brussels

So here is my report from Brussels.

I arrived yesterday no problem, though I have discovered that reservation fees are much higher than the eurail website said they would be.

The hostel I am staying in is quite nice, very clean. I was the last one in the room so I got stuck on the top bunk, goddamit. I dumped my stuff and took off.

Brussels is a good walking city. It's quite fugly though, lol. I walked down and saw the stock exchange building, then popped into the church of St. Nicholas. Outside of the church some guy was singin La Bamba and it was fantastic and gave him some change...and he just kept singing La Bamba. Over. and Over. I think it was the only song he knew, lol.

I walked some more and went into some lace shops, then to the Musee de la Ville. There really wasn't much there until you hit the second floor, where they house all the costumes for manniken-pis (the famous statue of the little boy peeing). The costumes were fucking awesome, man.

I wandered some more and went and saw the manniken-pis in a cute little tuscan costume, then tried to find the Costume and Lace museum. On the way I found english bookstore, and obviously spent money I don't have on things I don't need (duh). Unfortunately the museum was closed to set up for a new exhibit.

I strolled through Brussels, then returned to the hostel and took a nap. After my nap I got an overpriced personal pizza at pizza hut, then hung out downstairs and read magazines and drank crappy Belgian beer. I went to bed around 10:30, expecting the rest of the room to be out partying. NOPE. I was the last one in the room, lol.

Today I woke up and got off to a bit of a late start (that happens when you have 5 girls trying to use one shower/sink/mirror). I had a walking breakfast then tried to go to the Tourism office to buy a museum pass, but the SOB was closed. Thankfully there was another one around the corner.

My first stop was Autoworld, a super awesome car museum (probably better than the one in Monaco). The coolest thing there was probably the early model camping car--it had a little porch on the back, and is really no bigger than a minivan. Obvi I took pictures of it.

Then I tried to go back to the Costume and Lace museum, but it was still closed. So I pulled out my map and managed to find my way to the Comic Book Museum, a gorgeous building in the sketchiest neighborhood. It was superclass!! They had a huge exhibit on TinTin, and though it was tiny their exhibit on the Smurfs was beyond hilarious. I stopped and got a coffee in the cafe, then took off for the toy museum.

The toy museum is an old townhouse filled with 14,000 toys dating back from the mid 1800's. it was fucking AWESOME. The rooms were somewhat organized, but you'd find random teddy bears sitting in the middle of the train tracks and things like that. They were even selling some old toys that I totally wanted to buy--but I didn't have enough money.

This is where the day turned sour for a bit. I went off to find an atm, and on the wall I fell and twisted my ankle rather badly. Then the atm building was closed so I said fuck it, I'll go back. But I couldn't find the metro. SO I walked about 10 minutes (without finding a single open pharmacy to get something to wrap my ankle in) then went to the train station to book my trains for tomorrow. The booking part was easy, but then I tried to buy a phone card to call Mom but they only had the dumb payphone cards, and then they wouldn't take my bank card so I spent my last 5 euro on a 2 minute long phone conversation with mom. Then it took me about 20 minutes to find an atm.

I got back to the hostel and lay down for a bit, then experimented. My phone DOES work (Since I managed to talk to Heidy), it just won't connect to the states. I chatted a bit with my new roommate, then had more crap food at Pizza Hut, then bought a delicious personal sized haagen dazs and now I am quite cheery and off to read for abit then drug myself to bed (hahahah).

Tomorrow I spend all day traveling to Munich, talk to you in a few days my friends.