Travelling.

It’s the feeling you get when you order hot chocolate at Starbucks, the man asks for your name and you answer: “Clémentine,” and hi says: “Oh, yes…” because you do it every day. When you feel so sorry for the dogs belonging to the man begging on the corner that you buy them food. That’s when you’ve fallen for a city and started to make it your own. That’s when the real journey begins. When you smile and they smile. When people in the little shops knows what you’re going to buy, before you buy it, when people come over to talk to you randomly on the street, when everything’s new and you need help to explore. This is when the journey begins. Love.

Mari Clémentine

Sweetest museum ever - Brussels

I sat in the sofa in our apartment and opened my eyes for the third time or so looking at the rain tapping the window. It hadn’t been raining the entire day, but it had been raining and I had gotten rather wet.

     It turned out our last day was a perfect day for museums and we started our morning at the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate, which is located just of Grand Place and is just okay until the demonstration of how they make chocolate making it great. The boy doing it was so cute, and had such a horrible French accent it made everything super sweet – and we also got to taste! Hallelujah!

    We continued on to The Belgian Comic Strip showing us strips and stories of writers, the strip itself and different series. So as you may know both Tintin and the smurfs are Belgian and we had rather a lot of fun there.

    Next up: We’ve been chocolate shopping. It was the last thing we needed to do before leaving, cause as everyone knows: Belgian chocolate is the best. The only thing that remains now is to pack our bags as we’ll be heading home tomorrow morning and thank everyone we’ve met for a wonderful trip.

Mari Clémentine

Waffles and flats - Brussels

So yesterday I learned a couple of things:
1. Belgian waffles are really yummy.
2. The shops and museums here close waaaay to early (6 – 7 pm)
3. Don’t wear high heels if you’re not staying only in New Street.

I can’t say we did much progress with being cultural yesterday either, breakfast-coffee at Starbucks, chocolate tasting, Belgian Waffles at Grand Place and dinner at McDonalds. Well, we’re broke travelers, what can you expect?
    I did some more shopping and we were going to the chocolate museum, but as I now know it’s closing at 16.30. Who goes to a museum at 16.30 when the shops close at 18? I’m starting to sound shopaholic, probably because even though I write that I go shopping every day I haven’t really been buying that much. Well, well…

     It’s our last day in Brussels and lesson learned – no high heels. I rather wear flats because all of a sudden you’re walking a street that looks like this:

Mari Clémentine

Pasta Divina - Brussels

                                                  

Picture from TripAdvisor

So this post is really just me telling you all one more time that you should go to Pasta Divina, it's located in Rue de la Montaigne not far from Grand Place, and it's a quiet area. This italian restaurant is not big, but very cozy and has wonderful food. It's some of the best pasta I've ever tasted. Go there! The "mom" is in the kitchen cooking and the "dad" and "daughter" works as waiters. 5 stars!

Mari Clémentine

Much to do about nothing – Brussels

Seriously. Today I’ve done about nothing. We’ve been shopping for the first time in Brussels and we’ve been jumping from café to café eating macaroons and drinking coffee. Shopping. Shopping. Chocolate. It wasn’t until this evening the real fun started.

    We were just going out for dinner at a place called Pasta Divina, I had seen it the other day and really wanted some real Pasta Carbonara when we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a couple of restaurant-streets. We were more or less attacked by waiters wanting us to sit down, but the worst, funniest thing ever happened when we had nearly made it out and a man suddenly blocked our way holding his arms out. I, of course, ran right into them, getting a long hug and kisses on the cheek and goodness knows, but he wanted one more and all togheter I think we spent 10 minutes hugging, another one showed up offering us free drinks and then free everything, but I had set my mind on Pasta Divina and that is where we ended up. Thank goodness, because the pasta was divine. It’s a quiet place located in Rue de la Montaigne, ran by an Italian family with the mother in the kitchen. Lovely.

   Heading home I found bongo-drums, a street artist and a slightly drunk man, nice enough wanting to show off his political knowledge about the European Union. He also was black, against immigrants to Europe and called himself Tom Jones – enough entertainment for the night for sure.

    Point being: Go out after six o’clock and you’ll find yourself in a dreamland of entertainment if you come open minded and is up for anything. Let the city catch you,

Mari Clémentine.

Hard Rock Cafe - Brussels

So for lunch yesterday we went to Hard Rock Café, it’s all new and located just of Grand Place and is absolutely fabulous. It has a microphone-lamp and a great art-piece made out of guitars. The staff is very friendly and the food is delicious. I guess this one knocked Venice of the toplist, sorry Venice… Hard Rock nr. 12 was a great experience, a must-go-to in Brussel if you like it.

