from one place to another the life of Katie: Frites, Beer, and Chocolate......Brussels......The 36hour detour to Dublin

As mentioned in the previous blog, there was no chance that Renee and I were going to make it to Dublin, or for that matter England with the way the standby situation was at the airport, so we hopped on the flight to Brussels. We had planned on visiting Brussels, but that was to be about midway thru the trip. If you could have seen us at the airport when our names were called, it was a sight to be seen as we were the last two standbys called. We may have been "those" passengers. As soon as we got on the flight (and of course asked a gentleman to switch with us) we pulled out the Ipad and bought tickets on Aer Lingus as the flight attendants were telling us to shut down our electronic devices. We could rest easy knowing that we had a confirmed way to Dublin, or at least Renee could. (anyone that knows her, knows that she can sleep ANYWHERE, and by that I mean, I had to put my neck pillow around her, so Chip (super cool guy from Las Vegas, sitting in our row, that offered his floor in his hotel room, if we didn't find a place to stay in a nice Dad kind of way) and I would stop laughing at her head bobbing.

The only problem was the fact that we really had not planned on being in Belgium, so we had no where to stay, and we had not done our research (because we had planned on doing it later). After we landed and waited 50 minutes thru passport control, we sat in the airport, bought Wifi for 6euros and looked up hostels. We booked the second one we found (only because the first one was booked) and it ended up being in a great location. The hostel called On the Go 2, was only 2 stops from the airport, 10 minute walk Grand Place Market, and a great central location for Brussels.

We first arrived at the hostel 5 hours before check in time, but the "front desk guy" was nice enough to let us shower while we were waiting to check into the room. Since it technically had been 2 days since we had taken a proper shower. We booked a luxurious bunk bed (made Ikea style, at which any moment I expected Renee to be on the bottom bunk with me) dorm room shared with 2 cool german chicks, 3 party english girls, one guy of Asian decent, 2 Italian boys (at least that's what the language sounded like) one british chick on holiday break from her chick, one quiet chick that never spoke and read her book, a mexican hippie, and a weirdo man that was from Snellville, GA and two super cool "older" American chicks, named Katie and Renee. Of course the super cool older chicks, not only took afternoon naps, but also were the first ones in bed.

We spent the first day roaming the streets, and admiring the beauty of an Old town. The Chocolate shops, churches, and buildings were absolutely amazing

We decided to eat out this evening and ended up at an Italian Pizzeria. Not your normal Pizza Hut, but a woodfire creation, with ham, artichokes, mushrooms, and fresh pizza sauce, but I can't lie, the best part was the 2euro local beer on draft and the view!

Wouldn't ya know, we were sitting across from two pilots! With my expert ease dropping skills, we became aquainted with two Air Canada pilots and even shared our chocolate with them. It was a great first night in Europe!

We were in bed by 10pm on the first night, and by far some of the oldest people in the room, but we were one the first ones up the next morning to enjoy our last 12hours in Brussels. We started our day the European way with some stiff coffee!!

illy coffee

We decided on the second day to try and find the "silver balls" that we saw out of the train window on the way from the airport to the hostel. The correct name of these Silver balls are the Atomium, and were apparently built for the world fair that took place in the 1950's. The Atomium looked pretty cool from the train, but they were even better in person. One of many pieces great peices of art in Brussels!

After we left The "silver balls" we headed back to the town square to have some famous Frites....aka French fries!! Brussels is known for not only there frites but the 50 different sauces you can choose to go with them. They lived up to their expectation and made for a cheap lunch! Highly recommended!!

After lunch we went back to the Hostel and hung in the common area for a couple hours before our flight to Dublin! Renee had officially experienced the hostel way of travel!!