Jet Lagged Gianna

Yes, my next stop was Brussels, which geographically makes no sense. Here’s a quick explanation as to how I ended up there: I originally wanted to go to Italy from Spain. I wanted to fly because I didn’t want waste time getting north on land. But the specific airport I wanted to fly to from Malaga didn’t have any direct flights. There was always a stop in Brussels (unless I wanted to pay an obscene amount of money for a direct flight). So I thought: why the heck not? A 3 hour stop turned into a 3 day visit.

I remember telling a woman I was going to Brussels during my time in Spain. She looked at me like I had 3 heads. “Why would you go there? It’s so boring?” 

I was filled with doubt about the city after that. 

I don’t know why that lady had such a bad impression of Brussels. It’s a great place filled with waffles, chocolate, french fries, and beer. What’s not to love??

My flight to Brussels was one for the books. I was stuck between two people (never not paying the $4 extra to choose my seat on Ryanair again) that smelled like they’d never heard of showers before. I know it’s negative, but it was two hours of non stop smelly-ness and I’m still scarred from the experience. After landing, I took a flibco shuttle bus to the central station, and then hopped on the metro to my hostel. 

Architecture-wise, Brussels is the exact opposite of southern Spain. All of the buildings are modern and elegant and clean. Spain flaunted its history through its cobblestoned streets and rustic, old buildings. Brussels did the same, but through its museums. 

It took me .2 seconds to realize how much more expensive Belgium was than Spain. I knew I couldn’t afford to eat out every day like I had been in Spain. I went to the Coop (a European grocery store) in the metro station and bought pasta and tomato sauce and broccoli. Original. I know.

After a flight, a bus, a train, and a 15 minute walk in a circle carrying all my bags in attempt to find my hostel, I was drained. My plan was to cook dinner, read the new book I’d started (To Kill a Mockingbird), and go to bed.

The universe had other plans. Or maybe I wasn’t as tired as I’d originally thought.

The hostel kitchen was full of people. After making my dinner, I sat at a table with an Indian girl named Kira. She was my new best friend for the next 2 days. 

Kira has had the most interesting life. She grew up in India, went to study design in Milan, Italy, and now works for a big design company in Malta. 

I’ve never ventured further from my home than Europe, and hearing all of Kira’s stories about life in India intrigued me. I feel like we only ever get the media’s perception of a country. But Kira taught me about how progressive India was becoming. It is now high up on my bucket list to visit. 

“So are we going out or what?” she asked me in her beautiful half Indian, half Italian accent. It wasn’t a question.

We headed out for beers and sat outside at a bar before quickly realizing neither of us really liked beer. We ordered a bottle of wine to split. 

Brussels is a huge bachelor party destination for Europeans. Everyone was drunk and trying to sell frisbees so that they could buy beer. It was hilarious to watch. We drank wine until the bar closed down and they kicked us out. Things close much earlier in Brussels than they do in Spain. 

We wandered the streets until we found a gyro shop and ordered a huge plate of french fries to share. (Fellow vegans be mindful that a lot of the fries in Brussels are cooked in duck fat. Make sure they use oil). 

The next morning, Kira was taking a day trip to Bruges and I was ready to do all the touristy things in the city. We planned to meet back up again that night.

My first goal was to find a Belgian waffle. The city is extremely vegan friendly, so it wasn’t too hard to find Veganwaf. I ordered a waffle covered in chocolate sauce and strawberries.

I think I paid $8, which is way too much for a waffle if you ask me. But it was the best waffle I’d had in my entire life. I sat at the high top counter, eating my waffle and immersing myself in the adventures of Scout, Jem, and Dill. 

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Next up was sight-seeing, which included walking around a park, taking pictures in front of ornate buildings, and using my student ID to pay 1 euro to walk around an old art museum. I concluded my sight seeing with the Mannekin Pis, which is just a statue of a little boy peeing. The crowd around it was huge. I didn’t understand the hype, but I still snapped my obligatory picture before heading off to find some lunch (apparently I’m not good at budgeting when I travel). 

The Avocado Show is located on one of the main streets, just a few blocks from my hostel. I’d passed the place 20 times, and was extremely interested to try it.

The waiter seated me upstairs next to a window overlooking the street. He seemed annoyed that I was eating alone. This place probably had some of the rudest servers of all of Europe. He was even more annoyed when I only ordered water and avocado toast. 

The toast was presented beautifully. It was the kind of food you don’t want to eat so as not to ruin the beauty. Don’t get me wrong, the toast was good. But $13 is way too much for a piece of bread with avocado on it. The aesthetic of the place is good for instagram pictures, but the food and service combined are like a 4/10. 

I paid too much money and then went to the grocery store to pick up some more broccoli for dinner. I love how cheap produce is in Europe, seemingly no matter what country you are in. 

I headed back to my hostel to figure out how I was going to get to Bruges the next day. I opted to buy a flixbus ticket which was a HUGE mistake!!! More on that later.

Kira and I met back up, and I cooked us dinner. She was extremely thankful and even offered to do the dishes. Kira wanted to go out again. She had matched with a cute German guy on Tinder, and she wanted me to go with her to meet him. I wasn’t going to say no to another night out. Kira is a fun time.

We went out to find the mystery man, but first we stopped at a place called Delirium Village. It’s essentially a small alley with tons of bars. It’s especially fun because every bar has a different type of alcohol. There was a beer bar and a tequila bar and so on. 

We decided that even though we didn’t like beer, we would probably like strawberry beer. We ordered, and the bartender gave them to us for free. Plus one for being a female!

The most hilarious part of this night was the fact that Brussels and Scotland were playing against each other in a soccer – oh excuse me – football match the next day. Hundreds of people from Scotland had come to Brussels to watch the match. It was kilts galore in the pubs that night. 

We hung out with some shirtless scots in kilts at a tequila bar for a while. Finally, we decided to meet Kira’s mystery man at a bar a little further away. It was so packed with Scottish people that we couldn’t get inside. The mystery man brought a friend out, and the 4 of us made our way back to Delirium, first stopping on the street to watch a man in a kilt play the bagpipes. It was very impressive. Too bad Scotland ended up losing the match.

We grabbed a few beers and found seats in the pub. After a few hours of talking, Kira whispered in my ear that she wasn’t into the German guy (even though he was hilarious). It was nearly 2 in the morning, so we decided it was time to go back to the hostel. The Germans graciously walked us back to the hostel, and the second they were out of sight we headed straight towards another gyro restaurant for some fries. 

Kira was leaving the next day to go back to Malta, and I was off to Bruges. I promised her I would visit her when she moved back to India, and she could alway stay with me if she wanted to visit the US.

The hardest part about solo travel is the goodbyes. It’s so easy to make beautiful connections with people, but they are always short-lived. 

Up Next –> How to Get to Bruges and Ghent from Brussels (And How Not To)

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