Belgium: Mmm... Waffles

Firstly, I'd like to finish my story from last time since so many people asked. The rest of the story was unfinished because it was unexciting: we said, "no, thanks," and he said, "okay," and then walked away.

Secondly, this post seems like it is a week late. That's because the N-Spice group went on a week long trip, so I couldn't post. More about that in the next post. Okay, on with my Belgium story.

On Saturday, we - we being Jen, Tymonna, Nicole, and I - set out to Antwerp, Belgium. Or Antwerpen as the locals say. We pulled out our classic travelling style again: have a few plans and wander around the city until we find things. Yep, so that's what we did; we made a few educated guesses on a general direction, and we started walking. At some point during our meandering, we came across the big cathedral that we had intended to attend. I'm not exactly sure what the real name of the cathedral is, but there is only one big one in Antwerp, and trust me, it's big. After standing in awe of this mammoth gothic structure for a few minutes, we entered and were even more awestruck. I'm writing this while in Prague and have already seen another huge cathedral, but this upcoming thought started growing when I was in Antwerp.

The cathedrals that I have seen so far are amazing. They are gigantic and full of all sorts of intricate detail and incredible artwork. No picture can fully show the cathedral. Writing everything about the cathedral would take years or decades and yield a book that would be quite large and heavy. Even walking around the cathedral for an hour, I feel like there's so much more I could have seen; so much more detail I could have discovered. Cathedrals are incredible buildings, and they do inspire awe, but I think that I would rather worship in a contemporary, humble, warm (both in heat and in company) church building than in one of these famous artist decorated halls.

Saturday evening as we were meandering around the center we passed a man clad in red and white checkers calling for us to eat in his restaurant. We felt hungry and were actually looking for a place to eat anyway, so we took the neo-italian's offer and entered the restaurant. While we were consuming our large yet cheap pizzas, two other N-Spicers, Laurie and Rachel, entered the cafe.

Since we didn't have reservations at any hostel, and the hostel we tried was full, we followed Laurie and Rachel to their hostel hoping to find a place to sleep, and indeed the "New International Youth Hotel" had a place for us to stay. The rest of the night the six of us played some cards and then went to a coffee house - not the Amsterdam type of coffee house, rather one where they really serve coffee.

Sunday morning we awoke rather early and ate some free breakfast at the "Youth Hotel." The breakfast room was packed with older folks so I had a hard time determining why "youth" was in the name. Later that morning, the four of us were on a train to Brussel.

We approached Brussel with the same plan as Antwerpen: meander around in a generally correct direction until we find what we want. Through the help of some well labeled tourist street signs, we made our way to what is called the "Grand Place," which is a large square surrounded by large, intricate, historic buildings. The place was pretty nice; I was amazed at all of the statues that stood on the buildings and all of the stone carved extras that adorned the buildings. European people of the past sure thought it was important to make their buildings look nice, and they sure succeded as well.

We set out on our quest to find the "Manneken Piss." This heralded tourist attraction is merely a small fountain on the corner of some meaningless intersection. The fountain is formed as a very small child that is peeing. I found it quite unimpressive, but in a way I'm still glad that I saw it.

The Justice Palace was our next quarry, so we followed the trail of randomly placed maps and the tourist signs until we finally hunted it down. The place is a huge structure with a huge doorway opening, and it's just really big and really intrictate. If you haven't figured it out yet, pretty much everything there is to see in Europe is either really big and really intricate, or a piece of art.

On the way back to the train station, we had to stop at another Belgian Waffle shop. We all took the time to eat a waffle in Antwerpen and the waffles definitely are as good as everybody says, so since we were leaving Belgium, we figured we had better get another one to savour the taste one last time.