Brussles, BELGIUM

From Paris I took a train to the lovely city of Brussels in Belgium. Apparently it is a fantastic idea to take the earliest train imaginable on a Sunday morning because all the rest of the city is still asleep leaving you with an entire cabin on the train all to yourself! Not that I had much to do by myself in the car but I made sure to spread out my stuff all over the place in order to get the most of this once in a lifetime experience.

Brussels, BELGIUM
Arriving bright and early in Brussels I was greeted with silence... there was no one around...ohh right, it was a Sunday... I suppose all the Europeans go into hiding on Sundays because they are no where to be found in the cities because everything is closed. As usual, I forgot that I was traveling on a Sunday and that the whole of the world outside of the US closes down on Sundays. This is a fact that I wouldn't mind if I were living my day to day life here in Europe. It would provide time to spend with the family and a chance to escape from the constant bombardment of our everyday commercialism. But the thing is that I do not LIVE here in Europe so the fact that EVERYTHING is closed on Sunday is a pain in the neck because my days are numbered!!! Fortunately, I am not the only one who realizes that tourists can get testy about keeping to a schedule and that you can make a killing if you are willing to open your shop for tourists on a Sunday while everyone else is closed. After a fair amount of wondering I managed to find the "touristy area" complete with about a billion tourists. It was so odd to wonder five to ten minutes from the deserted outdoor shopping mall and find myself on a street where every square inch was taken up by restaurants touting "authentic local flavors," souvenir shops and a waffle or chocolate shop on every street corner. Of course I went on my standard walking tour of the city, led by my pals "Rick Steve's" & "Lonely Planet" (each of these guide books weights about 9 lbs and for some reason I think I need 2 of them!!). Along my way I ran into a sweet gal whom I had met earlier that morning in my hostel and we made plans to meet up later on and get some dinner. Linda had spent nearly a week in Brussels and had quite a bit of wisdom to impart regarding the town and what to see during my visit. All-in-all, I had a darn good time in Brussels. In short, I saw the palace (yes, currently still in use), ate a bit or maybe more than a bit of Belgium chocolate, sampled a couple Belgium beers, ate a touristy Belgium waffle, a serving of fries or two and tried to balance it all out my doing about 8 to 10 hours of walking through the city each day... One of the coolest things I did was to go to the Salvador Dali exhibit. It was wonderful, I really love his work and enjoyed the opportunity to see several original, complete collections. I was planning to go to Bruges after Brussels but the weather had changed from the beautiful clear skies when I arrived to a constant downpour on my last day sooooo I decided that riding a bike along the soggy beach outside of Bruges might not be the most fun thing I could do with my time so I headed off to the tiny country of Luxembourg!

Side note: it is a good idea to wear sturdy shoes when walking on soaking wet cobble stones in the rain - sandals prove to be quite slippery and you may find yourself a bit embarrassed because you eat it every 5th step...