Straight off the plane.

So my first day in Brussels was pretty fun and definitely tiring! As soon as I got off of the plane my parents whisked me to the Grand Place (after a quick stop to the apartment to put my luggage away) in an effort to keep me awake so that I could acclimate to the time change easier. We got there by bus and the underground. As we walked down to the underground the smell or urine hit our noses. I said, “It smells like urine.” My parents said, “yeah” nonchalantly. That made me laugh on the inside. I like how they just accepted that that was the way it was and didn’t complain like Americans would have. As we walked though the tunnels to get to underground, a man played an instrument that was a wooden box with strings strung across it. He struck the strings with the sticks that looked like backscratchers. The music sounded middle eastern and was quite pleasant.

After ridding the underground, we stopped at some shops and I had my first Belgian waffle. It was divine. It was thick and chewy and it had fresh strawberries on top. Then I saw the Grand Place and some human statues trying to make a quick buck, when the one I took a picture with found out that I was from America he immediately said Barak Obama. That was kind of weird, I mean did he just say that because I was black??? Then we walked to Mannenken Pis which is a statue/fountain of a little cherub-like boy pissing. I’m glad that I got to see the real thing, I have a family friend that use to watch me when I was a wee lass that had one similar pissing into her pool.

Then we found Jeanneken Pis which is a statue/fountain of a little girl poppin’ a squat! I liked that even more! Finely people who have a scatological sense of humor like me! By the time that we sat down to eat lunch I was fading fast. It was so hard to keep my eyes open and my mom said that I looked stoned! Hmmm…..I wonder why she knows what that looks like? I did get to try some frites (like French fries) with mayonnaise and it was quite tasty. The mayo was different than American mayo and complimented the potatoes very well.

I got to get some comfy pants from a tent market and visited a chocolatier. We got back on the metro (underground) and then walked the rest of the way home. I tried to stay awake, but only lasted until 6pm in the middle of painting my nails. Lights out!

If you want to see pictures of some on the places that I went, go to the like to the right of the page labeled: FIRST DAY PHOTOS