Blow Drying Brussels

Once again, we have a week off from school--I love the British school system!  We get breaks just about every 6 weeks, and good ones, too!  None of this long weekend stuff; we always get at least a week, if not two, off!  I even did my best to be organized, and started to research and book a trip a full month before the actual break (last time I think we finally ended up choosing a destination about three days before departures).

We decided that we should be far enough into spring by the end of May that it would be safe to venture to one of the more "northern" countries without turning into human icicles.  We debated between France, Holland, Belgium and Germany for our trip.  Belgium turned out to be the winner, mostly because the train tickets to there were much cheaper than anywhere else.  We knew absolutely nothing about Belgium, but we figured we could learn about it as we went.

By the time break rolled around, the forecast for the week (both in England and Belgium) was rain.  The whole week.  While I appreciated this in England (I was worried my garden would die while we were gone), I wasn't too excited about the prospect of an entire rainy vacation.  But what can you do?  We crossed our fingers, hoped for the best, and began our journey.

The Eurostar train wasn't scheduled to leave until almost 11:00 a.m., but we still had to catch the bus and the Capital Connect train just to get to St. Pancras in London.  To be on the safe side, we caught the 7:30 bus from just outside our house.  It was only a few minutes late (ok, it didn't arrive until almost 8:00, but that's pretty good for the buses around here).  Luckily, the traffic must have been good or the driver must have really been gunning it because we still made it to the train station in time to catch the express train into London.  We arrived at Kings Cross right around 9:30 a.m.

Luckily, St. Pancras is just across the street, so we didn't have to navigate the city too much.  There was a bit of a line at check-in, but we found that no one was particularly interested in using the automated machines, so we took advantage and grabbed our tickets from one in less than five minutes.  With nothing else to do but wait, we headed through security (so much easier than going through at the airport), and into the waiting lounge.

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It was still earlier than the time I normally wake up, so the first thing we did was make a beeline straight for the coffeeshop.  I ordered the largest, sugary-est drink I could find.  It was delicious.  The lounge was crowded with families with young children.  We wondered what was in Belgium that attracted so many families, but then we heard the announcement for boarding of the train to EuroDisney.  The lounge was clear of children in about 5 minutes.  We enjoyed watching the way different children rode the escalator--you can tell so much about their personality based solely on their methods!  Some kids cling to their parents or older siblings, while others try to weave their way through the crowd to get to the top first.  One kid was even trying to ride up by sitting on the moving handrail!

Only a few minutes after the departure of the Disney train, we were called to board ours.  I don't know if there is some secret to booking the tickets, but so far every time I've booked online we end up at a four-seater table.  Since there are only ever two of us, we always end up sharing with other people.  So far it hasn't been too bad, and we even met a really interesting guy on the way back from France.  This time, we sat across from another young couple.

They were content to ignore us, and that suited us just fine since we were mostly just interested in sleeping.  It's probably a good thing we didn't end up talking, because we probably would have ended up in a fight. They were discussing their next career moves, and the girl explained that she wanted to go back to school to become a teacher.  "Yea," she said, "I'll probably get bored of it really soon, and I don't really like children all that much, but the holidays are awesome!  I don't really have to like it, because I'll get 16 paid weeks off per year."  Yep, those are definitely the kind of people who should go into teaching.

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We managed to successfully ignore the rest of our table-partners' conversation and had a pretty uneventful ride through the Chunnel and across the French countryside (all of which Scott missed because he was sleeping like a rock).  We arrived in Belgium right on time, around 2:30.  We were happily surprised to see that not only was it not raining, it was actually fairly sunny and warm!  After a longer-than-expected trek to our hotel, we got settled in and decided to head out an explore a bit in the nice weather.  Of course we didn't think of bringing umbrellas!

The hotel was just about two miles from the city center, and we enjoyed strolling through some interesting neighborhoods on the way.  Unlike other cities that have segregated cultural areas, in Brussels it seems that all the cultures thrive right next to each other.  In the same block we passed by a Pakistani tea house, a Spanish grocery, a Brazilian clothing store, a Moroccan bakery, and a Filipino dry goods store.  And of course all the signs were in French and Dutch.

By around 4:00 we could tell that we were getting into the "touristy" part of town, as evidenced by the throngs of confused people huddled around the windows of the chocolate shops.  It was just about this time that the weather decided that it was about time to fulfill the forecast and start raining.  It wasn't too bad at first, so we continued our walk, enjoying the ornate architecture in the downtown area.  We even found the main square, the Grand Place.  Our timing couldn't have been more perfect, because just as we walked out to the center of the square, it started to downpour.  We looked for an escape, and ran into the first restaurant we could find.

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We already knew that the food was probably going to be overpriced based on the fact that we were in the main square.  But we were seated on the third floor with a great view of the entire square, and the waiter spoke English fairly well.  There was a slight mixup when Scott tried to order sausages and somehow ended up with some roast meat, but whatever it was that he got was delicious so it didn't really matter.  I got some salmon, which was a little overcooked, but the vegetables were excellent so that (kind of) made up for it.  We were mostly just glad to get out of the rain!  The large pitcher of wine also made us appreciate the food probably more than it deserved.

Of course, being in Belgium, we were also served french fries in a cone.  Yep, they should actually be called "Belgian fries," because they weren't invented in France after all!  They got their name from American GIs who just assumed that they were in France because everyone around them was speaking French.  Silly assumption, right?  I must say, the Belgians really do know how to do fries! Apparently they use a special technique whereby they slow fry the potatoes in warm oil before flash-frying them in hot oil to finish them off.  Definitely worth a try!

We did our best to eat slowly and wait for the rain to pass, but by 5:30 we were starting to get tired.  We ventured outside but soon realized that there was no way we were going to make it the two miles to the hotel without getting soaking wet.  We bought a really beautiful souvenir umbrella from one of the shops, with scenes of Brussels on it.  Unfortunately, the umbrella is no longer with us, as Scott left it behind at customs on the way home.  Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted!  Kind of.  We still ended up being pretty soaked by the time we got to our destination, especially my shoes.

Expecting to do a lot of walking, I'd only packed my tennis shoes.  They're great for tennis and other athletic activities, because they're built to "breathe" really well.  Unfortunately, the hundreds of little holes and the mesh do not make them very good for the rain.  They were probably five pounds heavier each when we got back up to the hotel room!  I knew I didn't really have any options other than to wear them wet or figure out a creative way to dry them, so I set about searching for a method.  My first instinct was to just place them on the heaters, but unfortunately, the hotel had already turned the heat off for the season.  I couldn't very well let them sit outside, because it was still raining.

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I ended up finding the in-room hairdryer and drying the shoes with that.  It took a good half hour or more before they started to dry up.  I was glad I'd found a way to have dry feet the next day, but let me tell you, if you're ever wondering what might make it on the list of "ten worst smells in the world," hot, blow-dried shoes will probably make it to the top of the list!