Ban Cobblestones...Think of the Cripples!

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on how I suck for not posting, I think that’s fairly obvious. Fortunately Mariah has been picking up the slack. Thanks bebe!

Anyway, a few weeks back we took our first international “holiday” to Brussels. “Why Brussels?” you might ask. Well, as it turns out, my good friend Josh (who some of you likely know) just got married at the end of April (which I unfortunately couldn’t be there for) and ended up spending his honeymoon in a few countries within Europe. Towards the end of his trip he was going to be in Brussels and invited us to come join him there for a few days…So we did!

Brussels, I would say, is not your most exciting of cities and, from what I saw, Belgium as a whole is not a country you go to if you are looking for action. As a place to do a little site-seeing, eat, take pictures, eat, and chat, however, it was perfect. Did I mention…eat?

As noted in a Simpsons episode, Belgium is the land of chocolate, so there was plenty of incredibly good chocolate to be had…and we had our fair share…some of yours as well…you weren’t there, so don’t complain… Belgium, I would say, is also the land of WAFFLES! We had our fair share of those too! Waffles in Belgium are more of a desert item. The waffle itself is more like sweetened bread than the batter we would use in the States. They get fruit put over them often enough, like we would do, but more often they gets doused in chocolate and are served with ice cream and/or whip cream. Bananas, chocolate, and ice cream was my personal favorite. Many times you might also get a waffle on its own to eat on the go, and they are even good plain.

So…we ate…like you do…

Playing basketball a week or so before the Brussels trip I managed to sprain the heck out of my ankle (black and blue and all that), so my ankle was still quite tender when I got to Belgium with the prospect of hobbling around town all weekend ahead of me (more on the ankle spraining incident later). To my great delight, just about every horizontal exterior surface was coated in cobblestones. Now, let me just say…WHY! Cobblestones, as it turns out, constantly stress your ankles to try and make you topple over constantly. A long story short, walking wasn’t my favorite part of the trip, but I made it through. I like to think of it as a strengthening exercise…

We saw the Grand Place, which is a large central plaza within the city, along with quite a few cathedrals. We also took a great day trip to Brugge, which is a city in the northwest of Belgium. It’s amazing how great a train system that actually works can be. We were able to get across the country in about 45 minutes and spent a good part of the day walking around the picturesque streets of Brugge (many, many, many more cobblestones). The canals there are amazingly beautiful (the Venice of the north). And chocolate… I ended up preferring Brugge as a more relaxed and picturesquely European city than Brussels.

Belgium is interesting in that the north part of the country (Brugge) they speak primarily Flemish and in the southern part (Brussels) they speak French. I speak neither, so I got to wander around and feel like an idiot in multiple languages within the same country. Most of our time was in Brussels, so I was utilizing my extensive French vocabulary (consisting of words like “merci” and “bonjour”) extensively. Fortunately Josh knows a bit of French, so we made him talk most of the time. Way to take a hit for the team Joshie.

I’m sure there is more that I could say, but if I don’t get this posted it might not happen, which would be a shame because I have gotten this far…