic strip themed public art. Pairing it with Brugges was a great idea because it gave a bit of contrast as well.

That’s my last trip for a while, as I need to get through finals now. Ugh.