Brussels, Belgium
Today, we got to sleep in! My alarm was supposed to go off at 8:45 so we could be ready to go at 10:30, but for some reason (international phone difficulties, perhaps) my phone thought it was half an hour later so I didn't get up until 9:15, Betsy and Beth went to a local flee market early- nonw of us wanted to go for very long and we knew they would want to spend a long time. Beth was kind enough to come back and pick us up at 10:30 after she had to drop someone off at the airport. After spending some time at the flea market (Betsy and Beth were very successful!)
Beth played tour guide and took us around Brussels around the afternoon. First we went to lunch at a cute little restaurant. 2 words to describe this place: sandwiches and dessert!
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| Angela and Heidi shared a Chocolate Bomb and a strawberr tart. Is your mouth watering?? |
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| A little dark... but you can see the cute restaurant. |
We then walked down a street called Butcher Street. It reminded me a lot of Little Italy in New York. It was full of restaurants (mostly sea food, though) with waiters standing outside to talk to you as you passed by.
On to a shopping mall. In fact, we learned, one of the first, if not the first, covered shopping area ever. It was very fun! I bought some lace and a couple of other things here.
No self respecting Belgian tourguide would have us miss this:
The Mannekin Pis. Yes, the name is literal. He is quite famous and legendary in Belgium, Apparantly there are a few stories and legends about him, not one of them being 100% certain. The Belgians are quite proud of him, and he is often dressed in fancy costumes. You can see him anywhere - candies, cards, chocolate, calendars, corkscrews. Quite interesting.
Then, because we hadn't eaten in a couple of hours, Beth took us to her favorite chocolate outlet: Neuhouse. Just amazing! It was a very small shopped and very packed. But yummy, yummy, yummy chocolate to look at
The best part of this place, aside from the beautiful display, was that you can sample the chocolate. Beth gave us fair warning to take only a bite of each piece and get rid of the rest in order to power through. It was a rough job, but I think we did well!
Well, then we discovered the back of the store: lucky corner.
After a little more sampling (you can see the open boxes for the tasting!), we all decided to buy 3 boxes of single flavored chocolates and trade them later to mix and match. Thank you Beth and Neuhaus Chocolate Outlet.
After stuffing ourselves with chocolate, we went back to the Passey's home to hand out and relax for a bit .Beth and Betsy went to the grocery store and the rest of us stayed back to work on our journals, read, email etc. I got to call home and talk to home and talk to mom. Glad to hear we missed some snowy weather back home. Then we had dinner with the Passey family including lettuce wraps a la PF Chang and a trio of different European lemony sodas. They have been so helpful and generous. We are lucky to have such a great family to stay with.After navigating cities on our own for the last several days, I appreciate Beth's guiding us around Brussels so much today. We didn't have to worry about where we were going or what we wanted to see. Another great day!!
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