When we first moved here, everyone told us that it barely snows in London and our research on normal fall/winter temps told us that it rarely drops below freezing. Well, last week, it snowed everyday and while it WAS above 32 most of the week, it was FREEZING. Seriously bone-chilling cold. And I think it's because it's that damp-type of cold. All. The. Time. And even though the rest of the country got more of the white stuff, London only got about 1 inch of snow at the most in a day. But this was enough to totally disrupt the city (as we were warned). Trains were delayed or cancelled. Commute times tripled. All for a measly inch.
We started to get a bit worried because we were leaving for Brussels (first Eurostar trip!!) on Saturday morning. And it was unfortunately justified when our train was cancelled Friday night. Luckily, Eurostar is smart. They stopped selling tickets earlier in the week so anyone without a ticket wasn't going to get on a train, meaning less madness at the train station. And people with cancelled trains could come to the station and they'd put you on the first available. So we decided we'd get up and try to get on the early train to Brussels that left London at 7:00am. And got on the train with no problem! We never would've had such good luck (and ease of travel) back in Chicago.
So off we went! The train was super cool. The ride is only 2 hours from London to Brussels; there are a couple of short stops including Lille, France. It was weird to be in 3 countries in the short span of 2 hours. And you go through the Chunnel of course - but you're only in the tunnel for 20 minutes. Madness.
We arrived in Brussels and checked into our hotel. It was snowing like crazy and the sidewalks were a mess, but we bundled up and ventured to the Grand Place (sort of a city center in Brussels). It was really beautiful. A lot of the architecture in Brussels is gothic and just amazing (pics to be posted soon). We stopped in a restaurant for mussels, frites and delicious Belgian beer. I don't really know if I drank much Belgian beer before our trip, but I know that I love it now. We spent the rest of the day wandering the Christmas markets and drinking gluhwein (yum!!). After a short rest in the hotel, we headed to dinner near the Sablon area at a restaurant called Lola. We started the meal with (and I'm not exaggerating) the best oysters I've ever eaten. They were simply outstanding. Next was a soup that our waiter (who spoke some English) couldn't translate from French. My guess is it was a butternut squash-type soup. It was served with what tasted like french onion dip, to be mixed into the soup. It was also awesome. For entrees, Matt had steak frites and I had a chicken dish with a morel mushroom sauce. We skipped out on dessert with the intention on finding gaufres (waffles) somewhere on our way home. We ended up walking back to Grand Place, where we saw the coolest light show projected on to the Grand Place itself, set to Christmas music. It. Was. SO. Cool. Probably the coolest Christmas thing I've ever seen. We watched the show a couple times and then went to a pub on the square for a beer each and then a vin chaud (similar to gluhwein) for me and a Cecemel (type of chocolate) and chantilly for Matt. On the way back to our hotel, we stopped for a gaufre liege - a type of Belgian waffle with the sugar and goodness baked right in, so there's no mess. Yuuuum.
Sunday morning, we got up and headed back to the train station in hopes of catching a train to Brugges (pronounced Brooge), a smaller Belgian city north of Brussels. In Belgium, the Eurostar will honor your ticket to any other location as long as you travel within 24 hours of your original arrival. So, for example, our original arrival was supposed to be at 11:08. We got to the station just in time to catch a 11:05 to Brugges, so free trip for us!! Barely. Brugges also has a lot of gothic architecture like Brussels, but the added feature of canals, similar to Venice, but not as plentiful. It was very beautiful - and the weather was outstanding. The snow had melted and we had sunshine on and off all day. We (again) wandered the Christmas markets and drank gluhwein (noticing a trend?) then headed to a beer pub. A beer pub in Belgium means that they carry hundreds (not an exaggeration) of Belgian beers. We took pictures of everything we drank. I stuck mostly to Christmas beers while Matt tried all sorts of things. The other thing to know about Belgian beers is that they are a much higher alcohol % than other beers. Everything we drank fell between 8-12% alcohol. Yikes. After a couple drinks at the beer pub, we headed back to a market for "street meat" as Matt called it. It was basically a giant bratwurst with onions and sauerkraut...mmmmm. We watched people ice skate while we ate - arguably the worst bunch of ice skaters we've ever seen. People were falling everywhere. We still had 2 or 3 hours before our train back to Brussels so we headed to yet another beer pub (the better of the two) and had a few more beers each. After a quick 50 minute train ride back to Brussels, we crashed at the hotel for the night.
On Monday, we went in search of 1 of the 2 famous frites caravans in Brussels (apparently, the city could be divided over which cavavan makes better frites). Unfortunately, the first one was closed so we headed to the other caravan. The frites there are fried....twice...in beef fat. And quite tasty. I had mine served with the traditional choice of mayonnaise, while Matt chose bicky ketchup (ketchup with indian spices perhaps?). Did I mention yet that these two servings of frites brought our grand total to 5 servings of frites in 3 days? Yep. I am the world's best dietitian. :) However, as I type this, the thought of eating any type of frite or fry or chip makes my stomach churn. Anyway, after the frites, we shopped around, wandered another Christmas market, each ate 1 more gaufre (stomach churning again) and had a couple more Leffe Noels (beers) before heading to the train station to go back home to London.
All in all, it was a really amazing trip. It forced me to use what little French I know (and a learn a little Dutch, since that is what is mostly spoken in Brugges) and I realized that I'd really like to learn French while I'm over here. Once I start work (next Monday, gulp!), I'll get a better idea of how busy I am, but then I'd really like to take a class at one of the local colleges. Knowing more French will make subsequent trips much easier. I also particularly enjoyed Belgium because it was my first new place since we've been here (not counting Bath) - I'd been to both London and Paris before. So I've got another country under my belt now. Yay!!
Today, we are lucky enough to welcome one Josh Johnson into our home for a visit until Sunday. Not sure what we'll do this week, but I imagine we'll have a lot of fun. I need to have a lot of fun and enjoy the remainder of my freedom since as I mentioned earlier, I start my job at Cancer Research UK on Monday. I'm super excited, but super nervous. So fingers crossed for me, folks!
That's all for now. Please mark your calendars for Tuesday December 28 - we're planning to do drinks (happy hour ish) somewhere in the city. Stay tuned for more details!
See you all SOON! Cheers!!
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