Monday, March 24, 2008

Brussels, Mussels, and Markets

Okay, so I'm a little behind. I tried to trick you all into thinking that our Czech adventures were recent, but in all honesty, it was three weekends ago. I had to get that off my conscience.

Two weekends ago, Tim, Mitchell and I went to Belgium. Brussels, mostly. And friends, I ask you to scrap all of your preconceived notions, and toss your waffle insecurities aside - because I'm here to tell you that you will never taste anything more delicious than a Belgian waffle. (Except for maybe the Nutella/banana crepe that I had in Paris the other day...) Belgians love their chocolate, too, and I wasn't above making that a part of every meal, either.

There were parks that spanned several miles, and cool museums. The city itself was really pretty and fun to walk around, but aside from old churches and regular town square-ish buildings, I'm not sure I have many highlights to share about the architecture or famous monuments. The culture was much more in-your-face than a typical German city, so getting yelled at in French was intimidating at times. We stayed in "Hotel the Moon" which is ALWAYS funny to reference (as are other poorly translated-to-English places we've been such as the "Pizza Go Home" that we went to in Prague).

Allow me to reveal to you, via photographs, my weekend. There are a lot:



Crazy statue on a busy Brussell(ian?) street. No explanation, nothing.

Chocolate everywhere! Above is a sculpture made entirely of chocolate, and since we were there so close to Easter, this stuff was everywhere.

The famous Cologne Cathedral, and the Rhine River. The cathedral is the biggest Gothic church in northern Europe... which means it's really big. (Yes, I know Cologne isn't in Belgium, but we had a layover there on our way home at 4am...)

Walking along a regular Brussels street, we stumbled upon what appeared to be Paradise.
WAFFLESSSSSSS!


WAFFLESSSSSSSS!
Not sure what this building was. The clouds were cool though, right?

Hotel the Moon!



These wooden figurines were everywhere.
Okay, so these kids bombarded us as we were sitting peacefully on a bench in this park. The boy in the middle proceeded to chant something in French over and over while his friends laughed at our confused reactions. The building in the background was the venue for the Menomena concert we went to.
Tim learned French on a software program years ago and didn't have the chance to use it with real people until this trip. This is Tim extremely excited about the chocolate he just ordered flawlessly in French. What a champ.
This ridiculous legend is a pretty big deal in Brussels, and the corresponding statue is an even bigger deal. I, however, could not bring myself to post such an atrocity on this blog, so if you're curious about it, just Google it.

3 comments:

The Dorrs said...

mmmm...waffles and chocolate....

-b

Allison said...

oh hannah, brussels looks delightful. i especially like the pic of the daffodils with the cathedral in the background. well done. plus....waffles.....and chocolate. yes. ya know, i'm really starting to get pretty jealous of all your weekend jaunts around the continent.

Tres Dorrs said...

your comments to your pictures are funny