Brussels without Sprouts

A quick summation of my Brussels Trip

Took the Eurostar from Waterloo station to Brussels Midi, with Richard and Hillary. Had Champagne on the train for H’s birthday – very sophisticated!

Met up with R the second – H’s bro – in the hotel lobby and then with Warren (friend of R1) and Anne-Claire, Warren’s better half.

Had 18yo Whisky then it was over to an Irish pub nearby, for a smoke-filled Drambuie.

At 2 or 3am ish, home to bed.

Got up too late for b’fast, sharing a room with R1 so that R2 and H could catch up.

Nice hotel, v comfortable beds, luxurious in fact. Supplied goodies included all the usual shower caps, shampoos etc, plus a sewing kit, shoe cleaning gear, comb, toothbrush n paste, facial cleansers, and tissues. But no soap. Huh?
Wandered into town. Met up with W & AC again, saw the Manneken Pis (a fountain of a small boy pissing), the Grote Markt or Grand Place (The cities central square – beautiful!), the female Manneken Pis, and then went to a bar of 2000 beers called The Elephant Delirium café, for a drink. Had an apple beer that was very good.

Went to see the Tintin shop, and bought some Belgium chocolate (yum!).

Made H, R1 & R2 walk all the way to the top of Brussels (it’s very hilly) to see the Palais Royal ‘cause I wanted to see it. It was my one and only attempt at a cultural experience for the weekend. The others didn’t want to see anything else, so we walked back into town.

Went to another bar called Sudden Death (the Belgium version there of). Had a framboise (raspberry) beer. Saw some interesting animatronics wolves on route to Sudden Death that Chris would have gone ga-ga over. (will be in the pictures when I get them loaded)

Went to yet another pub (do you see a theme in all this?) that I think was called Coffins or something. It was a bar with a death theme. There were coffins for tables, all the walls were black, and it was lit only by candles. A good thing too, because it was one of the dirtiest, rankest places I’ve ever been to. I mean, I’ve seen worse toilets, but not in a city. If they ever turned the lights on the patrons would die of shock from the realisation of the filth they had been sitting in. Ich.

Then caught a tram thing and went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner – had the smorgasbord which was really nice, but was way too much food to eat, and then saw some belly dancing courtesy of the restaurant. Interesting…

Next, went to a pub with a jazz theme just a couple of doors down, for afters. Had a lambic beer (one that ferments spontaneously on exposure to air) of peach, which was really delicious. And then another framboise. Came up with / invented a new pub game when R2 had finished trying to catch 25 coasters flicked from the table all at once. Took one of the coaster holders – which looked like castles – stacked all the coaster on top, balanced on each other (not exactly on top of one another, but balanced between and over each other, getting further and further out from the centre). Then H put the second coaster holder on top of the stack and we played a version of Jengo that was sort of like pick up sticks. You had to pull out a coaster at a time with out letting the top tower fall. Played two games before we got sick of this. R2 didn’t lose either time… which is not to say he actually won, but he just didn’t lose, so claimed victory over H and I.

Walked home. Went to bed.

Got up. Wrote 600 words. R1, R2, H and I left the hotel just at the time we had to check out (12pm). Left bags and went to visit the beer museum, only it was closed. So went to the comic museum instead (very big in this town, comics!) – which was very cool. Bought 3 Tintin omnibuses – which was silly. Met up with W and AC again and then went back to the hotel for a (huge) grand mariner and taxi to the train station, and pretty much walked strait onto the train.

Left Brussels, took Eurostar back to Waterloo.

Only got a couple of chocolates – very disappointed I didn’t have time to get more. Now very tired, but want to go back. Would like to spend less time drinking and more time looking around next time… and of course, purchase more chocolate!