she knits. she purls.: Brussels, Belgium

Rail Ticket

I went to Brussels with Katie (my roommate The American) for the weekend and after a short (2 hr) train ride we arrived, me over tried from working all night and The American just tired from getting up so early and the train ride.

We arrive at the train station to a overly helpful (note a large dose of sarcasm) ‘information person’. We get into the metro and its filthy. I mean gross, piss smelling filthy. I thought, right, metro not the cleanest place in a city to start with so keep an open mind. We finally find the hotel; right beside the European Union, and I tuck in for a well needed nap.

We head to the Christmas markets, which we are quite excited to check out since we have read so much about them online and are apparently some of the best in Europe. WRONG, everything at the markets are either made in India or China which would be fine if they were Indian or Chinese Christmas items, they are not, furthermore everything is so overpriced that even if you did find something you liked you wouldn’t want to pay the obscene price requested for said Indian/Chinese item.

Huge Ferris Wheel at the Christmas market

Although I do sound like a real Debbie-downer, I did enjoy going to a new place, and I understand that you can’t love everywhere you go!

So lets end on a high note shall we. We did go on a great hop-on hop-off bus tour that showed us all the great sights, so it was great to see the Royal palace and the Atomium. The beer was also amazing, and so many to choose from. The chocolate was also good, for a girl who isn’t a big chocolate fan I was really impressed with the amazing quality of the chocolates. We also found the Mannequin Pis, which is literally a statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain. This is one of the main attractions in Brussels, the statue even gets festively dressed up throughout the year. Very odd indeed.