Walking in Brussels

I didn't feel like taking the tram into town on this day; I decided to walk all the way there to see how long it would take! I would also see new parts of town this way too.

It's hard to leave this deck though...


Turns out the area Nico lives in is AWESOME! So many thrift and cheap stores selling everything from cameras to clothes to cheap food... I was set. The walk led me by some other interesting things...








The walk took quite a while, so I found this nice little park and knit for a while.



I had been knitting since Belfast, now that it has arrived I can now say this.
After walking around some more, I decided that I would try the tram. I took it all the way up to the Belgian version of the Eiffel Tower - the Atomium...

This was in a weird part of the city. It had an amusement park thing right beside it. Very touristy. I took my photo, walked a bit, and promptly left.

I headed back to the house to find that there was a bbq going on nearby at one of Nico's friend's houses. We got some beer and bread and headed down!

It was super pleasant - there was an Australian airplane pilot there which was random. A couple of the people there were also musicians, and we stuffed ourselves on the patio, listened to music, and had a good time. Unfortunately the woman that lived upstairs poked out the window to tell us that someone had broken into her house!! That was sad!




The barbecue was excellent overall though, and it was nice being able to walk back during the night and still be warm!

Next up was laying on the couch:

Arrival and Beer Tasting in Belgium!

Okay so this day was Eurostar day!

I made it into the station surprisingly quickly. The security and "border" was super easy. The security guy even hit on me, which was funny (to me anyways - the french accent and stuff always makes things funnier). Soon enough I was on the train...



I arrived in two hours plus a time change, so three. The train itself was nice enough, you could tell it was going super fast! A lot of the way was black, but there was some French countryside and Belgian countryside on the way too!

Martijn from Couchsurfing was already at the station, so I had a guide outta there and onto the tram heading to the city centre!! He let me drop my pack at his house since my host was not going to be out of work until later in the evening, and we started walking around...
This church has the city's first public urinal.... on the side of the church. So you literally were peeing on the church lol.

















at this point we stopped and I had my first Belgian beer. It was excellent! I had also already had Belgian fries at this point too, in a sandwich no less. With some sauce. Yummmmmmmm









As you can see, this was a mammoth sightseeing tour! He even had spare maps at his house, so I had maps as well!!!! Martijn knew the history of a lot of things too - I felt like I was getting a personal tour from a pro :) I was so lucky! The time went quickly, and soon enough my host Nico was off work and at a bar in the city with some friends. We went to get my stuff from the house and I headed down to said bar...

It was very easy to find! I put my bag down and joined the group.

One thing to note about Belgium is that it has two official languages: Flemish and French. Flemish is similar to Dutch. Martijn was Dutch-speaking from the Netherlands, and this whole group of people here in the bar were French-speaking. Most of Brussels (that I noticed anyhow) is French-speaking, although there are more Flemish speakers in Belgium than French. The Northern part of the country (Flanders) is Flemish, the Southern (Wallonia) is French-speaking, with a small dab of German in the East. Okay I am not going to get into the politics of this since I am so far behind in writing this blog.

Sooooooo we were at a bar, then we decided since it was so nice out we should get some beer from the store (cheaper!) and go somewhere else. We went for a walk to the skate park in an area of town I didn't walk through. I ended up there till fairly late trying a variety of Belgian beer. I ended up hula hooping a little at the skate park (hey that beer is strong!) but soon it was time to go and we took off for the tram. I tried fries with a new sauce on the way I think, and it was super gooooood!

The house itself was nice - had an amazing view and big terrace! You will see pictures of this later. My couch looked nice and big, so I was asleep in no time :)