Belgium...

[Kristie]

Here's my belgium trip report - we went over there for just a quick weekend jaunt in mid march...I don't have the photos up yet to match the text, have to get them uploaded first.
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Doug and I decided last Tuesday to use his long weekend and get out of dodge... so we were lucky enuff to be able to get into Brussels Belgium. I left thrusday to meet doug after his trip in ATL and off we went and got back into town within 2 days of leaving - a day and a half in belgium is all you need!

The trip was excellent.. had business elite there and back...slept most of the time and actually got good enuff sleep that there were no side effects at all (YUP. NO JETLAG)... sleeping and drinking a lot of water really help out! we decided to go for an "americanized" hotel (Marriott in central brussels) - they had a good deal with included public transportation for a day, free sunday brunch & free museum passes for a day (@ $304 total). The marriott had enuff room for us to move around, good amenities, fairly good shower, high speed internet for $22 per day (good deal if you ask me, esp if you have to look up loads) and they WERE able to check us in EARLY...an EARLY CHECK IN really MAKES or BREAKS the trip because you really NEED a shower in order to stay up all day/night like that... it also helps deter the possible jet lag of which, man, i was lucky - I had NONE... doug had just a titch but it may have been because he just got off of a trip and didn't get his 1 day to relax.. he did however, keep rolling pretty darn good.

we walked all over the place (it's easier to walk or train/metro in Europe), checked out the grand place (Grand Platz) which is where they normally hold the tulip festival in spring... right now - it's fairly dissmal there, rainy and overcast but nice and cold (40deg during the day) which perks you right up. one of the photos is of a park in front of the Royal Palace and includes several leafless trees and i'm betting that during the spring/summer time, it's a spectacular park. In another of the photos, you can see the tulips starting to pop up...

Belgium (or Belgique in french) is know for their 400 different types of beer, the homemade boisson lace, chocolatiers & belgium waffles (belgique gaufres). We tried a few of the beers and found KWAK to be the best out of what we tried... belgium folk are very particular about their beers in that they MUST be served in their own beer glasses (it's actually regulation)... KWAK has an interesting beer glass in which it looks like a yard glass but smaller and seated in wood like so...
[img:5350c4b827]http://www.mbibeer.com/beer/images/kwbotb.jpg[/img:5350c4b827]

we liked it soo much that we bought both us both a glass with 4 kwak beers in it (they even have package beers that include the glass). we also bought a ton of different types of chocolates from all the different chocolatiers - YUMMY... :-)

The interesting thing about the chocolate is that it's SO not like american chocolate... truth be know -> you only need 1 piece to suffice for the entire day. i dunno why, but that's how it works.

belgium is known as "the capital of europe" in that there are 4 different languages used in the city. the brussels people typically speak french, german or english and anywhere outside of brussels is typically dutch/flemmish.. it's so different you have no idea if you should speak french or dutch to them...and it's kind of a different french in that it's just a bit "slang" from the paris french...

you can pick up belgium waffles from small outside waffle stands and they're just awesome (better than what we make here)... and they have mime's and artistic characters (street characters) out during the weekends making some money (see photos)... that's was my first mime sighting in Europe - we didn't see any in Paris...

the beer is really different, you can drink it like water and not get a buzz (or at least I didn't get one).. I tried a wheat beer and it tasted like lemonade and very easy to drink (no buzz)... i tried a bellevue kriek beer which is a cherry beer (kriek=cherry in flemmish/dutch) and that also went down like a coke (no buzz).. each beer we drank had a distinct taste and no buzz attached.. doug tried the Stella beer and a few other different types that i don't recall...

we also traveled outside of brussels to brugge which is similar to venice in that they have canals surrounding the city. we have a few photos of brugge as well.. notice the dutch shoes picture... just a tad different than our types of shoes eh?!

also - you'll see one photo of an underwear shop window.. just goes to show just how sheltered we are here in the US and how developed the other countries are... TV over there is very much like paris tv.. always mocking the politics of hte US and really hitting on Bush (nothing irregular there) - see www.bushin30seconds.com for an idea of what they display over there commercial wise... they'll show french movies with dutch subtitles and in one prime time movie, they showed nudity (both boys and girls) and even a small kid loading a shotgun and accidently shooting his dad... very different from over here!! I like the music better and MTV Europe was the station we watched the most since they have everything but american music on there (except christina aguilera and madonna)... there's so many other musical groups out there - countries even that we never get the opportunity to hear...

as a tip:
when visiting an overseas city - we figured the first thing to do is to find out how to get to the hotel.. then once you get to the hotel - settle down for a bit, take a shower and then venture out and find out how to get around town.. then your off, on your own adventure using your own rules and time... so much fun as long as you know how to get back to the hotel!!!!!

anyways, if i think of anything else trip wise, i'll post it.