8:48
Good morning everyone, it’s currently almost 9am and it’s pouring down outside. We stayed in an Ibis Budget hotel in southern Brussels and now we’re heading to the city centre. As for the breakfast, I enjoyed the Dutch one million times more, here we didn’t even get any vegetables! While in the Netherlands we got to choose also from some purely Dutch specialties. Nevermind, at least I had more time to eat today, yesterday it was just pure chaos. Anyway, we are headed to Atomium, Mini Europe, Grote Markt and some other sights right now, the sky seems to be slowly clearing up, it’s gonna be a good day.
13:28
It was sunny after all! Well at least most of the time, we experienced the typical Belgian weather: sun, rain, hail all during 15 minutes. First of all we went to the Atomium, where we basically just took some photos because it was raining back then (no Mini Europe unfortunately), then we were headed to Grote Markt where we got some time off. So naturally, I went to see Manneken Pis and later, since I’ve already been to Brussels before, I just went to some brewery and had a great lunch – fish soup and fish dish, amazing. Everything about that restaurant was great, I highly recommend it!
I still don’t know how I feel about Brussels. I mean, I liked it more now since we experienced it in quite good weather, but one thing is really irritating me: everytime I visit it, there are road works everywhere and you can’t freely walk around any street because everything in the city centre is constantly being repaired for some reason. And after rain there’s mud everywhere – simply horrible. But on the other hand, that smell of fresh waffles….YUM! I’ve visited many cities in my life already and only two of them I can identify by smell – Brussels and Amsterdam. I love it, how are Belgians so thin?
Currently we’re heading to Luxembourg. I have to check some stuff about that country, I realised I don’t even know what language are they using! Just that it’s a grand duchy. Oh damn. I’ve got three more hours to go, I’ll check it out and then learn some Swedish. Tot ziens!
13:40
Luxembourg is apprently very separate country, they even have their own language! I had no idea. I read that it’s some kind of a mix between French and German, however, it’s still different from both of them. Some say it’s just a dialect of German. Well we’ll see! Another thing that surprised me is that about 1/4 of its population is Portuguese. About 1/2 is Luxembourguese and rest is either French or German. Interesting. I’m looking forward. I saw some photos, they looked really bad when it was cloudy so I’m hoping for good weather again.
19:49
Currently we’re on our way to Strasbourg and Luxembourg is past us. What are my impressions? Well, it would definitely feel differently if it was sunny or at least didn’t rain. The Upper Town is more about the history, and that’d where we were headed to. It doesn’t really have that much to offer in such weather, you can get photos of some nice views, see one basilica from inside and walk around the city centre which is currently under reconstruction, but that’s about it. Basically all I saw was my Pad Thai dish in Les Cocottes restaurant where I was hiding from cold and rain outside. I can’t really say much about it, just that I’ve got a new country on my “seen” list. Oh, and one thing I’ve noticed – there are cranes everywhere, you can’t get a photo without a crane. Interesting.
Some beautiful trees around the town:
Anyway, tomorrow we’re going to visit European Parliament in Strasbourg and in the evening get a dinner in La Petite France. I’ve been to the parliament many times before, so I think I’m gonna look for some Swedish people to practise my Swedish, haha, at least I’d have an interesting day. Either way, there will not be much to talk about tomorrow, an article about progress in Swedish will be more likely if I find any Swedes. Wish me luck with that!
Have a great day!
Asequibles 