Arriving in Brussels & finding more travel besties <3
27/08
Today we arrive in Brussels! This morning I checked out around 11am from the beautiful Ghent hostel, but had most of the day to kill since my train wasn’t leaving until 3pm. The tram to the train station only took around 20 minutes or so, so I killed time figuring out some stuff for exchange in the hostel café and kitchen section.
Walking to the station was bittersweet, though I was looking forward to the rest of the trip, and with some newfound confidence with staying in hostels and being more extroverted, my time in Ghent was so amazing it was difficult to walk out the front door for the last time. I’m glad I’m only a short flight away from the UK, I’ll hopefully be able to visit again soon.
Everything travel wise went according to plan, which was a lovely surprise, I ended up getting to the station in time for the train that was slightly earlier, so I decided to get that one instead. Train tickets in Belgium are so flexible, as long you go to the correct destination on the specific day you can leave really whenever you want. I ended up getting into Brussels just before 3pm, and had to wait for a little bit before I could check in. I was able to explore the hostel a bit, and realised with a bit of disappointment, that they didn’t really have a kitchen, just cutlery, a kettle and a microwave. Luckily the room itself is so nice, I’m glad I’ll be there for a little while. All the beds are definitely bigger than singles, and this was the first one that have the curtains across them, I love these more. They’re like your own little pod! And under the beds they have big drawers that you can lock your suitcase in, and lockers along the wall. We also have our own ensuite attached to the room, which I’ve also liked more than the shared bathrooms I’ve had everywhere else, it’s a lot more contained.
I hung out in my room for a little bit, and introduced myself to the other 3 girls who were already there. Mariana was from Brazil, and Charlotte and Iina were Finnish. We chatted for a while and I went for a bit of a walk around the area near the hostel to get orientated. I was glad to visit the main square in the late afternoon, the low sun was so pretty on all the beautiful gold detailing of the buildings, and I found a good Carrefour only a block away that I could get some food from.
So far the big difference between Brussels and Ghent is the language mostly! It’s been amazing to be able to keep practicing my French, even though I am quite rusty. There’s a lot less pressure in Belgium to speak perfect French, especially because many Belgian people from the Dutch speaking area of the country can’t speak Dutch at all, so even some Belgian people would be speaking English. This dynamic is literally perfect for me, I don’t have the complex of not being able to speak the native language, and I can actually do one better than Dutch-speaking Belgians, even if the French isn’t perfect they do appreciate the effort.
Anyway I had a chill night back at the hostel, just getting to know the girls in my dorm, and planned to spend the next day exploring with Alisha, a Swiss girl who had just checked in and wanted to walk around with me. I could tell we would already get along well!
28/08
I didn’t want to start the day too early, since most things don’t open until after 10am anyway here, but I still wanted to have a good amount of time to go exploring. The happy medium ended up being awake at 9am, and ready to head out just after 10:30am. Alisha hadn’t slept very well, so she started her day earlier, at a second hand bookstore, and I met her out and about. As soon as she sent me her location of where to meet her and I realised it was a bookstore, I knew we would have no problem getting along. And I was correct!
We had been given some great recommendations from Charlotte and Iina to not necessarily think about walking to specific ‘attractions’, (Brussels doesn’t really have many of those) but rather to walk down a street that looked interesting then find another interesting street from there. They reckoned you would see anything relevant in the city this way, and I would 100% agree. It was nice to not have to use google maps the whole time, and just wander around. The sun was out and it was quite warm, so we took our time, but managed to explore a lot in a few hours.
From the bookstore we walked back in the general direction of the main square, and ended up looking in a couple of really cool vintage stores and op shops on the way over. That’s the one thing I’ll say, if you’re coming to Brussels bring an empty suitcase. I haven’t seen so many cute little op shops in one city before, I’m surprised more people don’t come just for the shopping. And they’re reasonably priced, which is often hard to find in vintage shops. These detours meant we didn’t actually see the main square until early afternoon, but it turned out to be the perfect time. The sun was so bright it reflected off all the gold details exquisitely. The main square overall was much prettier than I expected. I had seen photos of only one side of it, but the square is bordered entirely with buildings arguably more beautiful than the one you would’ve probably seen. It was quite overwhelming to see for the first time, and I found myself wanting to walk through whenever we were on the way to somewhere else.
