Brussels Weekender

Booking a flight and hotel very last minute, Gretchen and I decided to hit up another city and country--Brussels, Belgium; finely known for their chocolate, beer, and being the headquarters for the EU..Getting in mid-day on Good Friday, we somehow made it into the city by bus and found ourselves right next to the EU Headquarters! Since neither of us had figured out what we wanted to do we stopped in a coffee shop where we struggled a bit with our language barrier (they speak either French, German, or Dutch in Belgium..no real official language or such thing as Belgish).

At the EU Headquarters they had every language of members in the EU listed on these plaques, I'm pointing at the English one of course.

After our mini adventure to the closed EU Headquarters (unfortunately we didn't see any important delegates or working people), we began wandering to where we thought the "Grand Place" square was. In the wandering journey we passed the old castle; the gardens were spectacular in the front of it and reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

We made our way through the park, down a windy street to the Central Rail Station which we thought would give us a good landmark to find other things from. Not going in with a game plan was an entertaining process and it was good luck we kept on stumbling onto other landmark locations. We first made it to what we thought was the Grand Place because it was a modest sized square with vendors and a handful of eateries. We popped into a corner restaurant because they had amazing looking Belgian waffles with fruit in the windows. We each ate a more filling meal; I had a croquet--because I'm addicted to this piled high fat layered amazing combination of flavors. Post lunch we kept on wandering and found 1. a giant cone and 2. an arcade with chocolateers and mini shops, very cute and bought some chocolate truffles!

After wandering more and more down a restaurant row where waiters were yelling their specials and trying to get us to eat in, we found our way to the ACTUAL Grand Place..of course we had been in the wrong spot and it was just around the corner from where we were. Good Adventure. We could definitely tell that it was the Grand Place because of the Gold finishings on the buildings and a building much like the Glockenshpiel Building in Munich.

Our next task was to find the "peeing boy" statue..which is actually a very small statue over a fountain of a little boy peeing...one of the staple tourist attractions of Brussels apparently. Later on we found some flavored chocolate peeing boy's in a chocolate shop; strawberry chocolate was delicious!

We walked around more to find the Museum of Chocolate and took a tour which was not that great but we did get a few free samples of chocolate and see a Chocolate making demonstration...in French..haha. All we could recognize was chocolat...chocolat..but after a while I thought I could actually understand some French.

Because we're cheap and needed to try the different beers from Belgium, we picked up three each to drink before dinner. I got to drink/taste:

• Belle Rue-cherry beer--definitely loved this one, sweet but scrumptious!
• Leffe Blonde
• Kasteel
• Bush
• Delirium Nocturium
• Tramboica

Besides this list there's a couple more we tried at a pub later and the next day. At dinner we went to one of the restaurants that was trying to get us in for lunch. We drank out of these unique glasses that Brussels/Belgium is known for too, it looks something like a beaker of beer. One of my co-workers drew it out for me before I went so I knew to ask for it.

Day 2: We made it to the Cathedral and walked a mile or so to another church/synagogue that wasn't open. Also we were going to try and make it to the "atom/molecule" building because the metro wasn't running :( The weather wasn't nearly as great the second day and between downpours we were getting around the city. Got my Belgian waffle finally mmm mm gooood. Had our last drinks before heading to the airport at a bar with funeral, skulls and bones decor. With barely an observable door down dark alley way, there was the bar in low lighting and a table with a skeleton under it. Gretchen and I got beers served in skulls!

I liked Brussels but it was definitely a place to go for a day trip. We came back for Easter Sunday in London

(The writing is definitely going downhill but I'm trying to get out the backlogged stories before I head out tomorrow for Milan, Italy and go railing around Bern, Zurich, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest!)

Afternoon Tea and standing in 2 hemispheres

Following an unclassy day out at "Church", Jen, Danielle, and I went to Kensington Palace Orangery for Afternoon Tea! This was after I spent the day down at Primark...land of discounted clothes (2 pound belts and they weren't awful). The Orangery was located in a wing of the palace and had nice trees/ shrubs

We each had our own little tea sets and trays of finger sandwiches, (the most amazing) biscuit, and lemon tart! It was nice that we didn't have to dress up-so unnecessary. Anyway, being the class act I am, I spilled my tea bits all over my cup as I was pouring during a picture...silly me.

(nice shrubs leading up t the Orangery and my classy self with British Tea)

I had the orange fruity tea which was so good. I'm insisting that when my parents come to visit, that we all do tea (read that mom and dad?). Maybe even somewhere classier? Just joking, there are a ton of places to get afternoon tea, it's a great tradition!

