Day 1-4: Brussels, Ghent, Bruges

Highlights of this installment:

• First meal of the trip….free and at the airport
• AirBNB – great location, sketchy host
• Life before wifi?
• The Rempalas Karaoke
• Kristin feels self-conscious about her fashion choices
• A romantic castle tour takes a torturous turn
• We stumble across and (of course) into a beer festival
• Let’s document our first fight – in the romantic city of Bruges!

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First meal of the trip….free and at the airport

We arrive in Brussels around noon on Thursday. One of the perks of the credit card we use (Chase Sapphire Reserve) is unlimited Premier Pass lounge access. We see the sign for the lounge as we’re headed out of the airport, and decide to go grab some lunch. Thus the first meal in our first country was Belgian waffles, Belgian beer, and Belgian chocolate at the airport lounge. Free of charge. Off to a frugal start!

AirBNB – great location, sketchy host

We easily find the apartment where we’re staying after using Google Maps (God send) to navigate the public transit from the airport. It’s located on a busy street near the center of the city in the neighborhood of Stalingrad. We booked this AirBNB in the hectic few weeks before our departure purely out of self peer-pressure to have a place to sleep when we got to Brussels. We chose a private room in a shared apartment since we are under-preparers and we hadn’t worked out a daily budget other than “cheap but not sketchy.” I did briefly scan the few rules that Maax included in the “welcome” email, as I’ve summarized below:

• Close all the doors all the time
• Don’t leave hair in the shower
• If anyone asks who you are, tell them you’re Soo’s friend

Our host begrudgingly meets us at the door after we ring him and assure him that the building door was not, in fact, unlocked. We follow him up five flights of stairs to the very top apartment. Then we head up a spiral staircase to our room, which is one of two located in what Maax referred to in the listing as the Penthouse. It had a nice skylight and a view of the city. The bathroom is on the main level and is shared between us, whoever is behind upstairs closed door number two and Maax, who stays in the common area of the apartment that we assume housed the kitchen and living area. He kept that door closed nearly the entire time (see house rules above), so we didn’t feel welcome to use the kitchen.

Life before wifi?

We settle quickly and acknowledge our second wind. We’re eager to get online and find a recommended route around the city, but find that the wifi network Maax gave us doesn’t exist. We message him about this, and never hear back or see him for the rest of our stay.

The Rempalas Karaoke

We wander around Brussels for awhile before Stephen suggests that we find a Karaoke bar. Why not? We do a quick culinary pre-game:

• Grab a beer at La Porte Noire, an old underground bar in Stalingrad. We overhear a young Aussie couple discussing the future of their relationship. DM me for the deets.
• Get some dinner at Vertigo, a restaurant in the oldest area of Brussels. Patio had a DJ and Stephen got a kiss from a drunk lady.
• Karaoke at….The Karaoke Bar! Small crowd=high odds of getting to sing multiple songs. Stephen sings La Bamba & Despacito. I sing…wait for it…4 Non Blondes, What’s Up. They had a decibel meter on the wall and let’s just say, I think they turned my mike down.

Kristin feels self-conscious about her fashion choices

We spend the next day wandering around Brussels while I stare at locals and agonize about my clothing choices. How to look less like a tourist? I’ve made a list:

• Don’t use anything multi-purpose, including that Mary Poppinsesque purse that you brag about how small it looks but it’s actually large enough to hold an umbrella, a map, an RFID wallet, your lunch (cheapskate), a bottle of wine and your kindle.
• Don’t wear a long jacket – short fashionable, single purpose jacket only! Be sure it’s not waterproof or packable.
• Europeans wear graphic tees. Levis. Words in English. Calvin Klein. Go back to your mom’s house and raid that high school closet before you pack. Make sure they’re cotton and wrinkle easily, making it impossible to pack in a 40L backpack.

In all seriousness, I’m over this and have accepted that yes, I am a tourist, I wear tennis shoes and my husband’s pants zip into shorts. Whatever.

A romantic castle tour takes a torturous turn

We book a day trip to Ghent and Bruges through a take-as-you-please train. We get off in Ghent first and I have taken the initiative to plan the day’s activities and start marching toward our first stop: the Gravensteen Castle. We purchase tickets and as a historical romantic, I swoon as we start our self-guided tour of the castle. I pretend I’m Sansa Stark and I dramatically make my way up the broody stone staircase to the first level of the tour.

I quickly realize that this is more like a historical tour of the Red Keep’s Dungeon than the Queen’s Ballroom. This was, in fact, a museum documenting the torture and punishments carried out during the time the castle was used as a prison. Some interesting highlights:

• Extensive display of historical weaponry.
• A hall of ancient torture devices, complete with usage descriptions and pictures.
• Stop #13, which was a bench next to a beautiful ancient tree…commemorating the beheadings of the criminals of a higher class. They would draw too big of a crowd, so the execution had to be done in the castle courtyard.
  

  View of Ghent from what I assume was Sansa’s bedroom.

  

  Gravensteen Castle

We stumble across and (of course) into a beer festival

After our castle tour, we decide to pick a small cafe to grab a beer before continuing on to Bruges. Instead, we come across a tent. With beer vendors. It’s a beer festival! We gladly pay the 1 Euro for a glass and the 2 Euro for a beer and have a few. We mostly sit and observe. We speak to the Duvel vendor about their acquisition of Boulevard. They smile and nod and say it’s good beer. We feel important. We see several bachelor parties, which are funny here – they make the bachelor dress in a stupid costume while they drink all day. Same as the states, but the costumes are required.

Let’s document our first fight – in the romantic city of Bruges!

We arrive in Bruges and start walking from the train station to the main area of the city. It’s picturesque and the weather is beautiful, so we promptly get into our first fight! Yay! Nothing of note, but I think it’s important to document so I  don’t completely romanticize this trip and all of the amazing things we get to see and risk forgetting that there are hard things too. We take some time to reground ourselves and say our sorries, and then we mostly wander around the storybook streets, sit in the square and people watch, take some photos, and head back to Brussels.

Other things we did

• Visited to the Atomium, which was built for the 1958 World Fair.
• Threw in a ticket to Mini Europe, where we learned about the creation of the EU and toured miniature versions of buildings and tourist spots from every country.
• Ate Moules et Frites
• Bought street waffles
• Drank cheap wine at the Grand Place (beautiful!)
• Stephen catches a cold. Kristin brags about her immune system

Stay tuned for our next installment, The Netherlands

Some things to look forward to:

• Stephen feels better. Kristin catches a cold. Kristin curses her immune system and reflects on where her bio-hacking went wrong.
• Kristin falls in love with the Dutch, The Golden Age, and Amsterdam.
• The Rempalas escape to the seaside to regroup and plan their next moves.
• First FlixBus mishap.