Mari Clémentine

Gare du WHAT?

Gare du Nord, Gare du Midi, so many train stations, so little time. Well, this morning I woke up early and immediately went to Gare du Nord, which is just up the street to get myself a Starbucks and check out the fares to Amsterdam as we are planning for a trip cross the border next week. The smell of coffee embraced me, the ticket machines didn’t and we ended up having to go to Gare du Midi instead. There we did find a timetable and a cute guy to tell us about prices and times and all was well this morning.

    The French style town of Brussels, who’s inhabitants probably don’t like me calling it French, I so cozy, so nice that walking through the streets is a nice activity in itself, even on Sundays and we even went to the viewpoint of downtown-Brussels right by Place Louisa. From there you can see both the Automium and Sacre-Coeur and it was truly wonderful. The sun was shining all day and on our way home we stopped by Paul to pick up a baguette and some macaroons. Perfect afternoon – check.

    We went out again, Brussels truly is beautiful by night, but only shortly to get some wine and eggs for dinner. So now it’s wine and The Hangover, with French voices, on the TV, what a way to spend an evening – haha.

Mari Clémentine

Drama in Brussels!

Omg, I’m in Belgium. As I walked down the shopping street it suddenly hit me, the smell of waffles, this isn’t my dear France, this is Belgium. Another thing hit me as well, I had left the camera at our hotel. Or apartment place. You know, nothing big, only for holiday-apartments located over an erotic shop with the reception… yeah, you guessed it, inside the shop. I feel so good going in that door all the time. Haha.

    We arrived in Belgium this morning and barely had time to buy a macaroon (ordered in French of course) before we had to get on the bus and our bus driver had a fight with a mad lady in French, English and Russian and then she spat him in the face and he ran off the bus and chased her down the street and… Well, I didn’t get much of it, but she didn’t get to take our bus. Oh, the drama…

 

   For the afternoon, just to get to know the city, we took a tour of Brussels. We went from Grand Place, the big square in the city center, to Atomium, a giant atom built for the Expo ’58 in the city, we saw the royal palace, the triumphal arc, a hundred museums from the outside and not to forget about ten churches. Oh! And then we went to a chocolate store and tasted and watched people make chocolate! Right now we’re working with plotting out were we most want to go and since we woke up at 4 am I guess it’ll be an early night.

Kisses from Brussels,
Mari Clèmentine

Picture of a City - Paris

I was walking around the Latin Quarter in Paris letting my eyes soak in everything I saw and the nose fill with the smell of autumn in the city of lights. As I had did in both, summer, winter and spring I told myself: “There is nothing more beautiful than Paris right now” and when I headed into the Jardin du Luxembourg with a Starbucks in hand, I knew I never wanted to be anywhere else. It wouldn’t help much in four weeks, but at that very moment I just sat down on one of the old green benches and watched students from LLG pass as they quit school. There is nothing a trip to beautiful Paris can’t cure and as I fetched my notebook I wanted to lock the moment inside the paper and I did.

  

So what has this got to do with everything? Well, I love Paris. And this was my experience last autumn, just running around the city of my dreams, writing and drinking hot chocolate, but now I’m going to Brussels and everything’s new… Wow, wow, 2 more days to go people! I’m so excited to just... not go to school. Yeah.

                                         

Mari Clémentine

BENELUX-autumn

Okey, so I've been knowing for a couple of weeks now that we'll be going some were this autumn, but I didn't bother writing to much about in case I choose to go to Paris again, as that would probably mean no blogging, but! As we absolutley can't aford going to Paris for autumn-break, and I absolutley can't stand having people speaking my own language louder than any other in the halls of Louvre, we choose to go somewhere new and unexplored: Brussels! They speak french, have the best chocolate in the world and belgian waffels! We're also taking a trip to Amsterdam while we're there and we might also go to Tilburg to visit a friend of mine! I've never been to either before, so I am superexcited!  Unfortunatley we don't have the time to go to Luxembourg, but it's still a benelux adventure, isn't it? So right now I'm spending my free minutes looking through guidebooks trying to decide wether to go to the Chocolate Museum or the Royal Palace first and should we eat at "La Tour d'y Voir" or spend all our money buying chocolate at "Mary"?  I hope you all will join me for my adventure in the capital of Europe this october!

Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris - Autumn 2011

Hard Rock Cafe - Brussels

So for lunch yesterday we went to Hard Rock Café, it’s all new and located just of Grand Place and is absolutely fabulous. It has a microphone-lamp and a great art-piece made out of guitars. The staff is very friendly and the food is delicious. I guess this one knocked Venice of the toplist, sorry Venice… Hard Rock nr. 12 was a great experience, a must-go-to in Brussel if you like it.