Brussels

Saturday, January 25:

 

Oh man, what a long weekend! 

            The cab picked us, Mallory, Lindsay, Shelby and I, up outside our apartment at 6am.  We headed to the train station and arrived an hour before the scheduled time the train would come.  We sat outside, quite blustery I might add, as the train station was closed, due to the early hour. Forty-five minutes later more students showed up to catch the same train.  The train arrived right on time, 7:17am; we boarded, and headed for Lyon.  After arriving in Lyon, we hastily tried to find the shuttle that transports to the Lyon Airport, a 23-euro cost round trip.  Hopped on and away we went, four stops later, it was the end of the line, and we made it to Lyon Airport.  It was time to find our terminal, which led us to security.  Security proved to be a difficult task; not speaking French doesn’t help at all.  I show the woman my passport and boarding pass, and got directed into a line, which was the worst line ever.  The line starts as one but divides into two.  But after standing in the second line, it seems as though the line was only for handicap people, and I was behind a man in a wheelchair, who also had an assistant.  Security wanted the man to get out of the wheelchair to cross over through the security gate, however he was only able to stand up not walk, which for some reason caused a ton of problems.  It was as if the TSA had never seen or dealt with a man in a wheel chair before.  So I pushed my way back into the original line despite the French ladies trying to get me to go to the back of the line, “um hello, I’ve been in line much longer than you, no way am I going to the back of the line.”  Finally moved through the line and finished with security, off to our gate to wait for our plane.

            An hour later it was time to board our flight.  Mallory, Lindsey, and Shelby were seated together as they booked the flight as one group, and I was alone in a different row.  As luck would have it, I was in an empty row, so Mallory joined me.  Off to our layover in Brussels!  An hour and half later, we had arrived.  The next task, finding a bus that would take us in the general direction of our hostel; we bought a bus pass that could be used for all transit in Brussels, found a bus and off we went.  We traveled through many parts of town, including the run down, upscale and even a Chinatown of Brussels.  At this point we were starving, and still had no clue where we were, plus no Wi-Fi to figure it out.  Decided it was in our best interest to get off, find food and hopefully Wi-Fi.  We happened upon a cute café that offered fresh baguette sandwiches.  We were all very pleased, but even more because we could connect to Wi-Fi. 

            Wi-Fi didn’t prove to be too helpful.  We hopped back on the bus, hoping to eventually end up at or near the hostel.  About an hour later, we arrived in the general area.  Of course we looked lost, and the natives realized that and offered to help.  A kind lady at the bus stop gave us quick directions, in French of course, and away we went.  Finally we made it to the hostel.  We checked in, got our keys, and went up to the room.  IT was a nice hostel, a room with 4 beds, well really 3 (as two were pushed together and dressed with one set of sheets/blankets, a bathroom and shower.  We unloaded, relaxed for a few minutes, and back out we went.  By this time it was almost 4:30pm, the day had really gotten away from us.  At the airport, we had seen an advertisement for Atomium, the symbol for Instagram, obviously a tourist attraction and I needed to see it!  Two busses later, and walking around what seemed like to nowhere, we found the tourist block of Brussels.  This area was lined with the aquarium, planetarium, mini-Europe, and Atomium.  By the time we arrived, the daylight was gone, but Atomium sparkled and shined with lights surrounding it.  We ventured up to the welcome “sign”, and hoped to buy tickets.  Unfortunately by the time we arrived they had just closed.  It was 5:45 and the hours are until 5:30pm.  Extreme sadness…all the time to get there and its closed.  We walked around the gift shop, and took pictures, but didn’t get to experience Atomium.  Also by that time, all the other “tourist spots” are closed too.  So we wandered back to the area, were going to grab food at Hard Rock Café, but the wait was almost two hours for mediocre food.  We ended up at an Italian restaurant with bad service and all right food. We found a few chocolate shops, one called, Chocoholics; I of course bought some chocolate.  Shelby and Lindsey wanted Belgian waffles, so we happened upon a little place, ate some waffles with Nutella; after wards, Mallory wanted a drink, and we went to a bar called O’Malleys, she got some cider and I got my girly drink, Tequilla Sunrise.  The night was coming to an end; we tried to walk back to our hostel, but the busses weren’t running anymore and we were really lost.  So I hailed a taxi, gave him the hostel’s address and we went home.  Quite a long day!  

 

Quick fact:  Manneken Pis, the bronze fountain statue of a little boy peeing into a basin.  His name translates to "Little Man Pee"  inMarols, a Dutch dialect spoken in Brussels.  There are many legends as to how the fountain came to be and what it signifies, most of which involve a little boy peeing on something, that then proceeds to save the entire city.