Belgium 1- Brussels

Sara and I on the Brussels tour bus

Sara and I made it to Belgium safely. No problems at all. We had a nice morning. I got up at 5 and prepared breakfast for Sara and I. She came over at 5:40am and we had eggs and sausage and apples. It was a great start to the day.

We were on different flights. I flew with SAS and my flight left an hour before Sara's.  Therefore, I got into the Brussels Airport an hour ahead of Sara.  That was fine.  I killed the time walking around the airport.  It was a really nice airport.  She landed right on time.  We met up and then took the train to the center of Brussels where we began our sightseeing.

As soon as we got out of Brussels train station, we felt rain drops. In a matter of minutes it was raining pretty hard. Not pouring, but, raining. We didn't let it deter us. We found a tour bus and hopped on that. We were driven around the city while listening to a description through headphones. It was nice, but, the rain kinda ruined it. It was a good way for us to see the most of the city in the short amount of time we had. 

In front of the Atomium

The Triumph Arch

Saint Michaels Cathedral

By now we were getting pretty hungry (it was like 3pm).  We began looking for a restaurant.  Anyway, we found a nice little restaurant. It was just what we were looking for.  We had trouble reading the menu because it was in Dutch and French.  Those are the national languages of Belgium.  However, we were able to get an English menu so we did that.  

I had a chicken curry sandwich and Sara had a ham and cheese sandwich.  They were each very good.  Of course, we had to get beer as well.  This was our first experiment with the Belgian beer and we each thought it was very good.  We also had to get a Belgian Waffle.  It came with powdered sugar on top and was really tasty.  

From there, we continued to walk around the city.  We realized that most of the chocolate shops offer free samples.  We made the most of that and stopped into all the chocolate shops we passed.  It was great to sample all the famous homemade chocolate in Brussels.  Believe it or not, I didn't buy any chocolate the entire time in Belgium, but, I certainly ate a lot of it. It was very good.

In the main square

Around 6pm we made it back to the train station and took the train from Brussels to Antwerp.  It was a 40 minute ride.  Once we got off the train we had about a 20 minute walk to the Hilton, where Chris was waiting for us in the lobby.  Perfect timing.

 It was great to see Chris.  He was doing very well and enjoying his time in Belgium.  After dropping off our stuff in his room, we went out to dinner.  Finally, we decided on a little restaurant-bar.  It was interesting to say the least.  Anyway, I had the Goulash with a couple beers and it was alright.  There was nothing too memorable about that place.

 Then, we went out to a couple bars.  We each had about 4 or 5 drinks that night and we each tried to get something new every time.  Then we would share.  That wasn't hard because most bars had a list of about 100 beers to choose from.  I stuck with the darkest, heaviest, and strongest beers that were on the list.  They were great.

 We got back to Chris' hotel room and went to bed around 1.  We all had a long day ahead of us.