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.

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