There are no words, or pounds added, that can do justice to the incredible amounts of chocolate I ate this past weekend in Brussels. This weekend that originally started off as a cheap ticket on Ryanair, turned into a nightmare for our bodies to handle, but COMPLETELY worth every calorie. I travelled with four girls from the apartment below mine; we headed out on Friday morning at 5:30 for the airport, and got into Brussels by the time we took all the shuttles etc at around 2. We were all starving, so we dropped our bags, grabbed a hostel map filled with tips and suggestions, and went to the first recommended food stop -- a falafel joint called Mr. Falafel. Not exactly what I had in mind for Belgian/Flemish food, but hey, whatever works. It's was fantastic. Or should I say, it was a fantastic base for what came next.
We then started pa-rousing through Brussels. It's quite a small place; the city itself is walkable from end to end in about a half hour to 45 minutes, depending on how much chocolate/waffles/fries you've eaten. The city center is called Grand Place. This is where we started our Brussels experience. All around Grand Place are chocolate shops, and beer shops, and fries stands. We decided to go into all the cute stores -- BAD IDEA. As soon as it came to our attention that there were samples, there was no turning back. We made it our mission to test every store's chocolate. Ya, they all taste the same, which is FANTASTIC, but that was beside the point. On our first day, I think I must have eaten about 55 different samples, totaling about 10lbs of chocolate.
We then tested out the fries. They have a million different sauces in Brussels other than Ketchup. Most of them are mayo based, so again, we loaded up on empty calories, and took to the streets in search of some grease. They were pretty good not gonna lie. I'm not a fries fan, but they were pretty darn good. I got the sauce aux poivres (pepper sauce) mixed with Andalouse (no idea what the translation is or what it was made of) but they both were phenomenal!
Okay, food number three on the day was waffles. Duh, we're in Beligium, we're going to have to get waffles, regardless of how much crap we ate earlier on in the day. We all got icing sugar first, then returned later that night and got chocolate smothered waffles. UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE. I have never tasted something as heavenly. I'm done. I stop there.
Last but not least, we finished off our first evening with a little protein in the form of a pita/gyro (again more Greek food...no idea why) and then hit this big bar right around from Mannican Picc, a famous (but small) statue in Brussels. It was inpossible to sound out, or spell for that matter, so I took a picture and posted it below. Very cool place. Our waiter recommended some quality beers, and at that the night was complete. I had a brown-sugar beer, that basically tasted like apple juice/cider. As a non-beer drinker, it was awesome! Definitely quenched the ole thirst after the crap we'd eaten all day had made us all crazy thirsty.
Saturday, we toured Brussels with a friend of mine's great aunt twice removed... She's not sure how she's related to her -- her dad called the Belgian embassy in the States and apparently they have family lineage records in Belgium so they hooked up and this lady toured us around with facts etc. Very nice woman, she was really cute. Asking if we'd been to "all the sites" in Brussels -- I was tempted to say, "Oh absolutely, the 25 chocolate stores have all been visited" but I held back with that! We did go see the European Union buildings though (Brussels is the international headquarters for the E.U. government buildings). We also stopped in some cathedrals, and went into the Army museum and checked out some pretty old planes and stuff. Not my cup of tea, but the other girls thought it'd be cool to say they went to a museum in Brussels...so I tagged along, figuring at some point we'd run into a chocolate shop to do more testing, or a waffle joint. Great rationale.
Saturday night we headed to a French-ish restaurant. Massive let-down compared to the food in Paris, but let's not compare apples and oranges here. It was still pretty good. We then went to this bar called Delerium, which is famous in Brussels for young visitors. VERY cool place. I have never heard so many different languages being spoken in one place by young people. The bar was huge, different rooms all decorated differently with bohemian European stuff...totally chill place. They had a menu of, I swear, 200 beers. I'm not exactly sure how people pick, but the girls got the "house" beer Delerium. I was done eating crap at this point, so I held off on the beer idea. Good call on my part I think.
Sunday we headed back to Rome. All of us had sugar cramps I think. We looked like the most pathetic bunch traveling back! All of us had eaten more in those two days then we had during the month we've spent in Rome. Ugh disgusting to think about. But SO worth it. I came back and my disciplined self decided it'd be a great idea to maybe go for a VERY LONG run to burn off at least some of the calories I'd consumed. Another great call. Although I was a little worried I may not make it down the stairs of my apartment, I did, and it was a great finish to the weekend. I haven't stopped working out since haha! Everyday this week I have been motivated by the 18 million truffles I ate last weekend to go for runs and do some abs. I bought some truffles, but I'm sure they won't make it back home to actually share with anyone. So my sincere apologies in advance. I'm just being realistic!
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