Belgium!

Alright, I'm in Belgium.  I made it safely.  My flights were fine.  I guess I updated shortly after my 1st flight whilst in London Heathrow.  Ok.  So. Upon arriving in Brussels, I was met by David and his friend Annick, who brought her car (how nice of her!).  MY ARM IS SO ITCHY!!  I gave Annick a big hug to say hello because I've heard so much about her.  I quickly figured out that's not how you greet people here!  It was funny.  Here, it is custom to give everyone (guys and girls) a kiss on the cheek the first time you meet them, and each time you see them afterwards.

We were dropped off at our house where I met David's roommates Fabian and Natacha.  Both of them are very friendly and their English is VERY good.  I have been trying to speak French as much as possible, but I'm still not 100% comfortable doing so because I know it's wrong or it will take me a long time to make sentences.  But, if I never try I'll never get fast, so I keep trying to go to French when I remember!

In case you're wondering, I will be putting pictures in my next post after I go out today.  I will have taken many.  Oh, the reason I keep complaining about my arm is that I am in day 4 of recovery after getting a tattoo last Thursday night.  It is healing quite nicely; the scab has formed and is dried up.  Tomorrow and for the next week or so it will peel and I won't be in pain anymore!

Right, back to my trip.  After we came back to the house, we played 2 board games which were fun and involved very little speaking so I tried to say what I could in French.  We also had tea or coffee... I can't remember, I was so tired.  Fabian has been making wonderful meals for us all.

The night I arrived was nuit blanche.  After having a short nap, we all headed out.  I had no idea what to expect, but after traveling to new places and meeting new people, I'm used to just blindly following people.  Anyway, it was BUSY.  We got a ride from a girl who's name I forget (I'm quite bad with names).  We tried to get into this one place but the crowd was huge and we decided to just walk around the city by night.  I saw weird things and I really wish I had brought my camera.  These weird things included people dancing in what looked like a big blob elevated about 2 metres off of the ground, but it wasn't levitating, it had a weird tail thing.  Anyway, we also saw about 6 potted plants in this building that had signs around them to "touch them gently", so we did, and they tweeted and sighed.

I tried my first 2 Belgian beers, but that was quite enough for me because I was tired and didn't want to make the situation worse.  One beer was an apple flavoured beer, made by the Lindemans Brewery in Vlezenbeek, Belgium.  It was very sweet - might have been really good with fish or something light like that.  The next I tried was called Jupiler and is the most popular beer in Belgium.  It was pretty standard.  We bought it from a store which I imagine was quite busy all day because it wasn't cold, so if it had been cold, I'm sure it would have been much tastier.

At the end of the night, we stopped by a french fry store (French fries were of course invented in Belgium!!!) and got some.  They were very good, but I didn't have much because I was pretty exhausted from all the traveling in the one day.

Sunday David, Annick and I went to a street flea market.  It was on lots of streets and reminded me of a garage sale, but huge and in Europe.  We bought a few games, and a teapot.  I also ate my first Belgian waffle which was delicious, it had this mysterious glaze on it that made it wonderful.  I also saw sea snails to eat, but I definitely didn't try those.  I will though, you know me and eating weird things.  If I can eat sannakji, I can eat anything.

After that, we went to pick up Annick's brother Gilles from the airport.  We took him home (he lives in a rural part of Belgium which was nice and open and reminded me of the area south of Rymal Rd. in Hamilton for instance) and had more tea.  This time vanilla.  After that we went to Annick's house, where I met her 2 year old and her 2 cats (I miss Pepper & Presley!).  After that we came home and Fabian made an excellent dinner for us and his sister who was visiting with her (husband/boyfriend).

That bring me to today!  I will go soon because this post was way longer than I had anticipated it to be.  Today I'm going for a walk and bringing my camera with me.  I'm going to a laundromat - a very popular one recommended by the tour book... joking!!!  I'm going there because I have clothes to dry and our dryer is broken!  haha.  Anyway, then I'm bringing those clothes back here and really going for a nice walk.  I'll go to a park not far from here, and also maybe to a museum that my Brussels book recommends that is also quite close.  Tonight's plan involves going to David's Mom's house for dinner.  I'm excited to see what a Belgian family home is like.  I'm sure it's just like ours and Annick's, but we'll see.

Alright, time for me to sign off, get dressed and head out on my adventure!

Buh bye!