brussels...baby.

last friday, after a manic day of work, i all-aboarded it on the train from b-town to londontown to meet up with my pal, sarah. i pretty much starved myself all day in anticipation for sushi that night. sarah tried sashimi for the first time and was surprised. i'll let her tell her tale on her own blog.

then it was back to sarah's flat for a short night's sleep of four hours. the taxi picked us up bright and early for 4:30am. we boarded the heathrow express from paddington and grabbed coffee after we checked in our luggage. only to realise that we were late and had to run to the gate to board the plane. whoops.

after the forty-five minute flight we landed in sunny brussels! a very nice man personally escorted us to from gare central station to our hotel. we did our best to communicate and then sarah and the very nice man discovered they could communicate via italian. result!


our hotel is hiding somewhere behind those trees. metropole hotel.

then it was time to explore.
grand-place square.

city museum in grand place square.

beer baby!

chocolate shop. the guy in the white shirt was luring customers in by offering free samples. sign. me. up.

st. catherine's church.

rene magritte museum. surrealist dude. he has a sense of humour. i like men with a bit of that.

day two.
chocolate museum.

yes, that is a countertop of melted chocolate. i want his job.

i wonder if this kid was really that happy. child labour anyone? the museum told the history of the cocoa bean and how it made it's way to europe. apparently, the english initially didn't like the taste of chocolate. they thought it was too spicy. typical.

we continued the museum tour and visited the beer museum. so old and cozy inside, we sampled some brews too.

manneken pis. the tourists flocked to this fountain.

waffle no. 1 of the day.

we wanted to go to bruges, but it was kinda crappy out, so we went to europe. mini europe.

just after i snapped this photo i excitedly said to sarah, i wonder if we'll see the canadian flag? then i stopped, turned and looked at her and said, whoops.

then the silliness began. introducing hayley, the viking.

the atomium. whoa. left over from the 1958 space age exhibit...or something like that. that thing is massive up close.

we saw a rock show too in mini europe.

there were buttons to push too. i liked that. i like pushing buttons. all sorts of buttons. buttons on telephones. buttons in elevators. my mom's patience buttons when i was a pipsqueak, the knitter's and literary genius' buttons when we watch suspense-filled movies together. etc. you get the picture. i like buttons. usually these played music when you pressed them.

so this is how the chunnel works!?!?! cool, i get it now.

3, 2, 1...

blast...

off...

more chocolate.

more beer. the hotel had a mini fridge...and it was free! hello stella!!!!!!!

view from hotel room.

taking advantage of the lighting...this is serious business. i think i have smiling with your eyes mastered. tyra would be proud.

jazz festival at night.

brussels dish...steamed mussels and frittes. yummy yummy!

grand-place square at night time.

waffles no. 2. it was not a low carb trip.

back in londontown with sarah. we went for indian before i took the train back to b-town. viva brussels!!!