Brussels: Even Better than Brussel Sprouts

 Hello and welcome back, I apologize for the short hiatus that was my final exam week. Don’t ask about it. This blog will recap my Brussels Trip that happened October 5^th-8^th. Plot Twist here, I didn’t go with Curtis! I know, I know. I ventured out of my comfort zone and found a new travel buddy, Hannah, who was equally as great.

With one 7-11 strudel in my belly and severe lack of sleep, Hannah and I headed to the airport early Friday morning.  There’s one thing you should know about me when I travel. Every single trip I have relied on Curtis for directions. My google maps often does not work (my location finder throws me in the middle of the ocean every time) and being the millennial that I am, the idea of using an old fashioned map is just about as horrendous as the idea of looking in an encyclopedia instead of googling something. No thank you.

Unfortunately, Hannah is much like I am. That means, when we got to Ryan Air’s landing spot, Brussels Charleroi, we had no clue how to get to the bus stop. Instead, we paid 17 Euros for an express bus to Brussels. In all fairness though, Charleroi is in the middle of nowhere and the express bus was conveniently located right beside the transit ticket machine that we could not understand. As they say in marketing, the most 3 most important things are location, location, location. This bus station is a prime example.

Once arriving in Brussels it was a half an hour walk to our hostel, or a 17-minute train ride. Given we were tired and hungry, we opted for the train ride. Bad, bad choice. It took us 45 minutes to at least to figure out transit in Brussels. I even speak French, and we still found ourselves on the platform of a train to Amsterdam at one point!

We arrived at our hostel, absolutely famished at 3:00 PM. The manager who checked us in said we’d probably have to buy a lock for 5 euros, because there was no way our one complementary lock would hold both our things. Jokes on you Manager. Check the photo below. #TravellingonaBUDGET. I googled “cheap food near me”, my most googled term this month, and found ourselves at a cheap noodle bar in the town. On our way to this noodle bar, we stopped in Brussels Square. It was absolutely breathtaking. Belgium, of all the travelling I’ve done, had the most beautiful building. Enjoy the terrible panorama I took below. We then took a walk to Cinquantenaire. Here’s the down low on the park:

“The Cinquantenaire … site is comprised of a vast set of gardens dotted with monuments and museums. It is dominated by a triumphal arch with three arches.” – source

In essence it’s just a really beautiful park. Hannah and I were blown away by the arches, which happen to just be right beside their art museum. No one else was really blown away and we got some funky looks for being completely in awe, but look at it!

We decided to then walk back and grab a quick snack of 3 euro waffles and coffee. Such a W. Next stop: Beer Tasting Tour. This was easily the highlight of my trip. Our tour guide Maggie was hilarious! On top of that, she brought her dog Josephine! Anyone who brings their dog to anything is a true friend of the king. Dilly Dilly! (Please, tell me you get that reference) Maggie was really knowledgeable about beer. She taught us about something I had never learned, Trappist Beer. If you’re also unfamiliar, “trappist beer is brewed by Trappist monks. There are only twelve monasteries … brewing worldwide” (source).

The first bar we went to, Hannah and I had “Chimay Bleu”, a Trappist beer. The most dangerous thing about Brussels is not the pickpockets, or the fear of beg buds in your hostel, but the fact that their beer is 9%. Absolutely deadly. We tasted and learned a bit there, and also played ice breakers with our group. Then we headed to our second bar where we tasted three other beers. I can’t say they were all delicious since one was definitely a sour. We quickly made friends with two guys in their 20’s travelling as well and decided to go get fries with them. I suggested splitting fries, but we ultimately each decided to get our own cone of fries. I will never eat fries again. I am still full from that meal. I have no regrets though, since the fries were absolutely delicious.

We then decided to do a self-guided pub crawl. The streets of Belgium were alive as ever, and we hopped around from bar to bar, drinking beers, chatting and enjoying the company. It was pretty cool to see that Hoegaarden and Leffve Brun and Blond absolutely dominated the beer game in Belgium, being widely available and relatively affordable. My AB- In Bev Pride was thriving a little. We headed back around midnight, since we had a 7:30 AM bus to Antwerpen to catch the next day.

Day 2:

I am that terrible person whose alarm wakes you up at 6:30 AM in the thirteen person shared hostel room. I am sorry. Bright and early we got on our way to Antwerp. To be completely honest, we hopped on that bus with no plans of what the day entailed. I know. Totally not a Mira Move. But, as they say, “the best things happen outside your comfort zone”. I really don’t think whoever said that was referring to not planning your days with excel sheets, but regardless.

Hannah and I ducked into a café to plan our day. Lucky for us our Barista, who we asked for tips, gave us at least ten recommendations! She wrote them all down for us on my phone, giving us the total insider scoop on Antwerp! As a total tourist, often time locals are annoyed with us and it was really nice meeting such a kind and friendly stranger. With a rough list of things to do, Hannah and I started our adventure in Antwerp.

