Thursday, April 19, 2012

Brussels (Part I)

Day 1
It’s 7am on a lovely Wednesday morning and I’m embarking on my solo journey to Brussels! I know, you’re all mad at me for going alone, but I couldn’t resist the convenient opportunity. Besides, if you’re reading this that means I uploaded it to my blog and made it home safe and sound.

So for this post I’ll do something a little different and type up my blog on my iPod as I go since I’ll be alone and won’t have anyone to talk things over with. Right now I’m sitting in St. Pancras International Station waiting for my train to come, eating some crackers and drinking some water. The baby sitting a few seats down from me is precious and I wish I could take a picture of him but I feel like that may not be the best idea. They just announced my train platform so now I’m rising up one of those cool flat escalator type things to get there. I just got to my seat: Coach 14, seat 54. Oh nice! When booking my ticket online I made sure to choose a seat next to the window, unfortunately this is what I got:
Oh well, I tried. Off to a great start. 

Update: my ears are popping. I’m about to go through the underwater tunnel from England to France.

So I eventually made it to Brussels. Right now it’s 9 at night and my first day here in done. It was surprisingly easy to get from the train station to my hostel. The hostel itself is pretty nice and very clean, which is always comforting. Since the hostel is in the process of expanding, my room is actually in another building than the reception, food, and wifi. I’m really roughing it out here. When I walked into my room earlier I quickly saw I had three female roommates, judging by the bags around the room. I didn’t meet them though and I actually still haven’t seen them. How mysterious. 

So after I checked in set myself up in my room, got my maps and everything together, and set off for my hop-on-hop-off tour. This was also surprisingly easy to find. On the tour I sat on the top of the bus with the open roof. The weather was sunny and pretty much perfect. Throughout the tour I saw tons of stuff:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I got off at the last stop of the tour to explore the historic and touristy area by foot. I saw Mannekin Pis (the statue of the little boy peeing), the Grand Place, and ate some Belgian fries, chocolate, and a waffle. I also made a point to hit up some souvenir shops.
 
 
Mannekin Pis!

Once the sun started going down I headed back to the hostel to shower and get my stuff together. Here I am now, laying in bed, feeling the little bit of sunburn I must have gotten on my cheeks. Tomorrow I plan on going to a flea market, the Museum of Musical Instruments, and a restaurant before I leave to meet my friends in Paris in the evening. Day 1 solo was a success. Onward!

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