Yes, I Went for the Chocolate. Problem?

Saturday morning, I went with Alice and two other girls on our floor to Brussels for the day. A few people we know have been and have all said it's just a daytrip; the train is only about two hours, and unless you're planning to venture outside of the city into another Belgian town, you really don't need more than a day.

We left before the sun came up (UGH) and took the Eurostar (the Chunnel train) from St. Pancras station. We got there around 10am and made a beeline for Grand-Place, the main square of the city. It's really pretty because it's where all of the regal old buildings are, just facing each other in a little square.


Off the square was a statue of Everard 't Serclaes, some guy who liberated the Flemish or something like that. We had no idea what it was at the time, but a lot of people were rubbing it so we figured we would, too. It's supposed to give you good luck.


There are a few places to eat, so we sat outside at a restaurant built in the 1600s called La Roy to get -- any guesses? -- waffles! They brought out our coffee/hot drinks with little Godiva chocolates (Godiva is actually a Belgian brand, but we think most places give some kind of chocolate with all hot drinks) and we all had yummy Belgian waffles while watching the square. They were only pretty good, and one of the girls in the group explained that these were real Belgian waffles, and what we thought of as Belgian waffles (which we had from a street vendor later and were AMAZING) are actually "Leigh's" waffles. Except I've Googled this since then and I can't find anything on that, so maybe she made that up.


We walked from there to Manneken-Pis, a famous statue of a little boy peeing. Alice was really disappointed because he was dressed up, but it turns out he is often dressed up and has a lot of different outfits that some organization changes. Anyway, because it's a big tourist thing, all of the souvenir shops had mini statues, corkscrews (you can guess what they looked like) and other kitschy renderings of the little boy.


On the way, we ducked into a chocolate shop for a little snack. There was chocolate everywhere in the section of the city we were in. There were also a few Haagen Dazses, which I thought was really funny because it's an American brand and the words don't actually mean anything in Dutch.


They have a few old, pretty churches so we went to check those out. First we saw Sainte-Catherine (picture 1), then Sainte-Michel (picture 2). My guidebook said that Sainte-Michel was built in 1226 and Victor Hugo said it was, like, the greatest Gothic architectural creation.


We went to the Royal Palace, which wasn't anything special. There were a few funny things we saw while walking, like a sidewalk sign of a dog with a circle around it at a crosswalk. Is that where dogs are supposed to wait? We couldn't figure it out. There was also a sign in Dutch, which was only funny because Dutch is a funny language. And someone drew on it so the pedestrian image was holding a balloon.


It started raining, which was pretty miserable because I didn't bring an umbrella (the forecast said 10% chance of rain, damn them!) so I had to buy a crappy one that said Belgium all around the sides. What a lame souvenir. I was only miserable for about 20 minutes because we got French Fries, which were soooo yummy. They were actually invented by Belgians, and they got the name because they were served to American soldiers during the war (which war, I don't know) by French-speaking Belgians (French is the most spoken language, but Dutch and German are also official languages).


We also went back into another chocolate store to buy more to bring back to London (of course). Now that I have them here, though, I'm reeeeally angry that I didn't buy more because they are so. freakin. good. They also had a bunch of weird flavored chocolates, some of which I'd seen before (like chili pepper) and I decided to be really brave and try a wasabi one. It wasn't spicy in the way that I would need a drink of water, but it had that spicy "taste." Interesting, and glad I tried it, but I didn't want to finish it.

There was a Sbarro in the train station on the way back and I had to take a picture because they sold Sbarro wine. They even had choices -- red, white, and a rosé.


Overall, the trip was a success -- even if I did just each sugar and butter all day. Wait, did I say "even if"? I mean because we ate sugar and butter all day.