Europe: Brussels and Amsterdam

Just to get it out of the way since I know the world wants to know, unfortunately I did not meet Jean-Claude Van-Damme in Brussels. A failure I will take to the grave. Now that it's out of the way, I'll write about what I did instead. Second note, this is going to be very long. I had an amazing time and really don't want to forget a single detail so I'm writing it all down for my own memory. It's a shame I won't remember this fifty years from now so instead I'll just read my blog again when the time comes.

JCVD was nowhere to be found in his home country of Belgium.

This was my first time traveling by train so it was a neat experience finding my way to the platform and figuring it all out. Emily wanted to see how it was done as well so she came with me to the Paris Nord (North) train station. Thankfully the station is very easy to navigate and the people were nice so I got my tickets easily and found myself on the train a few minutes later. Said goodbye to Emily for the time being and relaxed into my seat for the two hour ride to Brussels in the country of Belgium. I actually had a connection somewhere random but blah blah blah. The train was awesome and very, very relaxing. It's great to just chill out and watch the world go by outside the windows.

I arrived at Brussels Midi (South) station on time around 12:30pm and via the directions I had written down I took the metro to the north side of the city center and made my way to my hostel. The 2Go4 Hostel is where I was staying and checking in was a breeze with my reservation already made for the next four nights. I walked upstairs to my room where I met a girl named Libby who was still sleeping from the night before, looking quite hung over . Keeping the noise down so she could sleep, I took a shower, unpacked a bit, and headed out to explore and find some epic Belgian food.

Epic waffles.

If you're not familiar with Belgium, it's known and famous for a few different things. Not necessarily in this order, it's known for it's Beer, Chocolate, Waffles, and Mussels, however Brussels is also the capital of Europe and houses a lot of the government offices and conferences for the European Union (EU). It's a busy, bustling city that is no stranger to tourism and greets it in kind. All of the restaurants have menus in four different languages (French, English, Flemish, German) and I'm sure the servers probably speak enough of each to greet and serve everyone properly. Just from walking around I got the idea quickly that everyone was friendly and it was in general a laid back place, a nice contrast from Paris where everyone is in a hurry and smiling is against the law (har). The map I got from the hostel also had some tips on what to do and some suggestions for food, etc. so it got me off to a good start. After an hour or so of wandering I ended up at a medium-sized restaurant called Le Grand Cafe where I had a steak lunch with a nice, tasty pint of Stella. An amazing meal and a nice buzz later I walked back to the hostel where I took a break in the room and got to talk to Libby a bit. She is from Melbourne, Australia and had been there a few days already so she told me a few stories of where to go and what was fun in the city. It's always good to meet people who have done it before to get the scoop and all. Thankfully she was cool and didn't smell or snore or anything so +1 point for that. Hostel mates can be such a gamble, I think that anytime they aren't completely weird it's a good stay! So, cheers to Libby for being cool. :)

After hanging awhile two more people came into the room. A bearded mountain man named Mike from Canada and a girl named Shannon who was from Boston, Massachusetts which isn't too far from my own home town of Brewster, MA. They had met a couple of days earlier and become friends so they were traveling together for the time being and ended up in our room for what was also their last nights in Brussels. We all chatted for awhile, got settled in, and decided to head down to the hostel common area for some dinner and beers from the vending machine. (Isn't that awesome? Yes, vending machine beer. Cheap too!)

Down in the common area we met a few more people, another girl from Australia, one from New Zealand, a guy named Kasper from New Zealand, and a guy from Australia, and two guys from France I think who didn't say much. We chatted it up, talked about our trips, lives, and got prepared for the night. Dinner time rolled around so we went out for some Greek "kebabs" at the Sultan of Kebap (yes, spelled wrong haha!). Kebabs are basically just sliced beef in pitas with a bunch of vegetables and some epic sauces. It's the equivalent to a burrito/taco in California as there are Kebab shops on almost every street in Europe. It was bound to be a long night of drinking so I ate as much as I could and we headed out towards the first bar, Delirium.

