So for my 21st birthday, Diana, Gulfem, and I decided it would be a wonderful idea to go to Amsterdam for the weekend to celebrate. Our day began at 7am when we hopped a train to Brussels for a day trip. We arrived in Brussels at about 9am and the train stations were packed due to the volcano who was busy messing up everyone's flights. We went to the tourist stand to ask for a map and after looking at the map for a few minutes, we realized that we had no idea what you're supposed to do in Brussels. We then returned to the same kind man who told us what museums there were to see and attractions. After weeks of traveling, we were all pretty certain that there would be no museums for us that day and we asked where the bars and the fountain was of the guy peeing instead.
By this point we were exhausted and hungry, so clearly it was time for waffles. Our first waffle (and yes I say first to imply there will be others later) was incredible. It was topped with whipped cream, fresh strawberries, and bananas. I am certain that I will never look at an eggo waffle the same ever again. We sat for at least an hour just digesting and resting in order to gain energy for the rest of our day.
First we decided to walk around Brussels a little bit to see what was around. We posed for pictures, excited by the idea that we were no longer in a city where people would recognize us and we could be as touristy as we wanted!
By around 10:30am we decided it was time to see the Delirium Bar. This bar holds the Guinness Record for the most beers, but most importantly, it has Delirium which is my favorite! We each had a glass of Delirium Tremens and sang rather loudly as the bar played old Beatles songs. We made friends with the bartender who then let us write our names on a dollar bill and hung it up on the wall.
After Delirium came the peeing boy statue. This was a huge disappointment because Diana and I had seen people's pictures from Prague and assumed that was the peeing boy statue in Brussels. Imagine the Prague fountain, but only 100 times smaller and behind an iron fence. What was more impressive, however, were the shops who hand crafted beautiful statues of the peeing boy made entirely out of Belgium chocolate.
The came the time for bar number 2 (thus starting our Brussels pub crawl). We had been dying to try this cherry beer called Kriek which ended up being the official beer of the weekend. We asked some random woman in a shop if she knew of a good place to grab a beer and she pointed some way down some street, so clearly we decided to just start walking down that street in the hopes that we would find something. We walked down some strange alley way with low brick arch over the entrance and found a little pub at the end. Normal people might assume that you should turn back and go somewhere more central, but that's not how our mind was working at the time. Instead we entered the cozy little pub and sat down for three Krieks. Little did we know that those three beers would be the best Kriek's we had all weekend!
After beer number 2 came french fries. Diana and I wanted to fit in so we got mayonnaise on our fries. One of our worst ideas of the weekend, but if you think that's bad, the guy next to us had a french fry sandwich with mayonnaise (that's right, french fries on a sub roll). After we downed our snack, we spent the rest of the day avoiding having to look at french fries ever again.
Then obviously, it was time for beer number 3. We walked into some random bar near the square which turned out to be a worse decision then the brick alley pub. We sat down, looked around, ordered beers, and then decided to realize that it was full of old creepy men and one wasted old woman with a cigarette in each hand. The beer was fabulous, as usual, but we didn't spend too much time lingering and decided to pay our bill and go eat mussels.
As we are walking down the mussel street (named by us due to the fact that the only type of business on the entire road were seafood restaurants), we are invited to come eat by every waiter standing on the street. Keep in mind that is only 4:30pm and we have to catch a train to amsterdam around 6. We choose a restaurant and are given our own private dining room with our own wood fireplace (aka the restaurant is empty and there is a fire next to our table). Our waiter gives us wine as a welcome gift after we have ordered another round of beers. He then lights a candle for the table and we decide that from now on we will only eat by candlelight. We order one place of mussels (so that we can say "we ate mussels in brussels") and speed eat our feast so we can make it back to the train.
But oh no, this is not the end of our meal. We decide that we need another waffle before getting on the train. Possibly our worst decision of the day- yes even worse than mayonnaise fries-and we get another round to eat on the way. At this point we are all sick to our stomachs, we pass out on the train, and then make it to Amsterdam just in time to tour the red light district and pass out.
No comments:
Post a Comment