Belgian Waffles and Belgian Chocolate, Eaten.
My trip to Brussels was awesome. When I told people that I was going there just for the weekend, they all asked me, "Why?". And my response was always, "Why not?". Why not indeed. It was cheap, I had time off work, and it's better than spending your weekend going out and drinking. (Not that I do that anyway)Friday 28th March 2014
I finished work at 1:30am and rushed home as quickly as I could. It was fucking freezing. Luckily I had packed everything before I left for work, so all I had to do when I got home was to charge my phone, and get some sleep.
I got an hour and a half of sleep and woke up at 4am. I hit the snooze button until ten past, then made myself get up. Dhalia was having breakfast, and I was making sure I had everything ready. We left at 4:30am and walked to Cardiff bus station. We weren't waiting long and we both managed to have two seats each to ourselves. I slept the whole way to London which was sweet. However, I discovered that going to toilet on a moving bus was incredibly hard work.
We got to London at 9:10am and checked in to get our tickets. We went and got a drink. I bought a mocha and a bottle of water. We then walked to our gate and managed to get on the bus straight away. Unfortunately we weren't able to have seats to ourselves this time, but we sat next to each other. It was going to be an 8 hour journey so I planned on sleeping. This was stopped by a very annoying beeping sound that went on whenever the bus moved. This made Dhalia incredibly angry as he searched for his earphones to block the sound out. He threatened to not go to Brussels if he had to suffer the beeping all the way there.
I fell asleep for half an hour, when we pulled into a service station. The driver was trying to fix the beeping. It wasn't really a problem anymore as everyone had gotten used to it, but I guess it must have been frustrating for the driver. Lots of the other passengers crowded around him offering their assistance, assuming that they all had some superior knowledge of bus beeping noises that the driver lacked. He then informed us that we were going to stop at some garage further up ahead so the beeping could be fixed. This pissed us all off.
We stood around a garage in Kent for half and hour while a bunch of mechanics attempted to fix the problem. When they were done, the driver called us all back and we were finally on our way, only to discover that the beeping hadn't actually been fixed at all, and stopping at this garage had been a complete waste of time. Me and Dhalia agreed that our driver was useless.
We finally reached Shepway, where we would be going through the Eurotunnel via train. However, when we got there, we were told that it was too busy, and we had to wait a few more hours until we could board. All because our driver stopped off to fix a minor beeping noise. Me and Dhalia went inside the small mall to get some food and coffee.
We got back on the coach at 2:45pm and headed for passport security, which was French-run. This was more time being wasted. The french police came and took all of our passports, then a short while later they returned them all back to us. We were finally allowed to head onto the train. It was quite weird, being in a coach, inside a train carriage. It was going to be a 35 minute journey, so we walked around the carriage for a bit until we arrived in France.
We arrived and we were closer to our destination. From here until Brussels it was just driving non stop, past fields. I watched everything go by, then when it started to get dark I shut my eyes.
At 8pm we finally arrived in Brussels. We pulled into the bus station at 8:30pm and got off with great relief. We had no idea where we were going, but followed Dhalia's map on his phone, which didn't really help much. There were loads of people out, sat outside bars and cafes, and the streets were very busy. We were starting to get tired, and finally made it to the hotel at 9:30pm. First Euroflat Hotel is where we were staying, and it was 4 stars. Sweet. We checked in and I took the last map on the desk. We were on the sixth floor, and our room was pretty damn sweet. We had a single bed each, a TV, a small kitchen area, free tea and coffee, and a mini-bar. We dumped our stuff and went in search of some food. We found a place called Le Vieux Saint Josse, where we arrived just in time before they stopped serving food. I had a Croque-Madame which was a grilled ham and cheese toastie with an egg on top. I also had a Bofferding beer. I think Dhalia had the same, and a glass of 'Judas', which he couldn't resist buying. The food hit the spot, and we then bought a coke each and sat outside.
We headed back to the hotel at 12, had a cup of tea, and both fell asleep watching Family Guy on BBC3.
Saturday 29th March 2014
I woke up at 7 and had a shower. The shower wasn't as nice as the one I had in Malta, but it was still nice. I came out and opened the balcony doors and looked out onto the city for a while. There was a small beam running through the middle of the doors, and was the only thing stopping anyone from falling out. Not that it would stop anyone from falling out anyway. Dhalia went for a shower while I watched a TV channel called ShortsTV. We watched an amazing animation called Flat World, then we left and headed for the town.
We had left our map in our room, and despite seeing loads of tourists holding maps, there was nowhere around that supplied them. We didn't really have a plan of what we wanted to do, but we knew we wanted to look at a few of the landmarks.