Delirium is definitely not a locals' spot in Brussels, it's a tourist bar to the max and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone there from Brussels who wasn't an employee. Buuuut, it holds the current Guinness Book Record for having the most types of beers available and is FUN as hell. In 2004 they scooped the record by having 2004 different beers available. Years later it's gotten even more and still holds the record,definitely a kick ass place to drink beer. I must have tried 15 different beers that night, some great, some terrible. There are a lot of "flavored" beers, chocolates and cherries and bananas and coconuts and mangos and so on and so forth, but thankfully they have plenty of manly beer as well. The one that stood out for me was the Orval Trappist Ale, which they had a batch of "plus one year" which was a batch that had been aging a bit longer and was just AWESOME. It's about 8% alcohol which is medium for a trappist, but man was it great! I also had a few others that were almost as good, most of them ranging from 8-11% alcohol content, so needless to say it was a nice, drunken night. It was great fun talking to the different people and learning about New Zealand, Australia, and all the places Mike and Shannon had been already. I felt like a big traveling noobie but it was fun anyway to hear such great stories. I'm a bit jealous of the freedom that the backpackers had, just wandering the continent, going from adventure to adventure while I seemed a slave to my planning. I decided at that moment that I was going to make the very best of my time here in Europe and really step it up a notch. Even if that meant being a bit spontaneous and stepping outside of the box a little.

Delirium Cafe in Brussels. Photo credit to TripAdvisor.com

There was a large group of us when we arrived at the bar, probably ten or so, but eventually it dwindled down to only three when all of the ladies and some of the guys went back to the hostel due to hang-overs from the previous day(s). Mike, Kasper and I were still good to go so we hung around and started to talking to some other people. A large group of German women showed up eventually so Mike started talking to them and made some new friends. Both of the guys spoke some German, while I couldn't think of even one word...so it was funny to watch them talking while I just sat around listening and enjoying the brew. I tried to learn some of the language to no avail, though I did get the name of what is suppose to be the all-time best German wine, (Spätlese Rheinhessen). The night moved forward and for some reason (I can't remember but I imagine this was my idea...) we decided to go and find some karaoke. After a good bit of wandering we did actually find a karaoke bar, but we looked inside and saw maybe three or four people, compared to the hundreds at the bar we had just come from...so we all decided to move on and ended up at a place called Celtica. At this point I was totally hammered and details are fuzzy, but there was live music inside with an older man playing some well known tunes on his guitar. The best part was that he would only play about half the song and then trail off into some random jam session on every song. It was funny as hell, it's as if he didn't know the whole songs. As the night went on he got more drunk and the songs became even more diluted with weirdness, yet somehow still so awesome! One of the girls taught us all a trick with some beer coasters where you lay them on the side of the table and flip them over and try to grab them with your hands without them coming apart or turning your hand over. I totally nailed that shit. I managed to get seven of them on my first try. Minutes later though I tried again and I spilled my beer, or someone's...not entirely sure who's it was. ;) Good times. Mike and Kasper were dancing with the two girls so I decided it was time for me to find my way back to the hostel, I grabbed my coat and headed outside. I really had absolutely no idea where I was, so wandering out alone was probably a bad idea, but thanks to my superior sense of direction and my previous wanderings I actually made it back really easily. It must have been about 4-5am, still my first day in Belgium and already having a really, really great time.

The next morning I woke up completely dressed on my yet-to-be made bed with a headache and a fleeting memory of where I was or what I had done to get in such a place. Hostel, Brussels, oh right. Check out time was at 11am, so it was about 10am when everyone got up and started getting ready. I was booked for another few nights so I didn't move much while we all hung out for what was most likely the last hour we'd ever see each other. Eleven rolled around so we headed downstairs for some breakfast and the common room. Mike was headed to Bruge (Belgium), Libby to Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and Shannon I believe had planned to go to Frankfort (Germany). I think it was Shannon who then said, "well I'll just go to Amsterdam with (Libby) so I have someone to travel with". Moments later Libby got an email from two friends who had just come from Bruge and they said it wasn't all that fun, so Mike and I kind of just said, well I guess we'll go with you as well. Moments later, after what was probably the most spontaneous decision of my life, I packed up and headed off with some new friends to the city of Amsterdam. Since I had already paid for this current hostel and couldn't get a refund I just packed an overnight bag and locked everything else in my locker in Brussels and left with everything I'd need for a one-day adventure to Amsterdam.

