brussels.

Find the Grand Place!

I spent the weekend in Brussels, Belgium, visiting friends from school who were studying up there. Despite the cold and a 180 euro taxi ride (which I still refuse to believe actually happended), I had a wonderful time learning all about the Flemish and French divide, the current lack of government, the many times Belgium has been conquered, and so much more (I'm pretty sure I now have a better understanding of Belgium history than many of the people living there thanks to my well informed friends).

Brussels is filled with random statues. From the famous peeing boy, to the less famous squatting girl (made in retaliation to all the attention that the peeing boy was getting), they were everywhere you walked. It was a welcome break from all the big mustached statues of military men that are seen in Rome.

These two dapper guys are my friends from school, who provided me with a wonderful history and political strife filled tour of the city.

The main food groups of Brussels seemed to be: waffles, beer, chocolate, and fries. In my two days there I made sure to sample one (or more) of everything. My favorite had to be the waffles. Bought from stands and loaded with whipped cream, fruit, and chocolate sauce, they were my go to food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yum.

All weddings in Brussels take place in the Grand Place. It looked like a cold wedding.

The Grand Place, the popular meeting spot of the weekend, is a wonderful gilded square and easy to find due to the tall steeple sturcture in the middle. There are Carl Marx used to own a flat on the right side of the Place. It has now been turned into the most expensive restuarunt in Brussels. Capitalism prevails.



Find the Grand Place!

Welcome to Brussels version of Embassy Row. All the Embassies along this street represent the states that first recognized Belgium as a country. The American Embassy is way at the end. Supposedly if the guards see you taking a picture of the Embassy they delete every photo on your camera, so this was as good as it was going to get.

Some planes from the Military Museum.

The Royal Palace of Brussels.



street performers.

What you see while walking down Las Ramblas.

 Lunch break

  



barcelona.

Barcelona, or Bar-ceth-lona, if you want to say it the correct way, which invovles pretending you have a lisp, is quite a wondeful city. Home to Picasso and the outlandish architecture of Gaudi, there is lots to see just by walking around. My friends and I seem to have a knack for getting lost, which meant we spent most of our time trying to find our way back, stumbling upon some cool building or neighborhood, and then miraculously ending up where we had planned on being (the wide streets and smooth sidewalks were a welcome change from Rome's cramped cobblestoned streets during these treks). We quickly realized though that few people speak anything but Catalan, which made for lots of hand gestures and enthustiastic nodding, but only added to our slighty eccentric, but very enjoyable weekend in Spain.

Lovely Park

We stumbled upon this extensive park on our last day in Barcelona while hunting for churros. Not only were we successful in finding the most delicious churros made fresh from the inside of a truck but we also found a park that had everything from a rowboat packed lake to a filming of darth vadar invading an ice cream stand.

Gothic Quarter

 Street Scenes

Typical Pose.

Barcelona seemed to house some of the most random art work and architecture that I have ever seen in one city. You would pass unassuming building after unassuming building and then suddenly stumble upon a street, house, or balcony that screamed "I AM DIFFERENT!"

Las Ramblas

Known as the Champs-Elysees of Barcelona, Las Ramblas is a long stretch of a street, lined in trees and flanked by expensive shopes. The fun lies in the middle pedestrian pathway that's home to elaborate street performers who will pose with you for a few euros. There are also bird markets, flower markets, and candy markets galore making for an entertaining stroll through the middle of Barcelona. But watch out for pickpockets. Even more so than Rome, they seem to be everywhere. Oh, and if a little old woman comes up to you and points at her eye it means the person you were just refusing to buy flowers from was trying to rob you. Good to know.

Bird Stand

Market

This market was located off of Las Ramblas and was a complete sensory overload. There were stands of fruit, meat, fish, candy, chocolate, eggs, and smoothies! (a wonderful find considering they are non exsistent in Rome) We ended up spending a good hour walking around the stands watching kids carry in baskets of ostrich eggs and old woman hacking at animal carcasses. Yum.



afternoon at piazza navona.

In the early afternoon when it kept looking like it was going to rain.

Piazza Navona is one of the more famous piazzas in Rome and in my opinion the most beautiful piazza at night when all the fountains are lit up . I spent an afternoon there looking for the Panne Bakery where I bought (and quickly consumed) those yummy looking cookies below (the one on the left is the closest thing I can find to a chocolate chip cookie in all of Italy). Not a bad day.

Sun again.

yum.