Thursday: Thursday afternoon, I headed over to part dieu to take the Rhone Express to the airport. Dana and I got to the airport pretty early so we had a little time to hang out in front of the gate before our flight. We had planned to buy some food in the airport to have for dinner since our flight took off at 6:50pm and we knew we wouldn’t make it to the B&B for quite a while. But, after getting through security, there was pretty much nothing near our gate, so we just figured we’d find something in Brussels. We had an easy and pretty quick flight to Brussels and arrived early at 8:00pm. We headed off the plane (which was pretty much empty – on 25/100 seats were taken, which I swear I haven’t experienced on a plane since I was 10), through the rather large Brussels airport and down to the bottom floor to find the bus we needed to take to get into the center of Brussels. We headed outside and found the bus stop with a ton of people standing around it, so we figured that it wouldn’t be that long before the bus arrived, especially since we knew that the bus was supposed to come every half hour. However, it took 45 minutes before the bus arrived and then we waited around about 10 minutes before the bus left. After about 15 minutes on the bus, we realized that we had forgotten to ask anyone before getting on the bus to make sure that this bus went to the main train station in Brussels. Unfortunately, we found out that we had screwed up and that the bus didn’t go exactly where we wanted it to. So, once the bus finally arrived in the center part of the city, we had to get out and take the metro to the main station so we could take the tram to where we were staying. By this point, we were absolutely famished and decided we needed to find somewhere to eat near the central station before figuring out the tram. We asked a bunch of people and were told that there were a ton of places just outside the station. We walked out and found a few places, however, none of the places where still serving food (it was only 10:15pm – not that late to eat in Europe!). We were frustrated, exhausted and starving and decided to walk to the other side of the station. We still saw nothing and I decided we should try to go into a hotel and see if we could find anything to eat there. We walked in (10:31pm) and they told us that the kitchen had just closed but that we could order some snack-type food at the bar. We were just thrilled to have found something. We lucked out and the “snacks” were actually real meals and we had some delicious tortellini with vegetables. Honestly we were just thrilled to have food at all. Once we finished it was pretty late, so we decided to take a taxi to the B&b since we were getting a little nervous about walking around at night. We got to the place, said hi to Heleen and went to bed because we were so tired. We were happily surprised by the amazing quality of the beds that we had given that we had found the place for a pretty good price.
Friday: Friday morning we had a lovely breakfast with fresh croissants at the B&b then we headed out to try to take a tour of the EU parliament. Unfortunately, all the tickets for the tour had been sold out half an hour before the tour was scheduled to start, so we weren’t able to take the tour, but we did head over to the Parlementarium which is an interactive exhibit explaining the development of the EU and the different agreements and parts that make it up. It was a really fascinating exhibit and had some really cool technology incorporated into it. After that we walked over to the Cathédrale des Sts-Michel-et-Gudule. We had read in our guide that this was a pretty boring church compared to many others in Europe, but we decided to check it out anyhow. Once inside, we were pleasantly surprised – it was a really beautiful Church and it was built in a different style from many of the other churches I have seen so far in Europe. There was also a really cool crypt under the church that housed remnants of previous churches that had been built on that site which was really cool. After that, we wandered over to the main Market square to find a place for lunch. We eventually found this adorable little Italian place where I had Cannelloni for the first time in my life. I had Cannelloni a la Bolognaise and it was melt in your mouth delicious. I always get full before I finish a plate of food, and I just wished I had had more room in my stomach, it was that fantastic.
After lunch, (Dana and Heleen rolled me out of the restaurant…jk) we headed over to check out the gorgeous Market square. All the buildings on the square were fabulously ornate and we decided to check out the Brussels museum. There was a really interesting history of Brussels as well as a very cool exhibit showing the Manneken Pis wearing all sorts of traditional costumes from all over the world. After that, we found our way over to the Chocolate Museum, where we had a great mix of learning, watching and tasting. There was some great information on the production and processing of chocolate, followed by a really interesting demonstration by a chocolatier on the production of pralines, followed by tasting of many different types of chocolate. After the museum, we wandered over to see the Manneken Pis (which was a bit disappointing because he was dressed up in a Dracula outfit) and ended up exploring the many chocolate shops in the area. At one of them, we met this really nice girl who is planning on going to Seattle next year to study and who definitely gave us more free chocolate to taste than we bought. We had a fantastic time talking to her and trying many types of chocolate. Next, we ventured over to check out the Bourse (the stock exchange) and tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the guard to let us go inside. After that, we took the metro back to where we were staying and spent some time at the internet café across the street so that we could plan our day in Bruges for the following day. After a few hours, we were starting to get hungry and decided to go a restaurant around the corner for dinner called Brasserie La Renaissance. I had a wonderful tomato and mozzarella salad and I tried Dana’s mussels (a Brussels specialty) and decided that I certainly don’t hate them and that I might even like them.
