A relaxing weekend in Amsterdam after I got back from Budapest was exactly what I needed. The week after was consumed with school projects and papers, so to take the stress off Jaclyn and I decided on Friday night that we would take a train to Belgium in the morning and pay a visit to the Loyola troops in Leuven.
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| Town Hall |
On Saturday morning, November 13th, we arrived in Brussels to meet up with Nellie, Katie O, Alex, and company to wander around Brussels. It was raining when we got there so in order to take cover we popped into chocolate shop after shop and took full advantage of the free samples. And as if we couldn’t get enough we even went into the chocolate museum to see how it was made. The museum was actually pretty boring, but it did have free samples so I wasn’t complaining. After we ate all the chocolate we physically could we found our way into the more modern part of the city to check it out. The air in this section of the city was consumed with the smell of freshly made waffles and it smelt delicious. So after a while of trenching through the rain and checking out the EU buildings we went back to the old town square and found a restaurant for a late lunch. A bunch of us had madame croques, but as we were in Brussels Jaclyn was brave enough to have mussels. Apparently they were good so I guess it’s not a myth to get mussels in Brussels.
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| Manneken Pis |
After we had dried off a little we decided to skip the trip to Delirium Café, a bar that has the most different kinds of beer representing 75 different countries, and instead headed on a journey to find Manneken Pis. The fountain was supposedly ‘difficult’ to find, but turns out it was right down the road from the town hall. We knew we found it when we saw a crowd of people taking pictures and once we got closer we were finally able to see the little guy. And I’m not kidding when I say little because he was in fact TINY! I almost had to squint to see him up there. Apparently he’s famous because of a few tales, but I honestly couldn’t believe that little statue was what all the hype was about. In every souvenir shop replicas were crowding the windows so I figured the fountain would be bigger than the size of my hand. But I guess that makes it all the more humorous. To end our visit at Brussels all of us got Belgium waffles, typical right.
After our waffles the group of us headed back to the train station to hop a quick ride to Leuven, a small city in Belgium where they are studying. Jaclyn and I were staying with Alex so she was able to show us around a little. Their classes are located throughout the city, which isn’t a big deal since the city is miniature equipped with quaint cobblestone streets, and they all live in a dorm style building. Once we caught up with some of the other Loyola kids studying in Leuven Alex took us out to experience Belgium beer.
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| Wafflessss |
Only a 5 minuet walk from their dorms lies a strip of bars that is famous for being known as the longest bar in Europe. The bars varied with different types of music and atmosphere that would suit anyone, as well as beer. My favorite was Karmeliet but they were all good.
Soon our short weekend trip was over and on Sunday we headed back on the train to Amsterdam. The next weekend the Belgium crew had a field trip to Amsterdam so we were looking forward to one last hurrah them.