Stop 1: Cute Part of Town that the Barista Recommended (think Cobble Stone and Hipster Shops)

Hannah and I window shopped and walked through a particularly hip yet old part of town. The Barista mentioned this was a bit of a hidden gem. She mentioned many people think only to shop on the big street full of stores like H&M, Primark, Pull and Boar and Uniqulo. While we are both two broke students who don’t have money to shop regardless, it was nice to just walk around.

Stop 2: We then walked to Cathedral of Our Lady, which is situated in the Grote Market of Antwerp. I am not going to lie, we got lost. Seeing the church was worth every minute of unnecessary steps we took, it was breathtaking. While neither had euro’s, so we were unable to go in, the outside was still unreal. Check out the photos.

Stop 3 (Multiple Locations): Chocolate tours are like $40-$70 CAD. No thank you. I can get at least 30 packets of ramen with that. Hannah and I decided to do a self-guided chocolate eating tour. We stopped at 3 different chocolate shops, testing a chocolate or two at each one. This was such a cheap way to taste the chocolate, the chocolates were about 1 euro each and we had about 4/5 total! To top it all off with a bang, we ended at what is considered the “best chocolate shop” in Antwerp. They have won numerous awards and are known for their interesting chocolate concoctions that all taste delicious. Their flavours include: Wasabi, Maijuana, Paprika and many more that make you raise your eyebrow with both disgust and intrigue. At that shop we each tried one for ourselves and shared one that won a world renowned chocolate award, it was Yuzi and Raspberry flavoured. To be brutally honest, it tasted like normal chocolate that was yellow with jam in the middle. An underwhelming experience to say the least. But the other chocolates I tasted. Well, I still think about those to this day. They appear in my dreams.

Stop 4: We decided to grab some cheap burrito’s and beer and hit the floating dock that the barista had recommended. I was so content. The sun was shining, I had a Stella in one hand and a burrito in the other. Truly living my best life.

We had done almost everything on our list, but still had a couple of hours to kill. For those hours we shopped, wandered, and nestled into the square with some coffee to people watch and chat. It was a lovely day.

That is, until we got back to our hostel. Why the sudden shift in tone? Well, there is a story I forgot to mention. The night earlier, during our beer tasting, there was a man who was also sitting near us and our new friends. While this man seemed well intentioned, he came off as very creepy and made Hannah and I a bit uncomfortable. After asking to put his number in Hannah’s phone, her phone died. She woke up to multiple messages the next morning asking where we were the night earlier. Yikes. A bit of a red flag, but we would never see this man again so it was okay. Or so we thought. As we enter our hostel, there he is, on the bunk bed beside ours. Y I K E S.

After our luxurious dinner of bread and pasta, we headed to the Delirum Café, which has a Guinness World Record for having over 2,000 beers available. We met the nicest group of students from Greece who we spent the night with! After another night full of great company, beers, and sharing stories of our home countries, we headed back to our hostel. Thankfully, creepy man was leaving the next morning.

Day 3:

Final day baby! We slept in this day, because we were dead from constantly waking up early and being out late. We decided to just walk around the town, to see Mannekin Pis, and eat waffles in the early half of the day. We had planned to go to the Stella Artois Brewery in Leuven. However, I did not know that you had to book the tickets in advance. When I woke up, there was only 1 ticket left for the tour in English at 3:00. I called Tourism Leuven and begged, in which she said “it should be fine, just tell them I said so when you get there”. That was definitely kind of sketchy, given she gave me no details, like for instance her name. Regardless, we made our way to Leuven. I should mention, in true Hannah and Mira Style, we got severely lost getting there, Hannah got coaxed into buying 5 Euro post it notes from Belgian girl guides and we ran 1.2 km in a parka after getting off the train to make it in time, but we made it to the Stella Tour. With one ticket. The tour guide was not impressed with my story, telling me he had capacity for 30 and to wait till he did a head count. Luckily, one guy on our tour had an extra ticket and sold it to us. Bless that man.

The tour was super informative! It was really amazing to see the facilities, and I was absolutely blown away with how much beer they can brew. The best part of the tour was the tasting at the end. They had free time with a pretty well unlimited bar and THEN to top it off, gave us goodie bags with three full size beers in them. We got 5 beers from an 8-euro tour! Talk about bang for your buck. We decided to walk around Leuven and ran into the most beautiful square I have seen yet. Check the photos, you cannot disagree with me.

We headed back to Brussels, got some dinner at the cheap noodle bar, and took in the square one last time before heading to the airport. We also decided to sleep at the airport, given we had a 6:00 AM flight. This was a poor idea. The man beside us watched his Netflix on full blast all night. In Spanish. Enough said about our sleeping situation. All in all though, it was a great trip.