Within the week, not sure of the timeframe actually, we went to the famous Greenwich Market and hiked up to the Prime Meridian!! At the Greenwich Market they had little crafty knick knacks, and also some amazing food..a common theme with me. I found a bracelet made from someone's family in Thailand..so I supported the people there and got one for Jaime and I. Also found the MOST incredible stationary from this stand that had baskets upon baskets of cards. They were all 3D and had little embellishments on them. The best thing was that they were each a POUND- I mean, a steal! I was ready to dish out 4 pounds for each. I'm kind of a card freak and absolutely die over stationary...problem is, I forget what I buy because I always send it out...perhaps one day I'll ask you all to take pictures of what I've sent to keep a little picture collection of the cute cards I've stumbled upon. I had some sushi pieces and Nigerian food..couldn't tell you what it was but it was incredible-some kind of lamb and rice and potato dish, mmm! Finally ended with a skewer of fruit covered in dark chocolate, marshmallows and nuts..heart attack. I am gaining weight if you can't tell from my growing jowls..summer work outs here I come!

Back to the prime meridian, we stood in LINE to take this fabulous picture as we stood at 0degrees 0 degrees. Quite monumental to my lifetime accomplishments. The view from that high was stellar but oddly I didn't snap any pictures.

Just to keep things in order, I'll be stopping here for this entry because the next stop is...BRUSSELS, the last minute Easter weekend booking Gretchen and I made instead of going to Liverpool with Cara and Jen which would've been cool too but that entry to come next!

Church-it's not what you think

Following a week of busy travels and siteseeing, Tess came to visit from Florence where she's studying abroad! We had work most of the days but I did get a chance to see part of the British Museum with her and we all went out a few nights for drinks.

Had a very interesting encounter with a drunken man at a pub down the street with Jen, Tess, Christina, and Madelyn..I have to mention him because he made this night truly memorable. The poor brute was too drunk to remember our names but kept on insisting that we play a drinking game with cards; it kept us entertained, I wrote him out a seating chart but he was still so confused, we didn't get to catch up like intended but it was still very fun.

The following day we headed to Borough Market, the most amazing market filled with all sorts of food. I had a homemade chicken burger which was delicious but we also tried a seafood curry, bought brownies and a bunch of turkish delight, got a slice of cheese, drank a pitcher of sangria and enhaled a chocolate cake..needless to say I left satisfied and full.

It was a lot of good eating for a lot of good drinking the day after as on the holy day of Sunday, we go to Church, and by Church this time I don't mean prayers and worships. Church in London is a daytime club where people dress up in the most absurd things so of course we honor tradition and wore some ridiculous outfits...we started our festivities at 10am and got home around 5pm, a solid day of partying. I bought neon orange paint for the affair and got everyone painted up. (personal favorite were on the cavemen)

the scene walking to the bus stop at 11:30am

I still don't know where that balloon creature was found..alex's face compliments of me..

painted faces!

When we were actually at church, if you buy beer, you get 3 cans at once in a sack that's yours to carry around. There was on stage "performances" such as magicians, a stripper?!, a beer boat race, and more music and dancing on the stage! IT was a solid time and is most likely happening again this Sunday..

Playing tourist in Londontown

In the weeks after returning from Paris, a bunch of people came to visit London including Jon who was still here for his Spring Break! Jen's friend Ally from home came and Cara's sister, Erin came to visit too. This meant we got to play tourist! We saw the Changing of the Guard finally at Buckingham Palace, BIG BEN, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, and the London Eye all in a weekend!

The Changing of the Guard was a crowded experience and we only saw parts of it but the highlight was when Jen Chiu literally found 35pounds on the ground which later paid for drinks at the Pub (picture below to prove it!) Took a picture in front of the iron gate although the Queen did not grace us with her presence :(.

We didn't get to go and tour the Abbey because there was a long line but did get nice pictures around Parliament/ Big Ben/ Trafalgar Square area along with a very London red phone booth picture!

That was a nice day out and we made the most of the touring and seeing things! Jon left on Sunday to go back to Boston which turned out to be a travelling nightmare but he did get there safely in the end.

That day was also the St.Patty's day parade in Trafalgar Square so we went back down in green celebratory attire and had some Irish Cider. They had traditional Irish music, dancing, drinking, a parade, and we had a blast; even bought some Irish shamrock headbands. It was such a beautiful day out and because it wasn't actual St Patricks day on Sunday, the festivities continued on Wednesday the 17th of March.

