Adventures in Spain: Chocolate and waffles and beer... oh my!

Brussels was phenomenal, everything about it. It's officially my new favorite city in the world! We flew ryanair and both flights went very smooth! except for they stole my tasty 5 euro belgian style peanut butter on the way back, apparently its liquids AND creams. ugh. Me and Eric decided to go a day earlier than the rest because we finished class earlier and could make the thursday flight so we were there around dinner, walking around like hobos with bookbags on and no place to stay. We ended up finding a hotel that after suddenly having 3 different "promotions" ended up being a pretty good deal. The receptionist was a lovely french woman and SO nice. Thats one of the main things we all loved about Belgium, the people were all so friendly! And loved hearing we were from America. We found a random restaurant and indulged in a delicious meal. Man have I missed good food. Then we were off to bed!

Friday we saw so much! After a delicious french breakfast at our hotel, we met up with the rest of the group! (4 more people) We met these random people who worked for the US embassy and they took us to the manneken pis, which is the famous statue of a little boy peeing. We got some waffles along the way and they were literally amazing. Then we were off to the Grand Palace and took tons of pictures of all the beautiful enormous buildings gilded in gold! They were incredible. It's hard to believe places like this really exist. We looked around the lace shops (got you a souvy mom) and hung out there a while before walking to the Royal Palace... which was absolutely huge and so beautiful! After walking probably 10 miles around Brussels, we checked into our hotel and stopped at this local sandwich place thats been open for 20 years! The old man working there was just precious, he was so friendly and so helpful and even gave us a little piece of chocolate after our incredible sammies. Talk about a man knowing the way to my heart... Then we stopped at bar to try some beers! The girls tried a delicious cherry flavored beer famous in Belgium that was so yummy! And then a belgian blonde and then one that was almost black! Most of their beers there average about 8% alcohol each, its crazy! That night we had yet another amazing meal and met a local who took us to this cool techno club, "club you." It was insane, belgians sure to know how to party!

Saturday we just walked around and dedicated the day to good food. The food in Brussels is unreal. I feel way over spoiled after only being there for a weekend! I ate two more waffles, tried some belgian french fries, lotsss of chocolate, and then my actual meals were incredible, ofcourse. Its safe to say i would be morbidly obese if I ever lived here. We were sad to leave early sunday morning. Our trip could not have gone any better, we were blessed with an awesome safe weekend in my new favorite place!