BRUSSELS, Belgium

We had 8 hours in Brussels, and we did all we needed to do.

The trainride was only 1.5 hours, not even. So I got in a bit of a tiff with one of the conductors about how I had something on my ticket that I shouldn't have had. I don't know, I ended up paying yet another fine to the higher powers for me not fully understanding the language and beaureaucratic system. And this is why I have French Public Transportations.

We get to Brussels, realizing we're completely clueless, in the pouring rain, and lost. We end up in the wrong side of Brussels, where they don't speak anything but either Lebanese or Arabic.
Ended up finding our way over by 16th/17th century philosopher/saint/bishop Erasmus' House. Which was interesting. He had a LOT of books. And lots of people drew portraits of him. His gardens were lovely. And admission was only 1.25 Euros.

We Metro-ed it up over to the center of town. It was still raining. We found ourselves eating at this Mediterranean place, Olympus. Frites were excellent. Rain stopped. Explored more. We started walking by a lot of chocolate shops in this bustling little arcade.

At first Brussels wasn't that impressive. I didn't understand what the big commotion was all about for the town. And then we found it. Le Grand Place. We all stopped and Wow-ed (simultaneously, of course). Simply stunning. One of those moments where you really, truly want to just take a massive portait picture of everything you can see in 360º. Hôtel de Ville, Musée de Bruxelles...compeltely gothic buildings just dripping with details. Magnificent, truly.
We gawked there for a while before we went anywhere else.
We then found our way to the Museum of Chocolate (yes, there is one in the world). This alone put me in pure euphoria. We got to sample lots of free chocolate, too. The museum itself is really low-key, low-technology, and très petite, but I was pleasantly contented nevertheless.

Then off we went to sample all of the nearby chocolateries of their chocolatey goodness. There was this nice strip of chocolate shops nearby the museum, so we continued to stuff our faces with delectable Belgian joy. It was great. I bought a kilo of chocolate, by the end of the day.

We shopped for a few hours. And we gawked more at Belgian waffles (gaufres for those who speak français). We aimlessly wandered for a few hours, where we happened to stumble upon a relatively large hilled plaza that had stairs up to the commerce section of the city. Though starting to lose our energy, we conquered those staircases and finally got up to the top of the Palais Congres. The skyline of Brusells from this area was great. Hotel de Ville sticks out like a huge needle over the rest of the city. I loved it.

One of the highlighted tourist sites here is a fountain statue of a child urinating (Manneken-Pis). It's maybe a foot high, but it gets a lot of hype. They even have an art gallery of clothing made for the statue. People loved it. I was noncommital about it.

But at nighttime, the Grand Place was absolutely breathtaking. See picture. The already beautiful buildings were lit up and glowing!
We ate dinner in a (and expensive) café in the Grand Place, and grabbed a waffle before running to catch my train home.
I'm glad I got to go to Brussels. But I think I wouldn't need more than a day to see it all.