Brussels. July 4

This morning we took the bus into town and had a walk around the old town of Brussels. We found our way the main square 'La Grand Place',  and found another wedding! We had a wander around the well-known streets, mostly full of restaurants all serving the same thing for waaaaay too much $$$, and also the beautiful glassed arcades full of (also overpriced) Belgian chocolate.
After a while we headed back to the station to meet Sally, the younger sister of Elise’s uni pal Sarah. Sally is half way through a year long exchange at a school on the outskirts of Brussels, and was a great tour guide for us! She took us to the main tourist attraction (which we had never heard of), ‘Manneken Pis’. Basically, it’s a small fountain, or stream of water, of a little boy weeing, that’s built into a wall near the main square. AMAZING I KNOW! As it was July 4, he was dressed in all U.S.A attire, which apparently is a thing they love to do. There’s a museum we opted out of seeing with pictures and examples of the many costumes of Manneken Pis'.
She also took us to rub the knees of some bronze lady. She didn’t know the story, but we did it anyway. It was weird. Not as weird as the popular ‘Australian ice-cream shop’, which is some very popular chain in Belgium. Why?

The square

Ultimate photoing #1

Ultimate photoing #2

The Manneken doing his thang

What are we doing?

V confused

Then we all got frites. By the way, fries are Belgian, not French. This actually makes sense if you think about it. But actually they’re just really good chips and not thin at all. And you can choose one of many tasty topping to go on them. We took our cones of fries to a nearby park to eat and chat in the shade.

Our food tour continued to a waffle store, where Elise tasted her first ever waffles! We shared a melted nutella waffle and another with melted chocolate and strawberries, and they were super delicious. We couldn’t finish them, sadly.

With some time to spare with Sally, she took us to one of the famous beer houses and we went downstairs to have a beer. It was pretty hot, and we were covered in a layer of sweat, but the beer was great! Elise had a local pale ale, while Ash and Sally had a cherry beer, which was both strange and yum.

Here we gooooo. First taste!

BEER

We left Sally after this and made our way back to the apartment where we settled into the apartment for the night, having dinner and again, watching OITNB.

Lots of love! A&E