I can’t believe I ate the whole Brussels

If you look on a map of Belgium and can’t find Brussels, it’s because I ate it last weekend.

Making the most of the credit crunch, Jodie and I booked some cheap Eurostar tickets and an even cheaper night at the Hilton in Brussels last weekend.

Brussels is a lovely city and I can definitely see Nathan living there, however a weekend was enough.

We did the obligatory bus tour, which I always love. Did you know that Belgium is split into two main regions – Flanders in the north where they speak Flemmish and Wallonia in the south where they speak French? And did you know that Flanders and Wallonia and Brussels each have their own Government and Parliament? Did you know that a traditional Brussels waffle has 15 divets? Did you know that the Atomium was built for the World Fair in 1958 and is a testament to the nation’s steel industry and is one of the coolest things that I have ever seen? Did you know that the Mannekin Pis apparently saved the city because the little boy wee’ed on the canons that were set to destroy it? Did you know that?

Apart from that, we walked around the streets and ate. Oh boy did we eat.

When we arrived in the town centre on Saturday the first thing we did was get some frites cones – paper cones filled with hot chips that have been fried in beef fat twice and topped off with a massive squirt of mayonnaise. Later in the afternoon we went to a little café and had the Best. Waffles. Ever. They were awesome. I’m talking in the top 10 foods of all time awesome. Saturday night we went to a Belgium/French restaurant called ‘T Kelderke – oh boy, did the policeman laugh at me when I tried to pronounce that word when asking for directions. I had a traditional dish called stoemp (pronounced ‘stump’) which was mashed root vegetables with a beef stew. Clearly the diet was out the window on this trip! The evening was topped off with some chocolate coated strawberries for Josie as we stopped at one of the thousands of chocolate stores in the city.

Sunday started off with the Hilton buffet breakfast, where I was quite restrained and had some cured meats, cheese, fruit and croissant. Jodie however was carb loading with her plate of bread, croissant, waffles and pancakes. We decided that lunch didn’t necessarily have to be a savoury meal, so Jodie and I had waffles. While I was feeling rather full and not wanting to even look at chocolate for quite some time, Jodie went on a Belgian chocolate shopping spree and filled half of her backpack with sweet treats. After walking around in the freezing cold to try and burn off some of the calories, we bid farewell to Brussels and headed to the train station. Where we bought a couple of packets of waffles, so we could wean ourselves off our new-found addiction when we got home.

For the trip home I had upgraded us to Business Class for an extra £10 (special credit crunch deal), which was well worth it. The host kept trying to ply me with alcohol, but all I wanted to do was sleep. Then they brought out a light mid-afternoon meal of steamed chicken and vegetables, a side salad, and – oh, what is that? – a waffle.

Jodie and I waddled off the Eurostar at the other end, feeling rather satisfied with ourselves.


“23 minutes in Brussels, why can't they just leave us alone, are we gonna to get into a tussle, cannot take an airplane home”
23 minutes in Brussels, Luna