Brussels = Beer, Chocolate & Waffle Heaven
So Katie and I made our way from Italy to Brussels just in time for me to be in class with my friends from Duke. Brussels is a great city – very multicultural (3 national languages of Belgium: French, Dutch and German). Of course they are known for their Beer, Chocolates and Waffles, and as expected, I am known for my tendency to over-consume everything I touch (doing the math, you can easily predict that we gained some weight during this stop of the trip).
While we were busy with school, my class made sure to take plenty of time to enjoy the local brews of Belgium. We had a tasting in this local bar and even had the opportunity to go to InBev’s headquarters and see the production lines of Stella Artois (and of course, taste some!). This is clearly proof that drinking beer in school is rather educational.
Another staple of Brussels is its chocolate. I never pass up a good praline, so here I am in Neuhaus enjoying some chocolates they graciously suggested to us. That’s our tour guide (with the beard), a true Belgian who gave us the ins and the outs of the chocolate industry. He adamantly stated that Swiss chocolates have simply copied methods from Belgium and that Neuhaus has the original praline. I can’t argue the facts, but I would like to add that all of them are simply delicious.
And so we come to the third most renowned piece of Brussels – waffles. Belgian waffles have always been a favorite of mine, usually topped with a (very) generous scoop of ice cream. We ended up grabbing waffles at many places throughout the city in attempts to find the best one, but they all seemed to be pretty similar. Nonetheless, waffles are a tremendous ’snack’ between rounds of chocolate and beer as you walk the streets of Brussels. I would recommend it to anyone.
While our stay in Brussels was the longest, I was so busy with school work that we don’t have too much to post. By the way, thank you Allison for the photos (she’s the one eating the waffle with me)!
The mornings were early (7 AM) and the nights were late (often 3+ AM) but I was extremely happy that Katie finally got to meet my friends from school whom I had talked about endlessly for months and months. I didn’t think any of my friends could handle Katie’s ‘powerful’ personality (she will criticize you until she’s blue in the face) and yet the sarcastic tone seemed to be a uniting force throughout the week.
Whenever we had time, we took short day-trips to Bruges, Antwerp and Leuven since they were all so close to Brussels and soaked in the Belgium culture as much as possible. All in all, we had an amazing week and I was so happy to share it with both Katie and my friends from school. Now fat and happy from my beer, chocolates and waffles, we head off to Germany for more European goodness. Talk to you soon!