There was a church based around the back of the square, and we wandered through (mostly glad to be out of the sun for a bit) before continuing to the city’s largest and most prominent cathedral, called St Michael and St Gudula Cathedral, where the Belgian royal family hosts their weddings. Something I can really appreciate about this area of Europe is that all the churches have free entrance, which was a great reprieve from the Italian and Parisian experience. They could learn a thing or two. Especially when we weren’t that interested in hanging around too long, as Alisha and I spoke about, they start to blend a little when you’re Euro-travelling. So we decided if it was free entry, we would check it out. And I’m glad we did, mostly because we shared an affinity for church organs and air conditioned rooms (Belgium believes in air conditioning, unlike the UK, it’s amazing). We also had a little break on the steps of the cathedral whilst we figured out what we wanted to do for the afternoon.
We decided to continue walking (yes, more walking) from the cathedral to the Parc de Bruxelles, which backs onto the Palais de Bruxelles. The park was lovely, although they were setting up for a city music festival so we couldn’t access some parts. We agreed seeing the old city parks were always a highlight when we went travelling, the atmosphere in the parks always seems more relaxed, and much less sweaty (at this point, this was a necessity). Walking the length of the park we reached the Palais, which was honestly a bit lacklustre. From afar it just looked like a big building. Sure I guess that’s impressive in it’s own right, I guess. But there was nothing very royal about it, the same building could’ve been a grand museum, or an old train station. It did leave us in a good location though, as our next (and probably last) major destination of the day was to the Royal Greenhouses (can you tell we really like plants).
I was pleasantly surprised with the metro stop situation, it was easy just to pay with your credit card, and the station was very clean and modern. The trams too, it felt very fancy. I didn’t expect this from Brussels, which as a city does have a bit of a rougher edge to it. And they were air conditioned, which was an extra bonus. I ended up looking forward to being on there for the half an hour trip, it was the perfect break from the sun we both needed.
As we arrived, the gardens themselves were beautiful, only a 10-minute walk or so from the station, though we only stopped there briefly. Our main destination were the Greenhouses, which were still another 20 minutes from the gardens. Walking around the outside of the gardens, I was starting to get a bit sick of the sun to be honest. I’m really trying to make the most of the vitamin D, considering I won’t be getting much of it for the rest of the year, I don’t think I’m ever going to enjoy walking around in direct sunlight sweating. That’s just not pleasant! It also didn’t help that, by the time we got there, the Greenhouses were completely closed. We were both baffled by this, mostly because it was peak season to go see them, and it was only 2pm in the afternoon. We walked around them, and found the Japanese Gardens, which were also gorgeous, but didn’t compare to the pictures of the greenhouses we’d seen. Knowing it would take another 40 minutes or so to get back to the hostel, we thought we may as well start making our way back, considering we wanted to have time for something small to eat before we met up with the other girls from our room.
The tram back into the centre was heaven again, and we both decided it was time to do something relaxing before even thinking about heading out again. We hit the 25 000-step mark easily at this point, and sitting down with a sweet treat seemed like the only reasonable thing to do. Back near the square we found a waffle café and gelateria right next door. Alisha hadn’t tried Belgian waffles yet, and I was craving something cold, so we thought these were the perfect options. We separated to order then caught up at a table outside but under the sun (luckily!) I ordered my ice-cream entirely in French, which I was very proud of. Even when the guy working there said something I didn’t understand, he spoke slower and reworded his question until I understand what he was asking instead of such switching to English, which was perfect. He even gave me a free macaron and said my pronunciation was good (hello that’s adorable!) I ended up ordering mango gelato, which I had never tried before, but immediately became one of my favourite flavours. They scooped it inside the cone and then made it into a rose on top, there was so much in there to eat it took me ages just to get to the cone part.
We continued yapping as Alisha fell in love with Belgian waffles (she ordered one with strawberries and dark chocolate as per my recommendation and wasn’t disappointed). We hung out in the shade for a bit, and only decided to walk back to the hostel when the sugar kicked in.