We firstly went in search of breakfast, and we had already decided that we wanted Belgian waffles. We found a small place that supplied them and bought one each. Mine was pretty tasty but filling. We were stood next to a group of American girls who sounded Californian, and they were really annoying. We finished our waffles and popped into a souvenir shop, and I bought a Brussels keyring. We then ended up in Grand Place, which is a big town square surrounded by magnificent buildings. We took a load of pictures and went looking for the Comic Strip Center. We couldn't find it anywhere, and ended up walking around all of Brussels, when we suddenly remembered that we needed to buy a plug adapter. We bought one and continued on our search. We eventually found the Comic Strip Center, despite there being no sign outside saying that it was there. Also, we realised that we had pretty much walked right past it about 45 minutes previously.
It wasn't that great if I'm honest. Tin Tin was the main attraction, and despite the fact that I enjoy comics, this museum just didn't interest me. We needed food so went in search of somewhere to eat. We walked down some cobbled side streets that were full of restaurants and extremely crowded. We decided on a place called Coin De Mer. It was 14.50 for a three course meal so we were sold. It was very nice inside, there was a little fire which made it look better. I had these breaded cheesy cakes for starters, which looked like fish cakes, followed by salmon, then a sundae for desert. It was very nice. We decided to take a slow walk back to the hotel afterwards. We had done a hell of a lot of walking already, and it was very hot. I had been filming and taking photos while we had been there.
We got back to the hotel and I immediately took a Coke from the fridge. It cost 3 Euros, but I really needed a drink. We took turns charging our phones while we watched ShortsTV. Dhalia went for a shower, then we went for a little walk and stopped at a small corner cafe called Le Franklin where we each had a coffee and sat outside. We were on a street that had four pizzerias on it. After looking at all the menus we decided on one called La Barca Blu. It was quite a small place and was full, so we were directed upstairs, where there was a lone man sat in the corner using his laptop. We sat in the opposite corner and waited to be served. We both chose a pizza, and mine was called The Bismarck, which must have been a reference to the Chancellor of the German Empire in the 1800's. Or maybe it didn't. It was a pretty tasty pizza. We left and decided to once again go where we went the night before. Dhalia had a coffee and I had a hot chocolate, which was the best one I have ever had. It was nice being able to keep sitting outside. It was, as I put it, "Very European".
We left and went back to the hotel, where we had a cup of tea and once again fell asleep to Family Guy.
Sunday 30th March 2014
This was our last day in Brussels. I got up at 8 and had a shower. I put the kettle on and Dhalia went for a shower. I started packing my things as I flicked through the TV channels, going through Magnum P.I and French Scooby Doo, before landing on RT. We left and I paid for my Coke at the reception and we left for our long walk to the bus station. There were lots of police driving around, and we saw a limo go past followed by a security convoy. There were lots of closed roads, as well as a marching band, Chinese flags, and Chinese tourists. We then realised that it was the day the Chinese President was visiting Brussels. Along the way, we popped into a chocolate shop (One of many) and bought some gifts, and I also bought myself a hot chocolate spoon. We then went into another souvenir store and bought a postcard each.
It took us ages to get to the bus station and we were completely worn out. We stopped at a Starbucks-style coffee shop and had an iced strawberry drink each, then went across to Panos, a cake shop. Dhalia bought some baguettes and I bought some pain au chocolat.
We got on the coach which left at 12:15. We were both pretty tired so we slept. Later on, we came to the French border control where we all had to show our passports and put our bags through the scanner. Then, for some reason, me and Dhalia were both body searched and had our bags searched. This took ages, and the rest of the bus were waiting for us.
We drove onto the Eurotrain and began our journey back to the UK. As we came into London, we saw how dirty and rough it all was, and with all the foreign travellers sat around us, I felt embarrassed and ashamed. The traffic was ridiculous, and we were certain we were going to miss our bus back to Cardiff. We got to London Victoria 5 minutes before our bus was due to leave, so didn't have time to grab any food or drink. And everyone was getting in our way so we were getting very annoyed. We arrived at our gate only to find that our bus was full, so we had to get on a less nicer, secondary poor man's bus, where there was nowhere to charge our phones and no little table in front of us. We both then decided that we hated London and that the next time we visited another country, we wouldn't come back on a Sunday.
We finally arrived in Cardiff at 10:20pm and went to Tesco for some food and drink, then went home. I was incredibly tired and worn out and missed Belgium. But it was all worth it. Brussels was a lot cleaner than the UK, in the sense that there was no litter on the streets, and the air was a lot cleaner. There were also no obese people that we saw, and everyone looked healthy. A lot of people there rode bicycles, and there were hardly any fast food restaurants in the city.
One thing I did notice in Brussels is that there are a large amount of zebra crossings, but were placed in between traffic lights, so could only be crossed when the green man was shown. Also, even when it was a green man, cars wouldn't always stop. They speak Flemish in Belgium, but French is also one of their main languages, and I slowly became accustomed to saying 'Bonjour' and 'Merci', which felt strangely pleasing.
I enjoyed Brussels and would highly recommend it. Au revoir and merci Bruxelles.