I purposely only packed a night's worth of clothes and brought enough money to last me just a day so that I wouldn't get crazy and end up in yet another country after-wards. We all hopped on the metro to the train station where we randomly met up with two of Libby's friends from Canada who's names unfortunately escape me right now. They were the two guys who had emailed her saying Bruge was boring, and had come back to Brussels to catch the train to Amsterdam (one leaves every hour). Everyone except for me had a Eurorail pass (a pass that allows anywhere/anytime train travel in Europe) so I needed to buy a train ticket. Shannon had a Eurorail pass but her's was slightly limited and she didn't want to use it up so she decided to buy a ticket as well. We went to the counter and whilst buying the woman at the desk asked if either of us were over 26. I told her I was 27 and she said, "aww, well I guess you don't get the discount!" My reaction was something like, "shit". My ticket cost 36 euro while Shannon's only cost her 23 euro. I laughed and thought, "well lesson learned, next time I'm 25 years old". With our tickets in hand we headed to the platform and hopped on the train that left shortly after.

With the six of us together we secured some seats facing each other on the train and spent the next three hours talking, telling stories, playing cards, drinking coffee, and relaxing. The Canadian guys all geeked out about hockey for awhile, which I thought was hilarious. These guys could not have possibly fit our (America's) "Canadian" stereo-type any stronger. It was all about snow, hockey, beards, and beer. Great group of guys who were happy to fit such a stereotype anyway. We figured out the equation for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice-versa with some simple math, which helped us figure out how cold it was in The Netherlands. Time passed, borders were crossed, and eventually the train slowed to a stop and we climbed out into another country.

Thankfully the weather was nice and Amsterdam at 3pm was a beautiful and vibrant city. I didn't know much about it besides the stories every American knows of the prostitutes and marijuana being legal, but it's actually incredibly nice. There are museums, fantastic buildings and architecture, canals, trams, and all sorts of things that make a city fun to be in. As we left the Amsterdam Central train station Mike was in the middle of telling us not to be run over by a tram when he was promptly run over by a bicycle. It was a skinny girl to, just straight up ran him down. Watch out for bikes in Amsterdam, they are everywhere! We continued on the mission to find our hostel, which we learned shortly after was right in the center of the red-light district, called "Heart of Amsterdam". We all checked in, and found that all of the rooms were film themed, each of them having a different film. The guys were in the James Bond room, appropriate I thought. The girls were in the Clockwork Orange room, with a bunch of guys who had apparently been smoking ganga all day and couldn't even move. Our first mission was food, and we found an Irish Pub where all four guys ordered the same thing, a big cheese burger and a pint of Heineken (Amsterdam's home brew). Seriously, this was the best burger I think I've ever had. It was AWESOME. The pub was called Slainte and I'd recommend it to anyone, anytime. After dinner we went back to the hostel to get changed and get ready for the evening.

Bulldog Coffee Shop, Amsterdam - The first coffee shop to open.

When everyone was ready to go, we headed out to our first stop, the Bulldog Coffee Shop. Bulldog is famous for being the very first coffee shop in Amsterdam so it was kind of a must-stop for us. We went in and ordered some coffee and headed into the basement where you can buy any kind of marijuana you want easily and legally, and smoke it right there. I don't smoke, but I took a few hits just so I could say I had done it. While here we discussed some very important things like the Image Metrics standard drunken arguement, "Bacon Vs. Cheese". As per usual, everyone agreed cheese was better except for one person, Sam. There you have it world, there is always one guy who thinks bacon is better. It was definitely fun sitting there in a little coffee shop smoking a legal joint. We were there for about an hour and decided to head off to get some beers. There really aren't any places in Amsterdam where they advertise being able to drink beer/alcohol AND smoke weed. They frown upon it so it's usually one or the other. We ended up finding some places where you can bend the rules a bit but you'll never find one that advertises both inside. While we were looking for one I dragged everyone into a small bar called "Rock Planet" where they were playing Bon Jovi, GnR, Def Leppard, etc. (yep, all of the best bands ever.) We drank some beer there and then Shannon told us she didn't like Bon Jovi, I think my heart stopped for a second. Being in close proximity to someone who openly admitted not liking Bon Jovi. It was difficult, but...but I pushed on and kept moving forward. :) Next was another random bar that seemed to have a nautical theme. Lots of ships and knots and things all around. Some more good beer and good stories later we headed out for yet another bar where we drank some jager shots, a few bombs, some beers, the guys smoked a bit more, and we came to the realization that the Red Light District was about to close. This came as a bit of a surprise to us. It may have been due to it being Monday, or maybe it's the off season or something, but the bartender named Sandy told us that all of the bars on the strip close at 1am. 1am, in Amsterdam? wtf! She did however have some insider local info on where we should go next, a locals dance club named "Bubbles" that was about a fifteen minute walk away in another part of the city. We thanked her for the info, paid our tabs, geared up and headed off in what was hopefully the right direction.

