Day 4- Paris to Brussels

We had tickets to ride the train to Brussels on Friday morning. Our train wasn't supposed to leave until around 11:30, so we leisurely had breakfast and took a taxi to the station, getting there fairly early since neither of us knew what we were doing.

We didn't know if we were supposed to check our luggage or what, so we got into a line that looked promising. When the employee looked at our tickets, she said, "You've missed your train, it left about 5 minutes ago." What!?!?! Um, yeah, someone might have possibly been looking at the wrong time on the ticket. 11:30 was our arrival time in Brussels. My bad. So we got into a longer line to get new tickets. Of course, ours were non-refundable so we had to buy new ones. I beat myself up about that one for a very long time. It wouldn't be so bad except that this would actually be the second time I've done this exact thing. I am such an idiot.



Our train left about an hour later, at 11:30. We both really enjoyed traveling by train and were served a nice lunch. It was about a 15 minute taxi ride to the Sheraton where we spent the night. We only had one night in Brussels so I have to be honest, I had done no research at all on what there is to do in Brussels. We went to the concierge and told him we just got there and were leaving in the morning and asked what we should do.

We got really lucky and our hotel was really close to some cool stuff. He pulled out a map, and marked a few spots of interest that were just down the street from us. We walked across the street to a shopping mall where we spent a few minutes walking around. Then we strolled down the streets for a couple of hours. We grabbed a waffle from a shop and I had to splurge on one dripping with warm chocolate syrup.



We peeked into a church and then walked to the Grand Place, which is a big square surrounded by huge, beautiful buildings.



We went into several lace and chocolate shops and then kept walking towards something the concierge had pointed out on the map. He had told us to be sure to go see "our little boy". We weren't sure what he meant but knew we were getting close when we saw a large group of people up ahead snapping pictures. This is the "little boy" they seem to be so proud of. Click on the picture if you can't tell what he's doing.


Then we got a little lost on the way back to the hotel and came across this massive church.



We made it back to the hotel and were really tired from all the walking on cobblestone and uneven surfaces. After a rest, we had a late dinner at a cafe around the corner. Chris had a second waffle for dessert. It was covered in whipped cream, strawberries, ice cream and strawberry sauce. It was quite yummy. One thing's for sure, they sure know how to make a good Belgium waffle in Belgium. Neither of us knew what to expect in Brussels so we were both pleasantly surprised and glad that we decided to stop there for a day.