We made plans to meet Charlotte back in our room around 4pm, where we were planning on having some rot time, then get ready to have a drink or 2 at a rooftop bar that Charlotte had found and wanted to try out. I was all for this idea, I was yet to go to a spot with good views of the city, which I needed to reconcile, and a glass of cold white wine sounded exactly like what I needed. On the way back to our room we passed an op shop, the same one we’d walked past all day, but saw one of the employees putting a sign out the front saying for the rest of the day everything was €1. We didn’t have that much time, but there was always enough time for €1 clothes. I was still suspicious though, as the sign was in French, and I thought I must’ve misinterpreted something in my translation. Surely not. The original price tags on some of the pieces were in the €35-40 range, so it was simply too good to be true. We were looking around for a bit, and I ended up finding a jacket that was so perfect I couldn’t believe it. I intentionally didn’t bring a jacket with me, thinking I could just find one when I was on exchange, but here I was in the middle of Brussels with a €1 that was so perfect I’d be stupid not to get it. It was the perfect combination of basic enough to go with everything, but still with a bit of personality to it that it wasn’t boring. It’s nowhere near cool enough now to whip it out, but as soon as it is there will be heaps of photos of me in my new jacket. And the best part? It was brand new, with tags still attached, originally retailing for €100. If that’s not meant to be then I don’t know what is.
I told this exact story to everyone who came into room 309 that afternoon (I was ecstatic ok, it’s not often I get that incredible luck at op shops). We also met Emma, who was travelling for 6 weeks from the US and had checked in whilst Alisha and I were out exploring. She was so lovely, and the 3 of us got along immediately. When Charlotte came back, we all ended up chatting, and knew she just had to come to drinks with us. We all had lovely cold showers and some downtime before leaving our room just before 6pm to head to 58 Rooftop, right in the centre of the city. Charlotte suggested we get there early, as it would likely get busy around sunset at 8pm. She was right, and there was only a slight line at 6pm, we went straight up. The views were fantastic! We could spot where we had been, and I even perked up the courage to ask someone to take a couple of photos for us (in French of course!).
We ordered our drinks and snagged a table as soon as we saw some people leaving. We ended up having the best seats in the house, and the temperature was much milder in the late afternoon, it was fine being in the direct sun for an hour or 2. When we finished our drinks, we decided some dinner was in order, and we soon found a restaurant with the cutest al fresco seating setup across a street. They specialised in seafood, which we just had to try. Apparently the Brussels meal is of mussels with onion soup and tiny grated pieces of celery. Honestly didn’t think I would enjoy any part of that meal, but we decided we should give it a go whilst we were here. Emma decided to throw me under the bus and tell the waiter I could speak French, after which he absolutely refused to speak to me in anything but. Ordering food in French is something that’s always been a bit intimidating to me, especially with getting pronunciations right. I muddled my way through, and everything arrived that we wanted so I would call it a success. The mussels were a lot nicer than I thought they would be, and even Alisha who hates seafood was won over. The soup-y thing they were cooked in definitely helped; the flavours were absolutely divine.
We stayed at the restaurant until after 9pm, chatting and getting to know one another. It turns out Charlotte and Emma had once lived on the exact same block in New York at the same time when Charlotte was there for work, which was hilarious to watch them figure out. We spoke about Alisha being a nurse, the bizarre dating culture in Finland, how much of a musical theatre nerd Emma is, and pretty much anything else in between. We joked that the chances of us all being in the same hostel , let alone the same room in the same city for the same night were so tiny, yet here we were, 4 people from all different parts of the world, hanging out like we had known each other for years. It was such a comfort to be around such amazing people, I truly feel like I could travel with each of them, or together would be even better.
We didn’t have any plans after dinner, initially we were going to try to find a dessert café to sample some Belgian chocolate, but most of them were closed, and we weren’t really hungry for anything else anyway, so we started wandering back through the streets to the hostel. We did make a quick detour to the Belgium World Beer Experience, which was comically in such an ornate building it was only fair to be dedicated to beer. Not that we wanted to drink beer (all 4 of us weren’t fans) but Charlotte had heard of the great views from the top, and the rooftop was free to access. We quite literally ran across the square to make it in time before the building closed at 10pm (it was currently 9:55pm). We got there just in time, and saw the security laughing at us hurrying to make it, even encouraging us to ran faster. They were too sweet. We took that lift to the top and got even more spectacular views of the city, pretty much all to ourselves. We didn’t spend too long up there, mostly because in the quiet we were hit with a wall of the adventures of the day, and suddenly the only thing we wanted to do was go to bed.
Leaving the building in record time we walked back to our room, stopping by a small corner store to get a little snack for dessert before finally arriving back safe and sound. We didn’t really chat much more, I don’t think there was much more to say. We were all pretty tired and worn out, and both Alisha and Charlotte were leaving tomorrow so rest was needed.
It seems I’ve got trips to plan to the US and Finland now, as well as Switzerland!
Tomorrow I’ve got a rot day planned so I don’t think there’ll be any update then, but planning a day trip for the day after which should be a good time!
Currently MIA,
Lauren x