About thirty minutes later I was trying to figure out where we were when a man came up and pointed out our location on the map. Nice! He was cool right? No. Homeless people here always trick you and help you before you can say no and then guilt trip you until you're not sure where all you're extra coins went. This happened two more times before Shannon finally asked directions from a non-homeless man and we found what we thought was Bubbles. Apparently it wasn't Bubbles at all but equally fun so we ended up hanging around. Sam and Conlan (two Canadians who's names I just remembered) were apparently super stoned and wandered off somewhere else before we made it inside, so it was back to the four of us in this random Dutch dance club at 2am somewhere in Amsterdam.

This club was pretty damn cool really. I wish I could tell you what it was called, but...no idea. There were about 10 bartenders, all of whom were running around and shouting happily and constantly ringing random bells very loudly and giving us all free shots of some mystery blue liquid which tasted like kool-aid and vodka. It was fun, dancing, drinking, loud music, exploding paper bomb things, conga lines, madness ensued. I think I drank like ten half-pints of Heineken there, they just kept coming. The club shut down around 5am and we headed out to walk back to the hostel. On the way back we saw a local guy totally just randomly crash his bike in the middle of the street right next to us. I walked up to him to see if he was okay but he either spoke no English or was too inebriated to reply. As I stood there, totally hammered, watching this guy on the ground who wouldn't respond and trying to decide what to do...what I presume was his girlfriend ran up from the side and started accosting us for not helping him properly. "STUPID FUCKING AMERICAN TOURISTS! WHY DON'T YOU JUST STAND THERE AND LAUGH AT HIM YOU STUPID AMERICANS!" I reply, "We were trying to help him!!" "WELL YOU AREN'T ARE YOU, STUPID AMERICAN FUCKERS!!! YOU ARE JUST STANDING THERE! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE STUPID TOURISTS!" I'm thinking to myself "lolol, first of all tell him to quit being a little girl and get off the ground, (she literally is lifting him up and patting him on the back and helping him stand) second of all nobody here is American except for me..." :P Shannon is American yes, but my little joke to myself in my head was really funny. We joked about it on the way home to the hostel and finally found our way back to get some sleep. Check out time was 11am so we all bunked down for a few hours of shut eye. The next morning I had a train to catch, so I said goodbyes to cool new friends, exchanged emails, facebooks, whatever, and I walked off towards the train station.

The train back was amazing, and bad at the same time. I sat by myself, thinking, enjoying the quiet and trying to recuperate a little bit of strength for the next couple of days in Brussels. When I bought my ticket home I remembered the trick to say I was under 26, so I got the ticket for only 23 euro which was great! However, an hour into the train ride the ticket guy walked by and when he checked my ticket he decided that he'd call my bluff and checked my passport. "This is a youth ticket, you are not a youth, you will need to buy a new ticket, it costs 44 euro." DAMN!! So not only did I not get the discount, I just paid 67 euro to get home. Blargh! Take that as a lesson folks. The ticket is still valid until January 10th, 2010 so if anyone wants to buy a ticket from Amsterdam to Brussels for cost, let me know. I met a few girls on the train who were studying in Paris and happened to be staying in the same hostel as me in Brussels. Got to chatting with them a bit but didn't end up seeing them again after we got to the hostel. I grabbed a bite to eat nearby, went upstairs and fell asleep almost instantly. I was so tired from the last couple of days that I ended up chilling out in the room and resting that night. A few new roommates showed up later that evening but I didn't meet anyone until the next day at breakfast.

I was down in the common room with my computer checking my emails and such when the girls from the train showed up. We chatted for a few minutes and I decided that they were without question the most uninteresting people I had ever met. A proper contrast to the cool people I had met just two days before who were awesome and had endless funny stories. While I was regretting saying hi and wanting to gouge my own eyes out with a rusty spoon, the guys from my hostel room came down and I was saved. (Thanks fellas!) They were three American guys studying in Paris and visiting Brussels for a couple of days before heading to Amsterdam. Yeah it's a common trip combination it seems, Brussels/Amsterdam. :) They were going to spend the day checking out Brussels' museums, parks, gardens, etc. which I hadn't done yet so I decided to head out with them and see the sights.

The first stop was the big tourist area in Brussels, the Grote Markt (Great Place).

A great, big square with some fantastic architecture.

