Adventures of a (not so) Lone Traveler

Hallo!

So the weekend has passed and I am once again in my 3-hour religion class (with the 70+ year old teacher) so I will take this wonderful opportunity to tell you about my adventures in Belgium.

This past weekend, my friend Bianca and I were supposed to go to Belgium for the entire weekend and stay in Ghent. However, she has been ill for weeks and got a new dose of her sickness and had to cancel last-minute. I wished her well and decided that I would take a day-trip to Belgium alone. Everyone else in the group already had travel or other plans for the weekend, and I didn’t want to miss seeing the country. Plus, I don’t really mind being alone. Sometimes when you are with the same people for an extended period of time, you just want to get away a little bit. So I planned on going to Brussels since it is a major city and I thought there might be more for a lone tourist to do there. 

 I woke up early on Saturday and got ready for my adventure. I boarded the two-hour train to Brussels and again ran into a problem with my Eurail pass (I blame it on the snobby French train I decided to take). Apparently, I needed a 24 euro reservation WITH my Eurail to be on the train, but since I had failed to get it before I got on the train, I had to pay 34 euro (charged it to the card, thanks Dad). The snobby French guy said I should be glad that he wasn’t charging me for the full price of a ticket, and after I apologized, commented on how us “Americans always say ‘sorry’”. Welp, can’t say I’m all too excited to meet these nice French people next weekend in Paris.

Anyways, finally got to Brussels. I walked into the main part of town, eager to get my hands on a traditional Belgium waffle. I passed by what looked like an extremely tourist-y place that offered waffles, deciding that I’d find a more authentic restaurant. I finally found a little coffee shop/waffle house called “Aroma” where I got a cinnamon-flavored latte with whipped cream and a waffle “natur” with powdered sugar on top. I will say that the employees moved at quite a glacial pace, and there was my American temptation to walk out while muttering, “I don’t have time for this.” But I stopped myself and stayed, realizing that I obviously did have time since I had nowhere to be that day. Observing my surroundings, I realized that everyone was speaking French. Apparently Brussels is divided into different parts, and I was clearly in the French part. I didn’t expect to be in Belgium hearing “Bonjour” all around me.  In any case, I enjoyed my snack and headed out in search of chocolate, chocolate and oh yes, more chocolate. 

 

Not surprisingly, it’s rather easy to find chocolate in Belgium. Streets are littered with infinite chocolatiers, including GODIVA! Did you know Godiva was born in Belgium? I sure didn’t. I guess that explains why their chocolate is so exceptional. Anyways, while I was deciding which chocolate to get, I came across a chocolate museum. I thought I’d take a spin through since it looked pretty interesting. I learned lots of interesting facts about chocolate and the harvest of the cocoa bean, as well as the fact that Switzerland consumes 11.6 kg of chocolate per person, compared to 5.6 kg per person in the United States, per year. Crazy, right?! Swiss chocolate, Swiss cheese… it’s a wonder they are one of the more healthy countries. 

So I enjoyed my self-guided tour of the museum and once I got out, I stumbled into conversation with some Americans who were also coming out of the museum. I introduced myself to all of them, and then one of the guys asked me if I was traveling alone. I told him I was and found out he was also a lone traveler from Madrid (but originally from Riverside). He said he’d met the rest of the group at the hostel he was staying at, and I was welcome to join them for the day if I wanted. I accepted the offer gladly and was told the plan was to visit a few more museums and then get beer. Fine by me! 

 We went to an underground ruins museum next to see the remains of what used to be a very large palace in Brussels. It was destroyed by a fire and excavated hundreds of years later. It was interesting, but I’ve seen lots of that kind of stuff in Bonn, so it was nothing really new for me. Then we went to see the Mannequin Pis, that famous tiny statue of the little boy peeing. It’s kind of like the Mona Lisa; everyone is standing around taking pictures of this small statue which just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Oh well. Next to the statue was a street-stand that was selling escargot. I have had escargot multiple times back home, but this kind was very different – it was boiled in a broth and served plain and simple. Well, when in Belgium, do as the… French do? I mean, when else am I going to see escargot sold on the street? I had a serving, but decided I like it the non-authentic way it’s done at home: sautéed in garlic cream sauce. Mmm. 

Following that experience, we went to a beer museum/brewery and saw the brewing process of one of the most original beers: Lambic. This kind of beer is made by spontaneous fermentation, which is a natural way of fermenting the beer - it takes three years. The beer is flat with no bubbles and has a sour taste. It’s almost like beer-meets-wine. After our walk through the brewery, we got to taste a few different kinds of beers. They were very tasty! 

    

After that, the rest of the group broke off and went to go find food, while I stayed with the guy who had brought me into the group in the first place. I said good-bye to the rest of my new American friends, and Mike and I went to go beer tasting at different bars. He knew a lot about all kinds of beers, obviously had a passion for it, and shared some of his knowledge with me. I had a blonde beer at one bar and a white beer and the other, and liked them better than his dark, harsh beers. In the midst of our bar-tour, we stopped for some original Belgian fries! They are very proud of their fries, claiming THEY were the first to make them, and damn… I will say they are quite tasty – especially topped with garlic aioli sauce. What diet? 

After my long day of exploring Brussels, I finally got a box of typical Belgian chocolates from a place called Leonidas. I dug into the box right away and let me tell you something - You know how at home, whenever you get a box of chocolates, you are halfway disappointed with the box because quite honestly, half of them suck? Well in Belgium, it’s the exact opposite of that. Every single chocolate from that box was AMAZING (yes… past tense, because they are long gone by now). One more beer and a few chocolates later, I said good-bye to my new friend, got on my train, and headed home after a full day of adventuring. The only bad part about my day was how my train decided to stop at a station for over 5 minutes, apparently for no reason at all. This caused my train to be six minutes late to my stop, which caused me to be one minute late for my night bus. Since it would be a whole hour since the next bus, I begrudgingly hailed a cab and paid 12 euro to get home. Unfortunate too, since I had just stayed within the budget I had set for myself for the day. Ah well, I couldn’t stay mad for too long after the lovely day I had enjoyed. 

 After that day of waffles, fries, chocolate and beer, I was definitely in need of a loooong workout on Sunday. Which was all right, because I just joined a gym! It’s called McFit and it’s like the 24-hour fitness of Europe. Open 24 hours a day, with plenty of cute German guys in tight shirts, it has everything I need. You can imagine my excitement.

Tomorrow we go to Frankfurt to visit the European Central Bank and the German Stock Exchange. I am VERY excited and am even considering the idea of one day working in Frankfurt for a year or so (40% of people in Frankfurt are not German…). Then this weekend, it’s off to Switzerland where I will be paragliding and enjoying the Swiss countryside of Interlaken! Honestly, I still can’t believe I am here. SO grateful.

So I guess with all of this excitement, it’s only fair that I have an entirely boring theology class to sit through. I mean, it’s a subject I am really interested in – history of the church in Europe – but I just can’t understand what this guy is saying. I don’t think I’m the only one either. Wish me luck.

Tschuss!