A Day in Belgium

Greg has been writing papers like a mad man and is completely burnt out. So we went out!
This is the Grand Place. It was seriously cold! It's been snowing on and off for 2 weeks!They had a Christmas Tree with blue lights lit up. There was also a display of these pole things that lit up in blue at the top, all sparkly, and they'd make bird noises or songs or something. It was neat.

It's basically a big open square with these big buildings surrounding it.

We've been meaning to find this guy for almost 3 months now!

Mannequin Pis

We did a little research and this guy has been STOLEN by the French. He was stolen by some CONVICT that was released. Another time he was stolen they made a new one, but this is in fact the original. In the 80's the feminists demanded a girl one. We haven't seen her yet, though.

I just can't believe his little shrine. He is SO SMALL!!! That's all we kept saying.

In the picture you can see an open window with a display of waffles right there in the cold. These little shops are EVERYWHERE in Brussels!!! Everytime we go out we see people eating waffles.

This was my first one (that's me buying it). We'd put it off forever, because I never knew if you just got the old one's sitting out and I didn't know how to ask in french! They never looked THAT good.

But OH MY GOSH!!!! It was good.
It is not a normal waffle. Once I bit into it you could see it was like a pastry! It's covered in sugar, but it melts and is all sticky. And the chocolate- it was quality. I expected something cheap for the topping. No no. It was EXCELLENCE in every bite. I made an instant decision that I'm just going to have one every time I go out! 'Cause c'mon, it's not THAT much, right?

Then we rushed to the "mini china town". I don't know what it's called, but there's Asian restaurants and stores everywhere. We've been DYING to go and stock up on spices, and noodles and sauces, but just haven't had the time. Look how cute it is!
The strangest experience. We walk in the store and it felt just like home! Because it was just like the Asian market at home- exactly. We spent $60 there. I don't know. That seems like a lot for soy sauce and curry, but we just grabbed everything we saw!

We found this AWESOME carousel. For some reason, every time we wander the city we find a random carousel, just there in the middle of the city. It must be a Belgian thing because we find them all the time! But this one was CRAZY!!!! No horses. It was all "Edward Scissor Handsy" with creepy wierd animals, insects, weird machines and hot air balloons to fly in. It was the coolest thing.Alligator shaped bread!

On to the Christmas Market. They have Christmas markets EVERYWHERE here! We were here a couple weeks ago. We rode the Ferris Wheel you can see in the background, it was fun. There were little shops all along the sides. Every thing was lit up with lights!

Ok this picture does not give the size of the dog justice. Just compare it to the size of Greg's head. This thing was HUGE!!! We'd also see people walking around with THESE all over the place.
I thought they looked disgusting, but then I ended up eating it too. It wasn't "mmmm good" but it wasn't bad. It was wierd. An interesting taste. Not your normal sausage flavor. Mike, we thought of you.

Another carousel!

And iceskating! But we had backpacks full of Chinese food and I can't skate- so we passed.

On to the real grocery shopping.
The GB. This is our grocery store. As you can see, it is not gigantic. But it serves it's purpose.
This we had to learn the hard way, many times, again and again. You bag your fruit and weigh it at one of these little machines. Then it spits out a price tag for you. And if you get in line and you haven't done this, the cashier will be really irritated and start saying stuff in another language expecting you to understand and you're just like, "Huh?" not even realizing there's a problem. And the whole line waits for you while they go weigh it for you. Yeah, this happened in Prague. Whoops!

Milk, it's not refrigerated (until you open it). Doesn't it look like laundry detergent? So we stalk up and put it under the sink.

Ta da!!! The foreign section. On the right we have our Asian sauces, noodles, etc. Things that are very important to us. On the left in bright yellow is ALL THE MEXICAN FOOD!!! I can't believe how many tortillas are there- so decieving. Usually there's only a couple packages.

Ha, ha! Greg found these. I didn't know Chocolate Chip Cookies was an American thing. But apparantly they are. Notice the Statue of Liberty and the football player on the packaging.

Similar to the cookies (another american thing).

Not a very big selection of peanut butter (which is also "american").
But just look at the Nutella section!!!! Wowser!

Ah, the cheese. All different kinds and it continues round the corner!

Everything you see here are WAFFLES!!!!! Yes, it's true. All kinds of waffles everywhere, around every corner, and in every store.

As you see, in the middle row, we have one option for plain tortilla chips.

And an isle just for the chocolate candybars!!! There's not "the candy section" but rather "the chocolate section." I am not kidding.

This is just random. Greg found the tiniest pineapple in the world.

This is our only option for vanilla- except that it's not really vanilla at all. I suppose it tastes like it, but it's syrupy. And yes, this is the only size. So we went thru one in a month. (Thank goodness I picked vanilla up at Costco)

Then it was back home! We'd never brought home so much food before!!!! Now our cupboards are full!