Guiness was sponsoring a bunch of Pubs down in the Picadilly area and all you needed was a voucher for a free pint of Guiness so of course in the spirit of the holiday we had a couple each! Many people had big Irish hats going around and quite randomly a guy came up to me and gave me his it was great!! Jen had her Shamrocks and we did a mini-pub crawl that night before ending up at Waxy O'Connors for an Irish night out with the locals and tourists! However before we got to Waxy's another random guy came up to me asking for the hat because he said he was Irish and said he needed the hat..I told him it was mine and he snatched it off my head and ran away with it...it was the most absurd move of the night but we kept on with high spirits! Also randomly saw a girl from Punahou..of course in London this would happen..

Actually make that double because the next night we went to O'Neills...a popular American college hang out spot, and I saw Patty Boxold and Gretchen saw someone from her elementary school..It's A Small World Afterall?

Passport to Paris!

Paris: land of the Eiffel, crepes, the Lourve, romance, red lipstick, and an amazing weekend. I went with Jon after he got in to London from Boston for his spring break.

After barely making it to the train station on time we finally got settled on the Eurostar which was only a 2hour journey under the Chunnel from St Pancras London-->Gare d'nord Paris. Thank goodness Jon knew enough French for us to get around. We got our metro tickets and headed to our hotel.

Because we got in around 5pm we still had enough time to get around and sitesee. The Lourve was open until 10pm only on Friday's so we went there first. When we first turned the corner to see the large glass pyramid surrounded by magnificent buildings, I was breathless at how amazing the entire structure was. Altogether the Lourve is supposed to have 12 miles of artifacts and art pieces..we obviously could not do all areas but did see the major works. We saw the Mona Lisa and a few of the other exhibits (it was more than a month ago so I'm having trouble recalling now..). People had told me about the Mona Lisa before so I was expecting it to be a lot smaller than it actually was. It was mounted by itself on a wall that stretched all the way to the ceiling. The rooms there were simply jaw dropping; some of the paintings went from top to bottom of a room and over 5 meters long, incredible pieces of art, see an example below!

It wasn't just the art that we were looking at, the rooms themselves had the most amazing architecture and exquisite colors and textures. Jon an I took a picture of us with the long corridor stretch of one wing of the building.

After wandering the Lourve it was starting to get late so we walked toward the Eiffel Tower in the (far) distance, also looking for food. I was insisting on getting to the Eiffel tower because I figured there would be food places around there...unfortunately there weren't too many when we got there by Cab so we forgot about our hunger and took a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The top was spectacular and at night you could really pick out all the landmarks because they were brightly lit up No picture could capture the beauty from the top of the tip and it was totally worth going all the way up even though we were starving. We found a cute place after on the corner and just ate the two things they offered because it was so late and the cook was about to leave haha.

After splitting a bottle of wine Jon and I were a bit tipsy as we headed back to the Eiffel to get a crepe from a small stand across the Tower. Nutella, bananas, whipped cream in a crepe; succulent goodness in my mouth-it was magical. We were so happy we bought tickets for a ride around the merry-go-round..Jon got a bit backwards on his horse. All in all a successful day 1 in Paris!

Day 2: We woke up and headed toward the Notre Dame and it was a beautiful morning. There were little cafe's around the Notre Dame and I ate an incredible croquette. We went over to the Notre Dame and the history behind the church, how Joan of Arc was executed in front of it and the number of super powers who used it; They also had really nice stain glass windows illuminating the building :)

After leaving the Notre Dame we found our way to little market stalls and food areas on the way to the Pompidou Museum.

We headed to the Pompidou Modern Art museum where we first went in the wrong entrance going into the public library instead. which was interesting in itself. People were watching TV in different languages at little stations and there was a cafe. We found our way to the actual museum and walked around; I think I need an art appreciation crash course because some of these modern art pieces are less than interesting and uninvented to my (non art major) eye. We then went took a metro to the Arc de Trioumph which was spectacular because it had about 11 streets around its round about. You could climb it but we passed and headed down the Champs Elysse with the posh stores and the massive 7 story Louis Vitton.

That night we went to a close by French restaurant and ate escargot (it was so goo dthere, i love love love snails in the garlic sauce) and lamb / duck entrees...pretty amazing food. We had to have an early night because the next day was either Versailles or....EuroDisney! The choice was unanimous and we went to see Mickey on sunday!!

Basically Day 3 was a full day at EuroDisney...as if we were 5 again. We figured Versailles would always be there but our youth days are leaving us...and we need to be kids while we can! hah. We went on all the rollercoaster rides: space mountain, thunder mountain, indiana jones ride, etc, ran through the Alice in Wonderland maze with small children..and ate overpriced park food. It was actually a nice break to get to explore like a child again. And with us returning to Paris from EuroDisney, we headed back into the night to London,