Hey !
I'm just back from Brussels so let me get behind my computer :). Brussels was great. We left saterday morning and drove in about 2.5 hours to the hotel. We had made reservations through ns-travel who faxed us the route. But when arriving in Brussels the route-description sucked major "after the eight traffic-light turn to right and follow sign brockere". Ofcourse there was no turn to the right after the eight traffic-light and no sign. So we drove a couple of rounds through the center of Brussels, called the hotel on our mobile (we seemed to be near) and at the end a very friendly old inhabitant of Brussels who was just taking a stroll stepped inside our car and drove with us to the hotel (!!!).
We parked the car underneath the hotel and when we came at the reception, the guy there told us there was no reservation made for us and we needed a voucher. Yet it was told to us by ns-travel that they had faxed the hotel that we booked only one day before and wouldnt bring a voucher. After some discussion and my girlfriend (who luckily speaks french very well) called to ns-travel (luckily we had the number with us AND luckily it was saturday and not sunday) who spoke to the hotel-employee. It seemed that a fax was sent after 2000 the day before (on friday) and that was the problem: after 2000 the reception was closed and noone picks up any faxes anymore. So he went and got the fax after which we could go to our room. We choose the oriental styled room #147. The room was nice although a little bit smaller than we would have thought and a really really small bed. ( past night was really fighting for who could have the sheets ).
The hotel looks overall very well though : a nice inner-hall where a little "river" has been made with around that the restaurant. The elevators are the kind of
look-through-open ones (we figured out the we needed to push our hotel keycard in the elevator-slots to get them to work :) )
After 5 minutes of freshing up we decided to head to the city ! First we went to the building where Esmee had lived in for the period that she was doing her internship at the place. According to her it hadnt changed in the five years that she had gone and actually the same curtains were still hanging in front of the windows of this kind of
student-home. Then we went to the hotel were she had worked and she was really amazed that really nothing had changed at all to the place. Now it was time for
the touristic tour :) We went to see some building in the city, which looks a lot like amsterdam in terms of people. The building are more elegant though and there are
some large complexes like the royal palace ( the king was home but we didnt go visit him ) or the justice-place. We had some nice Belgiam frites and "FritLand", where
again (according to Esmee) the same people worked as five years ago, she really had this deja-vu feeling :).
On the central market they had build an ice-skating rink and there lots of children skating. The central market is really something you have to see when u go
to Brussels or Belgium : it is most impressive through it's wonderful old buildings with all kinds of ornaments. Then it was time for ... manneke pis ! I my mind
this famous statue would be on a large market or something, but actually it was just on a little corner. Ofcourse we made a picture with the two of us in front
of manneke pis ( ...err... "little guy piss" or something) :) We strolled around some more and then headed the the arts-museum which was really massive. We
choose the modern department and saw all kinds of famous and beautifull works. Each time i go to such a kind of museum i promise myself to really dive one time
or another into the arts and get to know all these names and styles and learn everything about compositions, colors, etc... It also seems that the older i get the
more time i enjoy just looking at these things. It must be true what Plato once said.
Now it was already an hour of five or six and we went to the 3 fish-streets, which are famous for all their fish-restaurants. You just have to go there when u visit Brussels according to my girl. We choose one of the restaurants and shook off the waiters in front of the other restaurants who offered their services. I forgot the name of
the restaurant but it was in the beginning of the street and quite large with a fire in the middle of the restaurant. I had some grilled gambas as entree ( boy it really is
difficult to eat these things, i worked with fork, knife and hands to get the eatable parts of it :), as main dish i had the mossels prepared in beer ( didnt taste any difference with the normal ones) but it was delicious, i always am fond of fish.
After eating we went to one of the oldest bars in Brussels ( according to my guide ) : the falstaff ( or so i think) and had a nice table at the window and six beers. It was time for the -evaluate-the-past-five-years chat, which was fun and emotional : "name your worst day", etc....
After this we went to hotel, had a not-so-nice-except-in-the-beginning-night because the bed was ok, but the sheets were not big enough and i snorred all night which gave me punches in my side every few minutes ( i always snore when i have drunk).
Obviously it took us some time to get out of Brussels the next day ( where are the signs ???) we saw some parts of Brussels , not intentionally but finally found the road to Antwerpen, from where we drove back home.
All in all a very nice day.
