The city

This afternoon we spent a few hours walking around the main city of Brussels. The weather was crappy, about 40 degrees, raining hard, and windy as hell, but the sights we saw were still captivating enough to make us pay more attention to them and less attention to the rain. We saw the Grand Place, which has some crazy historic guild-houses, dating back hundreds of years. We also saw many of the old cobblestone streets and a few old churches.

Iria took us to an Irish pub in the center of Brussels for a drink, and it was one of the coziest places I have ever been, and is apparently a popular hangout for Americans to watch football on. Looks like I will be spending the Superbowl here. The center of Brussels is very close to where we live, only three metrostops, a total of about 10 minutes of travel time. One ridiculous thing about Brussels is that they have the most restaurants per capita in the world, so everywhere you turn there is a different place to eat.

As far as the food goes, in the center of Brussels there are tons and tons of hamburger places, waffle stands, friterie stands, and pita stands. The pita stands, though supposedly serve delicious food, look absolutely revolting. There is a grill type thing at the window, and hanging above it is a cone shaped mass of meat that they shave off pieces to fall to the grill to be cooked. Picture like fifty pounds of raw roast beef dripping onto a grill, and that is a Belgian pita stand. I sampled my first Belgian waffle today, which lived up to my expectations. Unlike waffles back home, Belgian waffles have almost a sticky sugary coating to them, and the inside is very doughy. I was in a rush so I did not get any toppings, but common toppings are fruits and creams.

After our nice little tour, me and one of my new roomates, Ryan from Chicago, sat down to attempt to watch a movie. I fell asleep pretty early on in the movie, and woke up to the whole family of dogs resting on my lap.

We then ate dinner, which consisted of some sort of meatballs, green beans, salad, and mashed potatoes with cheese. Once again, it was delicious.

This evening we bar hopped with a few of our friends from Bentley and a couple other kids from different schools. It was a good time.

Orientation starts tommorow so I should probably get to bed.

All in all my experiences in Belgium have been amazing!