an adventurous day in brussels

how could a day trip to brussels be such an adventure? that's a good question.

well, it all started when we were gonna miss our train to brussels, but it turned out that our train was somehow canceled (could i call it luck? i guess so)

we ended up taking the next connection to brussels, which was one hour later with thalys, the french train (and i must say it was so much better than the germany's ICE)

and finally we arrived at brussels midi! the station was quite out of town, and after stumbling around for a while, i made it to the flea market at place du jeu de belle.

it was quite interesting. if i lived in europe, i would probably by a lot of things from here to decorate my house.

not so far away was this notre dame de la chapelle.

and then this notre dame du petite sablon. it reminded me a lot of notre dame in paris. the sad thing was that i didn't go visit the garden.

then we paid 2 euros student price to get into this royal museums of fine arts. it was totally worth the time and money. i even enjoyed it much more than the crowded louvre.

the collections were great. this was a part of one of my most favourite paintings.

just a few minutes from the museum was this place royale, the historical square of brussels.

then there was this palais royal, the official palace from the monarchy of belgium.

and this world's first shopping mall, Galeries Saint Hubert-Sint Hubertusgalerijen (what a long name for a shopping mall!)

and chez leon was where we had lunch. yes, it was famous. but personally, i didn't think it was that good. the mussels were so small!!! (or maybe it was just not the season for mussels) new zealand's mussels were way better. way way way better.

and there we were at the famous square of europe, the grand place.

it really was huge, and crowded. but ever bit of it was ver beautiful. very impressive

i wished i had a better camera to take a picture of the whole square. but sometimes, some pictures, can be taken with your eyes.

manneken pis was kind of a must. even though i had no interest in a statue of a little boy peeing.

and the most important of all; waffles!!! no, no, no, i didn't eat the touristy ones with lots of whipped cream, chocolate and fruits.

all i had were liege waffles, which was simple the best waffles ever.

the first one i had was liege waffle at maison dandoy. sugar-coated, warm and chewy. simple delicious.

and the more fancy one at vitalgaufre with belgian chocolate, raspberry

...and apple-caramel!

and all of this was why i loved brussels so much, especially its waffles :)

but that wasn't the end of my day. there were a lot more coming up.
a guy at the train station told us this morning, that our ice train back to germany would be canceled as well. we had to either take an earlier train which would take 2 hours, or the later train which would take 4 hours with lots of changes.

we opted for the later one, since we only have one day in brussels. it didn't matter if we had to be on the train two more hours when it meant we had more time enjoying brussels.

but...but it wasn't that easy. the train from liege to aachen was terribly old and dirty. and the train from aachen to cologne was canceled, so we waited one more hour for the next train to take us back to cologne.