Meanderings

So today, I woke up at 12:30, had a wonderful breakfast of cereal, chamomile tea and a clementine.  I fiddled around with my computer, talked to my parents, and got dressed.  This time I took the subway to the right stop, but only after getting a chocolate bar with whole hazelnuts out of the chocolate vending machine.... Yes, all it had was chocolate. =]

Went to Marion's hotel, helped her pack, then went out to the grocery store, where I got kinder eggs with smurfs, and some necessities.  Then we walked around, seeing all the little stores.  I found an adorable skirt, and then we went and saw Manniken Piss... Which is the famous statue of the little boy peeing. It's literally a foot and a half tall, if that.  On all the surrounding streets are little shops, tourist traps, and chocolate stores....  With every possible combination of chocolate and fillings and fruits you could ever imagine. Plus lots and lots of chocolate sculptures, mostly of Manniken Piss.

We went to a delightful restaurant across the street from the fountain, where I had a wonderful bowl of broccoli soup and an apple beer. I know, you wouldn't really think of it as being really good, and it wasn't a cider, but it was fantastic.  I had laughed when there was cherry on the menu, but at this restaurant, there was apple and peach and pear and a whole bunch I couldn't translate. 

The really cool thing about restaurants here is that it's a conglomeration of two-person tables all smushed together, so you're basically sitting at a huge table with a whole bunch of people.  And this isn't just the small places, it's everywhere.  So we came, and we sat between two couples, both wrapped up in their own lives.  Then they left, not at the same time, but one couple sat down to my left and then a bit later two guys sat down to my right... speaking English. They spoke to us.  Turns out they're from the Netherlands, work in computer technology, lived in the states and Israel and all over, and want to take all us Clemson students to tour and show us around.  One of them was a member of Chabad, or the orthodox temple, and offered to take me to services. Basically it was really cool. 

Sitting in this cramped little restaurant in downtown Brussels, I heard English with many different accents, French (of course), Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Finnish, Chinese, and some others I couldn't identify. I was astounded. In the shops, Marion and I were speaking in Spanish to discuss what we wanted, and the shop owners started talking to us in Spanish. It was intense. Everyone here knows at least 4 or 5 languages. 0.o

So after dinner, we shared a waffle with bananas and heaping globs of nutella. Oy, vey was it amazingly good.  We walked back and went to get hot chocolate after a bit, and met a friend of Marion's whom she met at Toastmasters, and for whom I'll be babysitting for in the next 4 months (hopefully).  We took Marion to the bus station, and I grabbed a bus back to my apartment.

All in all, I saw a lot of downtown Brussels and learned my way around Gran Central and St. Catrine (Catherine) areas.  A lot of walking, a lot of wandering, and getting a little bit of a grip on how things work here.

My apartment is fantastic, but the heat sucks. Majorly. There's a thermometer on my clock... the highest it's read the entire time I've been here has been 56.2... Right now it's reading 49.5. And that's with the heat constantly on as high as it will go and the door shut. Brrr. Anyhoo, time for bed; I'm snuggled up in a down comforter and two wool blankets. Goodnight.