Ho on the Go - tribute to Kris

cyd, mikey and nortold distressed on the streets of brussels.

Today was the first day in brussels. It has been an interesting 'all nighter.' with little sleep on the MILLION hour plan ride... we arrived in brussels, bright and early at 8AM. Packing with manageable bags is an understatement. Stairs, stairs and more stairs followed by narrow train cars with absolutely NO storage was rough on the upper body. Direct quote getting off the train and then proceeding to walk down a few flights of stairs ' carrying these bags (two small rolling bags) I should look like Rocky Balboa when we make it to the hostel...' After walking around the same block a few times we finally made it to the hostel (thanks to the friendly people of brussels!).

cydney is really enjoying taking in the sights of brussels!

We stored our bags, freshened up (aka rubbed wipes across our faces), found a confusing map (which aided in more circling the area) and then headed out to our day of roaming the city. Saw many beautiful churches while braving the elements (it's overcast in the low 30's here but the wind is awful, you can't hide from it anywhere).

love all the little local buildings!

wish we were here to catch the bird ballet!

resting our feet and getting some lunch.

We then stopped at a great little local place for a bite, and had the opportunity for a lunch date with a cat. (picture to come on next post)

ham and cheese, with this crazy 'jelly' cheese dressing that was
...interesting.

After a great ham and cheese, we made our way to a local to very anti-climatic statue of a peeing boy.

smallest landmark in the history of landmarks.
we still are not sure the significance of this statue...

During our trek to this infamous- and ultimately overrated excursion- I was determined to find some 'crème fresh' truffles (a recommendation from my world traveling aunt), with no luck. I will not give up! I have hope for tomorrow.

Coming back to the hotsel and unpacking our stuff we learned that the tsunami in atlanta had saturated some of our luggage! Almost ALLLLL of cydney's things (clothes, food, and beautiful leather gloves) were soaking wet. L.Mikus then realized her bag was wet and most of her books for school were wet and so were some of her clothes. I noticed that some of my checked bag was wet and upon further investigation I found my toiletry KS bag was SOAKING WET!!!! I am very sad considering that pattern is discontinued :( hopefully it will dry with a slight water stain and thankfully only a few of t-shirts got wet.

hostel room pre-laundry nightmare

trying to dry all the wet clothes!

this evening we walked to the square and found a GREAT local restaurant with awesome local cuisine and a helpful server (all around the best meal EVER- and they were even able to do separate checks!). also had the chance to sample a local beer i had been reading about all day (picture and more details to follow). i had a beef dish served with potatoes, similar to a pot roast. very, very, very good. and then when we were walking back we gave in to our sweet tooth and got some amazing truffles. and i found the ones with creme! yay! mission accomplished. definately going back tomorrow, i am hooked.

food goal tomorrow - eat an authentic belgian waffle!