Belgium, ya'll got some good waffles

Hi

This weekend Jenny and I went to Brussels. Our tickets were really really cheap, from Koblenz to Brussels and back was €46, and Brussels is almost 4 hours away by train. We got to our hostel at about 8:30 after buying some surprisingly affordable food at the train station... our map indicated that the best Belgian french fries were just around the corner so we decided to go check it out... looked like what I had read previously was correct: in Belgium, they are shutting down a lot of the fry stands for health concerns. Perhaps that's a good thing, but we never found any french fries that evening... we ended up going to the 21:45 showing of M. Night Shyamalan's new film "The Happening" which I found terrifying but great at the same time. Felt bad though cuz Jenny had her eyes closed the whole time and she seemed reluctant to talk much afterward.

Saturday was pretty much our only day in the city (otherwise our tickets would have been like 4x more expensive!) so we first went to the big cathedral in Brussels, The Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. A legend surrounds this cathedral that in 1370, some Jews stole some communion wafers from a chapel and stabbed them with daggers... it is said that blood flowed from the wafers, and the event is now referred to as a "miracle". There is even stained glass windows inside the cathedral depicting the event, blood and all.

After that, we walked around town a bit looking at the palace, another church, some squares, and made our way to the city's tourist center to see the famous statue of the little boy "Mannekin Pis". Legend has it that a little boy got lost and his father vowed that when he found his son, he would erect a statue in the spot depicting the boy doing whatever he was doing when he was found. Well, when they found the boy, he was peeing. So the statue is peeing, too. Someone changes the little boy's outfit a few times a month as well.

We tried Belgian waffles... those things are small pieces of heaven. You seriously do not need ANY toppings because the sugary goodness is baked right in. I have never tasted anything better in my life... not even Mexican food tops these babies... we ended up getting another one later that evening :-) We visited the main square and the chocolate museum after that which cost €4 but I thought was incredibly boring and not worth it at all. Then we walked around some more and looked everywhere for french fries again, and finally found some, and were disappointed that they were nothing to write home about after all. I don't get it... everyone seems to think that Belgian and Dutch french fries are so much better than normal ones, but I cannot taste the difference whatsoever. Maybe its the cute little fork you get to eat them with...

In town we also found the two other peeing statues, one of a dog and one of a girl called Jeanniken Pis, which was built by a restaurant owner to bring more business to his restaurant. She doesn't pee anymore though, since the restaurant closed...

We went to Mini-Europe after that, which is by the giant atom science center, called the Atomium. Mini Europe was cool but also not worth the €12,40 it cost to get in. Really really really not. We had fun taking silly pics of all the different monuments there... most of which will be on Facebook. We went searching for Belgian chocolate seashells (the Guylian ones are sold here too, the same ones you can get at Ross for $5 back home, lol) and went back to the hostel after that... made pasta for dinner in the hostel kitchen and drank half a carton of sangria, which made me nothing but lonely, depressed, and tired. We hung out in our dorm for a long time just talking to our roommates, a cute (presumably gay) guy from Argentina and a French Canadian from Quebec. I fell asleep at like 10pm while the rest kept talking and we slept til 9am this morning....

It was real knapp this morning, too, since there were less trams to the station, and we got to the tram stop at just the right time to make our train back to Germany... we stopped in Cologne to change trains and went to have lunch at Mongo's, a Mongolian buffet restaurant... it was faaaabulous... today was especially good because they also had appetizers and dessert included. At Mongo's, you choose a sauce and the waiter writes it on your little tablet, with which you go to the buffet (they call it the Food Markt (no, not a typo), which we thought was ridiculous... either all English or no English at all, we agreed), grab a bowl and fill it with as many veggies, types of meats, spices, fish, noodles, rice, anything you want. At the end, you give it to the cook who cooks it in the sauce you chose. Then they bring it to your table! It was delicious!! They have literally every type of meat you can think of, and I couldn't even tell you all of them because I'd never heard of most of them... but they had kangaroo!!

Yeah, then we went home. We were both a little disappointed by Brussels, but had a good time goofing around there anyway and we were happy to have something to do.

In other news, I think I'm leaning more toward Munich now as for where I want to work next summer... even if that may mean I'll be gone longer... it is just way cooler than Frankfurt, period! I know Frankfurt would be closer to my friends here, but hell, my friends here could come visit me (Jenny has never been to Munich!!!!!!!!!!)

In further news, next weekend Lea and I are going to Krákow... I found a free guide shop in Brussels and I picked up a neat guide to Krákow there. Gotta go to school on Tuesday though. Otherwise I doubt I'd be here right now, lol...

Cheers,
Caitlin