Waffles & Chocolate

Basically that's all I had in mind for Brussels besides the fact that it is pretty and near Brugge. Clearly I had not done my research. 

When we finally made it here (a train may have been missed) we made friends with three Canadian guys in our hostel. I am pretty sure their names were Ethan, Josh, and Jackie, but I am not very good with names so who knows. We ended up going out and exploring the city with them that night. It was beautiful. At night all the buildings in the square are lit up, but down lie down to get a better view because the cops are not a fan of that.

We stayed out pretty late so we decided to just rest the next day, but the unbelievable happened. I was chatting with my friendsRachel and Elizabeth on Facebook and it turned out that Rachel had just checked into the hostel I was at. We were both in Brussels!  Of course I freaked out and ran to her room. We ended up to being able to hang out that much, but I thought I wasn't going to get to see her until August so this was an amazing surprise. Talk about timing.

The next day we actually ventured out and just wandered around Brussels. We even got a Belgian waffle with Belgian chocolate on it. My brother warned me against it and he was so right. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but I ended up with it all over me and it was just too sweet. But when you pass by those waffle stands it is hard to refuse. We also managed to see the statue of the peeing boy (there are replicas of it EVERYWHERE!), and we saw a bunch of gorgeous parks and government buildings. We even made into another cathedral. That night we were going to go to Delirium because multiple people had recommended it to us, but we had some issues printing off our boarding pass for Barcelona so we didn't make it out. Upside: Spain is basically planned. We have all of our dates and a place to stay booked in Barcelona and San Sebastián.

That morning I woke up at what felt like the butt crack of dawn but was really only 8:00 and said goodbye to Rachel 'cause she was off to Paris. Then we headed to Brugge. It was so adorable and beautiful. Really all that you need to do is wander the streets. You pass by beautiful homes and churches and even windmills. Somehow we made it to the main square and I must say that the area looks a bit different than it did in In Brugge but that could be due to my poor memory or the fact that we weren't there at night. We found this small little park between two windmills and next to a river so we decided to hang out there for a bit. I ended up watching these people play some kind of lawn game that looked like a lot of fun and shouldn't be too difficult for me to recreate. It must be a thing 'cause I saw two other groups playing the same game. Also I bought some fabric to add to my ever expanding collection. Oh, and I got chips with curry ketchup...that should definitely be a thing in the states. 

And now we are off to Barcelona. Two more weeks and then home, and although I love to travel, home is sounding really good right now.