Belgium!

Hi everyone!

So, last weekend my sister came to London for her fall break. She arrived Friday morning and that afternoon we boarded the Eurorail and headed for Belgium; home of beer, chocolate and waffles.
On arriving in Brussels, Stefi and I explored the Grand P'lace area full of beautiful old buildings, surrounded by bars and featuring, only a few blocks away, Mannekin Pis. This is the symbol of Brussels (EU? what?) and is a very small statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain. There are 2 stories for how this came to be: 1 is that a nobleman lost his son during some festivities and when he found him 2 days later he was doing this act in a corner. The nobleman was so relieved to have found his son he made a replica statue exactly as he found him. The other story says that there was a fire and a boy put the fire out by peeing on it, thus saving the town. Pick your favorite :o)
Shane met us later that evening and after a delicious dinner of hearty Belgium food and beer we headed to bed.
Brussels is a fun town but can definitely be done in a day. We started off heading north of town to the Atonium - an enormous replica of an iron atom from the 1958 World's Fair. It is so completely random that it is now a tourist attraction. After the atonium we headed back to town for the Museum of Chocolate and Cacao. This small but delicious museum told the history of chocolate being brought into Belgium (which unfortunately began with King Leopold causing mass genocide in the Congo, which allowed the Belgiums access to the Gold coast and cacao) and how it is now made. Belgium chocolate is considered the best because they still use cacao butter and palm oil when they make it, instead of easier and cheaper substitutes that most other chocolate producers use. The museum gave several samples which were delicious!
After the museum we headed to lunch where we had "mussels in Brussels." Restaurants in the area cook muscles every which way but the Provencal style cooked in a vegetable broth at our lunch place were quite delicious.
After lunch we headed for the Museo Horta. This is Victor Horta's old house, now converted into a museum, and is the best demonstration of art nouveaux architecture, which Horta and Belgium is famous for. After getting our fill of the arts we headed to one of the only remaining fully functioning brewery's in Brussels; The Musee Bruxellois De la Gueuze - Cantillon Brewery. This brewery brews Lambics, which are a beer specific to Belgium. They are brewed using hops, wheat and malted barley, stored in old wine barrels and have a taste somewhat between beer and wine. There were 2 tastings at the end; 1 Gueueze which is a mix of a 1, 2, and 3 year old Lambic and 1 with either raspberries or cherries. All 3 were delicious.
After the beer we meandered our way back to the EU district. All the buildings were closed but we did see the EU headquarters - an unfortunately ugly, star shaped building. Afterwards we headed back to Brussels, did a little souvenir shopping (chocolate!), grabbed dinner and headed for bed.
The next morning, since we had seen enough of Brussels, we hopped on a train and took the hour trip to Brugge. Brugge used to be the economic powerhouse of Belgium and was the base for all types of trading, and the making of lace. However, the canals that surround the city filled in and left the town mostly dependent on tourism. The town is beautiful, a Medieval town surrounded by canals and filled with horse and buggies and 8 million tourists.
We hit the highlights of Brugge. Climbed the Belfry's 366 steps to get a great view of the city, visited Heilig- bloedbasiliek cathedral (a church claiming to have a vial of Jesus's blood brought back from Jerusalem during the crusades), saw Michelangelo's Madonna and child at the Cathedral of Our Lady, and visited the last remaining functioning brewery in Brugge. This time we only sampled the product and skipped the tour :o)
It was nearing the end of our time in Belgium but we had one more task to conquer before we could leave content and that was to sample the best Belgium waffle in the world. The Etablissment Max, in Ghent (which happened to be a stop on our train from Brugge to Brussels) is owned by the family who claims to have invented the Brussel's waffle. The Van Maldeghem's family has been making waffles for 6 generations (120 years). The key, according to the family, is that they must be crisp on the outside with a dark color, almost like a tree, and soft on the inside. They must be made with gas, not electricity, and for a pure experience, you eat them only with powdered sugar on top. They were an absolute mess to eat, but they were delicious and I strongly recommend them to anyone passing through Ghent!
After Belgium we headed back to London where Stefi spent 1 day with us, touring the sights of London before heading back to the USA. We don't have any big trips planned for the next few weeks. We are planning to try and settle into London before continuing our European adventure, so there may not be an update for at least a week or so.
We miss you all and hope you are doing well!!

Love, Sarah and Shane