so, friday morning, sarah and alicia are looking at train tickets to dijon for the weekend. i go, 'whats in dijon', and i'm pretty sure my reply is 'mustard?'. fabienne (who works at the center) comes in and shows us how to get discounts on the sncf (train system) website. for shits and giggles, she puts in bruxelles as an example. and, lo and behold, the train tickets are 40€ one way. we go, hellz yah, and we decide to go to brussels for the weekend.
i love train travel. it's amazing. you get to the train station 20 mins before the train leaves. nobody checks anything, and the train station is in the city...it took me about 15 mins to get there. then, you get on the train, and sit in your comfy seat...and you can get up. and go to the food car. if you want food. well, you have to buy it, but come on, it's a 1h3omin train ride. so fabulous:
look at that countryside swimming by.
brussels has a lot of art. and the metro stations are much larger and fancier. then again, there are only four metro lines and we didn't use them that much, so there you go. also, the brussels public transit system is completely trust-based. basically, i feel like i wasted 6,70€ on the five-trip pass, because not once did i have to validate my ticket, and sarah and alicia only bought one ticket. then again, i didn't buy the "young traveler" (under 26) rail pass (49€ for the year) and still got the young traveler discount (80€ round trip by train). looks like the discount didn't do anything for them going to brussels.
Travelling Tip: It is a Good Idea to have a map of where you are. We, of course, did not have a map of Brussels. And, we learned, Brussels is the City of No Maps. In Paris, there are always 3 maps in the metro stations-the metro map, the neighborhood map, and the RER (like regional rail) map. Not in Brussels.
all we had were the directions from the hostel website. we get on the metro, notice that there are no turnstiles, just an escalator down. we get off at botanique, and by some stroke of good look are on the street the hostel is on (Rue Royale). we have the number of the hostel, so we start walking down the street. of course, the street numbers are descending, so we turn around and walk 5-6 blocks until we get to Royotel!
the room was cute:
look, we even get a weird painting on the wall. this picture was actually taken sunday morning, that's why the beds arent made.since we didn't have a map, we asked the guy at the reception how to get around. he told us to take the tram that was right in front of the hostel. and then he wouldn't shut up for half an hour. no, really, every time we asked someone at the reception a question it would take at least 30 minutes. they were kind of helpful, and they were super nice, but more people need to talk to them so they don't feel so lonely.
we took the tram to place royale, which had some important looking buildings. we notice a hedge garden type thing, so we start walking down the steps and we see the huge spire that the guy at the reception was telling us about. we figure that was a good thing and walk there.
by this time it was around 3ish and we were hungry. we went to chez leon because it was the most famous moules et frites place. when we get there i notice that it was THE SAME MOULES ET FRITES RESTAURANT THAT WAS IN PARIS. and i thought it was kind of lame. and this was what the guy at the reception was telling us about (seven times)--that chez leon used to be the best but since the original owner died it's gone commercial and that all the other restaurants around it were just as good if not better. it was on a street (rue de bouchers?) that was a little alley that just had a bajillion and one restaurants, and the waitstaff would harass you and try to get you to eat there. no, really. there were giant signs saying what they had, lots of 12€ menus (fixed price items).
and the waitstaff would just yell at you as you walked by--english? english? we have blah blah blah. it was really annoying. so, we went to chez leon, and got moules et frites!
the service was pretty horrible, and i'm pretty sure the waiter just forgot to bring us our bread. the food was delicious, of course, but i feel like it was more expensive than the other restaurants and that chez leon just lived off of the reputation.
after...lunch...we wandered a bit and found grand place! this is the hotel de ville, one of the buildings around the grand place:
and heres a picture of the grand place off of google images because it's better than anything i could take:
that's the hotel de ville on the left. this plaza is BEAUTIFUL. in the google picture, the picture is taken from this building that looks like it's inlaid with gold.
look, see, pretty.
after walking around for a bit it was time for...BELGIAN CHOCOLATE. omg. chocolate.....aaagghhh
chocolate fondue-dipped strawberries (notice the bag of chocolate i already have)
and this store let us dip our own cookies in a fountain! aaaah.
after gorging ourselves on chocolate we decided to drop our stuff back at the hostel. alicia wasn't feeling too hot so she stayed in while sarah and i went off to forage for more food:
this restaurant was sufficiently annoying, but sarah was looking at the prices for paella and they had cheap paella. aaaand we got free glasses of wine, ten points to sarah. and the waiter guy was so nice! this restaurant (le vieux columbier) was soooo much better than chez leon. i wasn't too hungry, so i just go the menu (salad and fish and dessert. yeah, i know, not hungry, right?) and somehow i managed to finish it. our food was better, and more filling, and even the paella was cheaper than the moules et frites at chez leon. it was such a good meal....and somehow we were there til midnight. well, i dont think we started eating until at least ten thirty. basically, our eating scheduled were way off and i gained 10 pounds.
sunday, i started the day right:
with a BELGIAN WAFFLE! so good. they're laced with sugar, so they're already sweet. more exploring sunday. i saw a whole bunch of museums. they were all pretty and stuff, but i didnt know the history of any of them and i dont know, gothic churches just all look the same after a while.
we did go see the famous manneken pis:
according to a postcard i read, there are two legends about this fountain (if you can't see, the boy is urinating on that girl's head. i thought it was funny). the one is that a man lost his son during some festival and when he found him five days late, this is what the boy was doing. the other was that the boy was extinguishing a candle enemies had meant to burn down brussels with. he was cute.
we also somehow found the middle eastern section of brussels. i don't really know how. it was AWESOME. there were 2€ hijabs, which i discovered, were just SCARVES that served a different purpose! there was much rejoicing. i didnt get any pictures, unfortunately, because we were already incredibly out of place, and got a couple weird looks, but it was so much fun. there were a couple mondo shoe store, with SUCH CHEAP shoes, but somehow i had the self control to restrain myself. i think it was because my favorite wasn't available in my size, and it would have been more stuff to carry back to paris anyways. and maybe because i had already gotten two scarves and three boxes of chocolate. hrm.
for dindin we got turkish pizza! turkish pizza is flat and not made with sauce/cheese. it's delicious.
this was sarah's. i wasn't hungry (as usual), so i got soup. but then i thought the waiter said i could just get a piece of the turkish pizza. i was wrong, evidently i ordered an entire thing, and when i told him that i thought i would just be getting a small piece he was like dont worry! you can take it home with you! so, of course, after planning on not eating any pizza at all, i eat half of one (plus my soup!). oy vey. basically, i'm not allowed to eat anymore.
on the train ride back to brussels nobody checked my ticket. i know. could have saved 40€.
re: the title. i noticed at quite a few (at least four) instances when somebody would shout 'chinoise!' at me. and at the train station, this guy (teenager, of course, with a group of friends) said to me 'vous cherchez les chinois? c'est la' which means are you looking for the chinese? they're over there. yeah. i know. the thing is, there was a ton of asking for money/sign a petition/eat at this restaurant (say no to the money people, ignore the restaurant people, and i dont know how to deal with the petition people. i ignored them and they followed me, there were two of them and they kept getting closer. i literally pushed them away.) that i basically put my blinders on and ignored everything. so i only noticed a couple of times...but the train station was unfortunately, my last impression of brussels. thanks, belgians.
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