Tuesday morning we woke up and had a cab waiting for us at the front of the hotel. They knew Sean Frendt was there, we're royalty. Except it was a Mercedes car that fit 4. we had 5. Luckily enough I got the front seat, being the biggest on the trip. Our journey back to the airport (I tried not to look at the meter) was nice and quick and we got on a plane to fly out to Brussels! Why Brussels you ask? We got cheap flights from Ryanair (Check list of good things they do from Ireland day 1, first one is price) and why not get cultured? We flew from Dublin to Brussels and quickly learned we were in the absolute middle of nowhere. Customs in Belgium was also really interesting. I was the first one to go through and the agent spoke little broken English. "How long you been here for?" in a French accent is his first question. My first thought "I'm at the airport dingbat I literally just got here." I respond by correcting his sentence and telling him I am staying 24 hours. Confusion strikes the agent and I tell him once again I am staying for a day to tour the city and leave. "Why you stay here," he asks. "I heard your waffles are good". I've confused the guy and he wants to check my return ticket. I oblige and he then wants to see if I have a credit card or not. I pull a card out and hold on to it firmly unsure if the cops there are dirty or not. I guess he was genuinely concerned that I was financially stable. After I made it awkwardly through customs (look out Americans, big bad Belgium doesn't want us cowboys) we found out we were seriously in the middle of nowhere. We had to take an hour bus ride from the airport to Brussels. This entire time we had no idea what to expect, we had no idea where we were staying, or what there was to do in the city. I was somewhat uneasy on the busride because it looked pretty much like the only thing they did was farm. But alas we got dropped off in Brussels, and took the metro (FYI they don't check tickets there, you don't have to buy them as we learned) to our stop. The confirmation email we received said "meet us the dutch tavern at 1:30 across the street from where you'll be staying". That's always a reassuring email, we didn't know if a wink and a nod would do but after we got to the city and got the keys from the _____ insert title here, we headed up to our apartment. I don't know how to put this in the best words, but I'll try my best. It was incredible. Seriously. We paid like 15 euro a piece and had an apartment that looked over the entire city with a huge deck, 6 beds and a kitchen. Yes, a full kitchen. We knew there was only one thing to do. Home cooked dinner. Before that though we headed out and did the touristy things, saw the one famous thing they had to offer a small statue of a boy thats holding his, with water coming out. It's a fountain. Kinda ghetto, i'm not gonna lie haha. We went and searched around all the truly beautiful buildings and made our second pit stop, a wafflery (a place that makes waffles dummy). It was cheap, and amazing. I loved it. We continued to walk around the entire city, taking in all the sight, and stopped in a local place to have a Stella and Hoegarden, two local beers. It's pretty fun to say you've been to the country the beer was brewed in. We then proceeded to the grocery store to all bring stuff to the table, literally. We purchased pasta, salad, bread (French, naturally), wine and guacamole (made fresh by Ryan). We spent probably 2 hours preparing an amazing dinner, the exact way we wanted it. It was pretty monumental. We ate our dinner and stayed up talking and having a few drinks. I have to say it was a top 5 dinner I've had on this trip. Every French dinner I had with Mere and Justin is a list topper but this Belgian dinner was amazing. It helped we could see the entire city of Brussels from the table...
Pics: The view from my room, the family dinner, the view from the deck, the Gran Plaza and the toddler peeing. I don't really get it either...
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