Saturday: After another restful night, we woke up early to eat some breakfast and take an early train to Bruges. Bruges is a quaint little town about an hour northwest of Brussels by train. We arrived in town and headed over to the main Market Square to climb up the Belfry (bell) tower. While we were in line, Dana saw one of her friends from a summer program during high school that is currently studying abroad in Brussels. It was really such a bizarre thing but an awesome coincidence nonetheless. We climbed up the 366 steps to the top to see a gorgeous view of the adorable town of Bruges. 
After we climbed down we walked a bit more around the Market square before deciding to find a place for lunch. We found this little café on one of the side streets and I had a wonderful Caesar salad. It was really funny though because they gave me almost as much cheese as lettuce, so naturally, I left most of it on my plate and was scolded by the waiter; a pretty funny experience. After lunch, we headed over to Burg square to see the outside of the ornate town hall and to go inside the intricately decorated basilica of the holy blood, which is said to possess a vial of Christ’s blood. Once inside, we decided that it was a necessary experience for us to wait in line to see the vial. Once we got up to the front, we felt super awkward, and were certainly not convinced about the authenticity of what they were claiming to be Christ’s blood, but nonetheless, it was an interesting thing to see. After that, we headed down to the canals. We walked around a cute little market on the banks of the canals and then we took a canal cruise in a little bit. At one point during the ride, one of bridges we went under (44 total on the 5km of canals) was so low that we had to rebalance the weight in the boat in order to fit under it. 
After the lovely canal cruise, we headed over to see the Church of Our Lady, which is famous for housing one of the only statues of Michaelangelo’s to ever leave Italy – a Madonna. However, after seeing the beautiful church, we decided it wasn’t worth their prices to go in and see the statues, so we headed on to the Diamond museum. Bruges was a major center of Diamond trade during the middle ages before it was taken over by Antwerp and then Brussels. We learned a ton about the history of diamond trade, about diamond manufacturing, etc… It was a really interesting museum and I really enjoyed it. After that, we wandered through a bunch more chocolate shops on our way to try to check out an 18th century Almshouse, but unfortunately, it had just closed before we got there. At that point, we decided to go explore the Minnewater (lake of love) that was gorgeous and also a super serene and peaceful place to pass some time on what turned out to be a beautiful day. After that, we wandered around a bit more through the little streets in the town before going to the Gruuthuse Hof for dinner. I had an absolutely delicious root vegetable soup, followed by a perfectly crispy yet mouthwateringly moist pan seared filet of salmon with a salad and fries, followed by homemade vanilla ice cream. A lovely dinner to finish off a fantastic day. 
After that, we got back on a train to Brussels. At one point during our train ride, the guy behind us asked if there was any chance that we had any gum. After giving him some, we ended up talking to him for a while. It turns out he is from Ohio and since Seth is considering Case Western for law school, we ended up talking for a while about his views (not so positive) about Cleveland. After that, we were joking around and he asked if we wanted to see the awesome thing that he had purchased that day. He pulled out this hilarious little keyboard that you blow into in order to make noise. It was super funny when the guy behind us turned around and said in a fantastically awful accent “oh, oh, so you like to blow.” Such a funny train ride. We were distracted and so barely made it off the train in time at our stop at Midi train station. Once we got off however, we didn’t recognize where we were and were pretty lost. We ended up going up to this old lady and asking her what train station we were at (we certainly sounded pretty stupid) and she ended up helping us find where we needed to go in order to find our train to head back to the B&b.
Sunday: Sunday we woke up a little later and had a nice relaxing breakfast. After that, we headed over to the Market square for the tour of the Town hall. We had been told earlier in the week that the tour was scheduled for Sunday at 10am, but once we got there, the tourist office told us that it was actually at 2:30pm. We decided to try anyway, and they were wrong, so we ended up taking the tour at that point. Luckily we decided to ignore their advice and check it out for ourselves. The tour was really interesting and I learned a ton about the history of Belgium/Brussels. After that, we spent a bit more time in the square and bought a few souvenirs. At this point, we realized that we had still missed out and eating Belgian waffles and decided that it was time to remedy this issue. I had a fantastic waffle with strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate. The waffle not only lived up to my expectations, but it surpassed it (except for the fact that we didn’t really get a fork to eat our incredibly messy waffles with…haha). 
After that, we hopped back on the metro to head out to the Atomium, which was built for the 1958 World Expo. After making it through some long lines, we headed into the Atomium. We went through 5 layers of fascinating history about the World Expo and about the construction of the Atomium and other buildings for the major event. After making our way through the exhibit we headed back down to take the elevator to the top of the Atomium to see a beautiful view of Brussels. 
Next, we headed over to check out the Basilica of the holy heart which we had heard was built in a beautiful Art-nouveau style. Unfortunately, it was closed (it surprised me that a church would be closed on a Sunday…), but we took some beautiful photos as we wandered through the park in front of the church and had a delicious lunch at a little brasserie nearby. Next, we headed back to the B&b to grab our stuff and head over to the airport. We left ourselves much more time than we needed given Dana and I’s experience getting from the airport into the center of Brussels. We, however, had a relatively easy time and made it back to the airport by metro and then by bus and through security in under an hour. After that, we had some time in the airport to do a little bit of work before our short plane ride back to Lyon.
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