It's the sort of city-square of Brussels where there are many large buildings all built around 1697. It's definitely impressive. Some of the buildings have this sort of gilded gold on a lot of the stone which makes them really awesome looking. The gold does a lot to make it interesting. I'm not saying I'm jaded by a long shot, but certainly a lot of these old buildings look the same, so seeing something a little different was really cool. We walked around here a bit before heading to check out some more of the churches in the area. There is on church called St. Catherine's where they installed a urinal for people to piss on the church. Don't ask me why, I don't know. You are just suppose to pee on the church. *shrug*

The chocolate museum was next, it was awesome! They had statues made of real chocolate that had been hardened and carved like stone. The ancient Mayans were the first to use the cocoa plant to make things with and we got an interesting lesson into the history of chocolate. A live chocolate making demonstration was great too, with lots of free samples and tastes!

Some of the old metal tools from the early days of Belgian Chocolatiering

Ancient Mayan Chocolate Statues - Some of the these were as big as a person! And you can eat them! Though they'd kill you if you did...

We visited some great churches and one of them we were able to explore the underground foundation and check out all of the old stone that once held the place up. It reminded me of a story Mike had told us of a church in a place called Kutna Hora that is about an hour north of Prague where the church is made of out human bones. Seriously. Google it. Kutna Hora.

This was from inside St. Michael's Cathedral in Brussels.

Next stop was the famous Belgian Comic Museum where comic legends such as Tin Tin and the Smurfs are immortalized. It was fun to walk through and check out all of the exhibits for the different artists and authors. All comics were celebrated as well, not just Belgians. Japanese, American, French, Belgian, a vast array of different comics were studied and put up for all to see in what was certainly a comic nerds heaven.

A small glimpse into the Comic Book Museum.

Next we walked nay across the whole city to check out the Belgian Royal Palace and the royal gardens. The gardens were nothing to mention really, unkempt and barely even attended to, which was interesting. The palace though is, yeah it's a palace. Check it out.

Royal to the max!

Brussels has a few more interesting sights to see such as the famous "Manneken Pis" which is a statue of a naked little boy peeing into a fountain. He is dressed up throughout the year to celebrate holidays, football games, etc. Simple yet cool. You can also visit the EU central area where all of the government business goes down, but we didn't end up going. We picked up a waffle (epic!) on the way back to the hostel and chilled out there for awhile drinking whiskey and planning out the evening.

We all knew we wanted to have Mussels for dinner so we headed to one area we knew had a lot of restaurants offering fresh seafood. We found one and settled in for what turned out to be a long wait but a large and great meal. I had raw oysters for an appetizer, Mussels and french fries for the main course, and a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. It also came with a beer and bowl of bread, not a bad meal for 12 euro. After dinner it was back to the hostel for some whiskey pre-gaming and then we headed out to Delirium again for some more epic beer tasting. I wish I could tell you all of the great beers I had that night, and the one terrible one. Good ones I remember: Brigand, Pirat, Orval, Satan, Lucifer, Seks, and the bad one was something like Vraadenkraak. I remember there being lots of aaaa's in it. Seriously, terrible beer. Sorry if you love it, but I can drink pure vinegar at home...don't need it in my beer. We spent the evening there and headed home around 4 or 5am or something like that. Sleep! Woot!

The next morning I packed my gear to head home to Paris, said goodbyes again to Joel, John Mayer (yeah his name was that haha) and Jon. Figured I'd see them again in Paris in a few days so it was no biggie, I checked out and headed off to the train station.

The train itself was so great, again. I got a nice seat by the window, got to watch the world go by for about 2 hours while I recollected the adventures I had just had for the past five days. So many cool people in such a short amount of time, it made me wonder if this is what backpackers experience on a daily basis. The jealousy resurfaced for a bit while I considered what it would be like to do it some day, to just grab a backpack full of gear and disappear for a few months. I decided I'd have to at least sometime again in my life, as it's just so much...fun, and you can learn so much about yourself and the world. As the train arrived on time in Paris, I grabbed my bag and walked out into France and the city.

On the plane ride back from Venice, Italy there happened to be a brochure in my seat talking about Brussels and how nice it was, which is what prompted this trip initially. It was a bit of a quick decision when I planned it but it ended up a great idea in the end where I had one of the most fun and interesting trips of my life. People are amazing, the world is amazing. Get the hell out there and see it!

As always you can see more photos from the trip at my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/jayonidas

Thanks for reading!