Brussels: Truffles, Waffles, Truffles, Fries, and Truffles

This weekend David and I went to Brussels and Bruges, in Belgium, which was probably my favorite place that we’ve seen so far. We spent almost all of Thursday on a series of trains from Prague to Brussels. We arrived in the evening and then took a bus to our hotel, which was in a rather rundown district referred to as the Turkish district. We walked around that area and found dinner before falling asleep back at the hotel.

The next morning, we made a split second decision to wander around the town instead of hitting up a bunch of museums. We explored some interesting old buildings and got a feeling for the town. 

This is their Town Hall. So fancy.

One of the places we stopped was the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. As we paced the edges of the cathedral, I began to feel strangely connected to the place. I pondered going to light a candle. I tried to explain to myself that I had no reason to feel connected to this particular cathedral. It was a pretty but not stunning, large but not huge, fairly average cathedral. But the feeling of connection persisted, and finally I told myself that I didn’t have to explain in. I should just go light a candle. 

Cathedral

Dragon-slaying angel statue

As I was digging through my purse for a euro to donate, I glanced up at the statue in front of me, the statue that stood at the spot where I could no longer ignore my intuition. It was an angel slaying a dragon. The statement passed through my mind almost too quickly for me to recognize its importance. But my brain finally caught up and thought: It’s an angel. Slaying a dragon. For months (or possibly years now) I have been envisioning and describing the monster in my head, which makes me feel bad about myself, as a dragon. And last semester, as I was exploring new spiritual territory that I have yet to become completely comfortable with, I was shocked when I felt unmistakably as if an angel had come to my rescue. These facts suddenly were standing in front of me, juxtaposed together in stone. I stood in front of the statue for a few minutes trying to discern what message I was supposed to glean from this encounter. Talking it out with David helped, but I’m still working on processing. Essentially, it reinforced that I need to let go and to ask for help, and reminded me that I can ask an angel for help (but, as I said, I’m still working on getting comfortable with that).

After our cathedral visit, we ate a quick lunch at this place with healthy prepared foods before splitting off for a little independent processing time. I got truffles and then met David at a park, and then we visited the Belvue museum that lies adjacent to the park. The museum covered the history of the Belgian state since its creation around 1830, and we had less than half the recommended time to see the exhibits before they closed. We basically strolled through the museum reading the big signs out loud. Afterwards, we wandered around the town some more before eating at this super touristy place among a bunch of other touristy places. They were all on this one street in the middle of the city and all the restaurants make basically the same food. Normally, I would assume that such a street would be an awful place to eat but everyone’s food actually looked really good, so we decided to give it a try. Other than the stressful nature of having waiters beg you come to inside, it was a cool atmosphere and my paella was tasty. After dinner, we explored some more (and got more truffles), before bussing back to our hotel.

Building that houses the Belvue museum, the park is behind me

David looks SO happy with his Belgian waffle

 Saturday morning we walked to the headquarters of the European Parliament, one of the three governing bodies of the European Union. On the way there, we stopped at a stunning botanical garden, where we talked about which trees we identified with and why, in between debating the plausibility of combining the universes of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Basically, we are super cool. 

This is the tree I liked best.

Once we got to the European Parliament complex, we realized that there was a festival going on to encourage citizens to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Apparently the chamber, where the parliament members meet and vote, was open to visitors for the day, but the line was ridiculously long so we just visited the “Parliamentarium” museum like we had planned. After the first two rooms (in which we spent a couple hours), our brains felt like jelly so we just strolled through the last four rooms and pointed out the pretty colors. We went on a quest for Belgian fries and truffles (again) and then went wandering around the town, where there was an enormous Pride festival happening. For dinner, we ended up collapsing at a cute Belgian restaurant that was highly recommended online. Their food and atmosphere were just great. After dinner, David did some major emotional work, so we walked and talked and, you guessed it, got more truffles.

My Flemish potato dish covered in ratatouille and hugged by sausages. Yumyumyum.

Sunday morning we woke up early and checked out of our hotel, stored our luggage at the train station and went to Bruges. Bruges is a smallish town about an hour’s train ride west of Brussels. As soon as we stepped out of the train station, we felt like we were in fake town. There was an idyllic river and beautiful green trees and a huge Ferris wheel in the background. We followed the crowd to the city center, which was also impossibly adorable. We walked the streets in awe for a few hours before getting lunch at a cute little café and then getting some Belgian fries and truffles. 

Bruges

Candy-making in Bruges

IT'S TOO CUTE

We searched for souvenirs and took pictures, and then went to Katie’s Perfect Museum: it’s a church that has served as a hospital for hundreds of years. Pretty much as soon as we stepped inside, David kind of exploded and we were both really frustrated, standing at the entrance to this museum completely paralyzed emotionally. We dealt with it as much as we could at the time, and slowly moved on. The museum did end up being really cool (for me, David almost ran through once he saw a painting entitled “An Anatomy Lesson,” which pictured three nuns standing over a man whose intestines were not inside his body). There were displays of old medicinal books and medical instruments, used by nuns and medical professionals hired by the church. Early in the hospital’s history, care mostly focused on “healing the soul” because medical practices were not widely understood or performed. As time went on, however, the focus shifted to physical care and the building’s primary purpose morphed from church to hospital. The apothecary where nuns dispensed remedies is still intact and open to visitors, preserved quite well. It was absolutely fascinating to explore. 

Apothecary

Before going to catch our train back to Brussels, I got a few more truffles (try not to look shocked). 

TRUFFFFFLLLLLLE

 In Brussels, I got my second Starbucks of the day, which turned out to be a very poor choice. Our first train was incredibly crowded and hot. For two hours, we sat on the floor of the bouncy train fanning ourselves. The mixture of coffee and chocolate and not much else in my stomach made me quite miserable by the time we disembarked. I basically collapsed in a chair while David went looking for food. Eventually, I felt okay enough to go looking for rice to calm my stomach down. While venturing out, I went to the bathroom and somehow managed to get stuck in the bathroom stall. The handle broke off as I was trying to leave and there was no opening that door from the inside. I tried everything before knocking, then banging, then yelling, “Help!” The bathroom attendant came and opened the door, shoved me out and tossed my container of rice in my general direction, before starting to scold me in German. I guess he thought I purposely broke off the handle or something (why would I do that? I have no idea). He wouldn’t listen to my attempts to explain and I was very shaken up and nauseous, so I just dropped the handle on the ground and got out of there as fast as possible. David did a good job of not laughing as I shakily explained what had happened. But seriously, since when to bathroom handles just break off and leave you stuck in the stall???

Eventually I calmed down and ate my rice, which allowed my stomach to settle. By that point, we were both quite tired and we descended into intense silliness that resulted in a lot of uncontrollable laughing and drew a lot of stares from our fellow passengers. Finally, we boarded our overnight train to Prague. We had splurged and reserved couchettes, so we actually got to sleep. It was very nice. Upon our arrival to Prague this morning, I realized that would be last time I came ‘home’ to Prague, which made me all sad and sentimental. Even so, I am pretty ready to see my family and come home. My life feels pretty full of contradictions right now, so this concept seems pretty straightforward. I’m not looking forward to leaving Prague in two days, but I am excited to travel with David and then with my family and to see Brittany over the next month. There are hard parts of life that sometimes feel to heavy to handle, but it’s still a good life.