Brussels

Brussels day 1 Got to Brussels Thursday morning. The directions from the airport to the hotel that the hotel had given us were pretty unclear, so we decided to take a taxi. Not ideal because it cost a lot, but whatever.  At this point in the trip I'm so sick of traveling.  After we settled in at the hotel we took the metro to the center. As soon as we got outside it started pouring raining and it was really windy. It was about four o'clock at this point, and everywhere we went in to eat was only serving drinks. We finally found a restaurant. I got a roast beef sandwich that was pretty good. We walked through the rain to the longest shopping street in Europe. Torturous seeing as we couldn't really buy anything as it wouldn't fit in our suitcase. We went to a shoe store and found some really cute shoes that we came really close to buying. Resisted though. When we were leaving we passed a few waffles places - the whole city smells like waffles. It's ridiculous. They had a display of them and they were amazing looking. We split one with Belgian chocolate, bananas, whipped cream, and crushed peanuts. It was amazing. The waffles here don't even compare to the ones in America. Which, I figured out the next day is because they use dough, not liquidy  batter. We went back to the hotel and went to sleep early since it was so gross out and we were exhausted.    Brussels day 2 Woke up and headed out pretty early. We went to the Atoniam, which is some crazy looking structure built for Expo 58 held in Brussels. It's a big metal structure that looks like a cube of molecules. It's cool looking. We ate a strawberry and Nutella waffle on a stick while we waited in line. The inside was disappointing. They bring you up to the top first. The view wasn't cool. It's not in the center of Brussels so there wasn't much to see. Then you go to four or five different levels, and they basically talk about water conservation the whole time. It was lame. Next we went to the chocolate factory. It was little and cool. We got a few free samples of melted chocolate on a cookie, then we watched a demonstration of how they make it. It was really cool to see. I wanna try making it!  We also got as many samples as we wanted of some shells he had made. Then another guy explained the different types of chocolate - 90% cacao, 70%, 50%, milk, white, etc.  Little did he know, I'm already a chocolate connoisseur and just wanted the samples he was giving us of each kind. Then we walked around the top two floors. No one was up there, and they had samples of dark chocolate and vanilla caramel chips. We ate way too many. Then we left and went on a hunt for the best Belgian chocolate so I could buy some for señora. There were a ton of shops in the area and I think we went into all of them. We may have had a few samples in these too, but strictly so we found the best chocolate. I wasn't even enjoying the samples by this point. So we found the best place because they let you pick which ones went into the gift box, whereas a lot of places had prepackaged ones. The lady helping me didn't understand English well, and she starting making a box for me - which I did not ask for.   So when she was done packing all thirty chocolates I told her I didn't want it, and kind of snuck out. Whoops. She wasn't very happy. After going to a few more shops though, we realized that place really was the best. So I sucked it up and went back in. I had someone else wait on me, and while the guy was filling the box for me, she told him was had happened and just glared at me. Oh well, I got to pick the ones I wanted this time. It's kind of funny because the descriptions were in French or German, so I didn't really know what they were anyways. That's one thing I didn't expect in Brussels, they speak German and French. I was expecting German, but I heard mostly French. Now that I think of it I didn't hear any German really, but everything was written in both languages. Even the street names and train stations had two names. It was a little excessive. After the chocolate hunt we needed real food so we got falafel. Of course it was everywhere here even though we couldn't find it in Istanbul. It wasn't as good as the one we had in Istanbul, but it was still really good. Then we went to the comic strip museum. It was pretty boring, especially since the comics were in French. Some of it was cool, like seeing the original drawings of comics and stuff. Then we went shopping. I successfully found some really cute and comfortable wedges - they're pink and I love them. I also found the exact backpack I had in mind, and it matches the shoes! Then we went and got waffles and smoothies. They made the waffles fresh here (most of the places make them fresh but have them sitting there and heat them back up in the waffle iron).  This is where I saw the waffle dough being used. We shared two. A strawberry Belgium chocolate and a Nutella banana. Both were amazing. And I got a mango coconut smoothie that was delicious as well. Everything in Brussels, well all of the stores and museums, close around 6. So we went back to the hotel and got some sleep before we had to catch our cab at 430. It ended up costing us 177 euro!! Ridiculous. So worth it for all of the chocolate and waffles we ate though. I'll never be able to eat a waffle in the US again.