The beginning of the week was uneventful. Tuesday was pub night so we went to one called Blackbird which is right over by the tube station. Wednesday was class again. The first two were typical. The night class was uneventful. However, our teacher wanted to leave early so he could go watch a football match. In order to celebrate we stopped at a pub on the way home from class. A new one opened directly across the street, so we tried it out. It was a pretty classy joint and it was nice because they had more on tap than the typical pub.

Thursday was work and play night. Our play this week was The Vertical Hour. It was an earlier show and in the neighbourhood, so Melissa and I decided that instead of stopping home for 10 minutes before we had to turn around and go to the play, we might as well try out a new bar. Melissa being the little researcher that she is found one called Cactus Blue that was pretty close to the theatre and also had half price drinks for happy hour. We met there and had a drink before walking down Kings Road to the play.

The show was excellent. It was in a really nice area of town and was smaller, but still beautiful venue. The story was about an American woman who went with her boyfriend to meet and stay with his father in England. She was a war correspondent turned professor. It dealt with the crazy relationships between the three characters along with political issues and the Iraq War. After the play Claire came by so we could plan out trip to Paris (we decided on the Wales trip we should go in two weekends). She left and I packed for Brussels.

We had to be at the Eurostar bright and early. That morning Jill and I made our way to the station. We both barely sleep the night before, so we pretty much got on the Eurostar and passed out for the entire two hour trip. We were excited to get there and check into a nice, real hotel.(Arcadia set this trip up so they managed to work there magic and got us great deals at the Crown Plaza). We wanted to grab some lunch and relax before going out to Explore. Of course, Arcadia forgot to mention that as soon as got there a coach was picking us up and taking us on a three our tour of Brussels!

It was nice to see amd really helpful since I know nothing about Brussels. We drove around a little before we all got out and walked to see the two main attractions..

-Mannekin Pis - A small statue of a boy constantly peeing (yup, that's their most famous resident).There are tons of rumours to who the boy actually is. Either way they love him. People make costumes (all with a strategically placed hole) and dress him up throughout the year. There are lots of chocolates desgined to look like Mannekin Pis, a pub named after him as well as tons of replica statues and pictures of him throughout the city

-Grand Place - This is the main square in Brussels.It is surrounded by gorgeous buildings (mainly built in the 15th century). When it gets warm they fill the majority of the square with flowers to make crazy designs. Unfortunately it was too cold for this. We climbed back on the bus to see more attractions in the comfort of the warm bus. Unfortunately it was so warm that more than 1/3 of the bus passed out, myself included. I woke up for a few of the big sights (which you can see on my pics) and everything else I missed I went back and saw the next day.

Eventually we made it back to the hotel and even though we were starving we decided to have a short nap first. Jill and I shared a room. It was the nicest thing I have stayed in since I arrived in London and probably the nicest thing I will stay in until my parents come to visit. We passed out on our comfy beds under the nice thick comforters. I imagine it is similar to what the beds would be like in heaven… While getting ready for the evening Jill and I made the mistake of straightening/curling our hair. We plugged the stuff in and would sit at the desk to get ready. We walked away to do our make-up and Jill smelled burning. Apparently the nice light-coloured desk was real wood and not lament. We left three lovely light brown streaks right in the middle of the desk. We still haven't received any bills, so I think we're in the clear!

We woke up and met Brumit and Jen (both in the program living in another part of London) to grab lunch. We went to the first thing we could find which happened to be the Drug Opera. After lunch/dinner we wandered around and ended up at Mannekin Pis. We went to a very tacky pub across the street (which is supposed to be one of the best in town). We started to sample Belgium's finest export, Beer. We all pretty much put the list on the table, closed our eyes, put our finger on the menu and ordered whichever beer our fingers landed on. We then would just pass them around and try everyone's drinks. None us of ever really woke up from our nap so after a few drinks we wandered back to the hotel. Jill and I laid down and attempted to watch some TV. I passed out right away, therefore making me fast asleep by 10:30pm - sad I know.

We woke the next morning and enjoyed our delicious complementary breakfast. Then our little gang (Jen, Brumit, Jill and I) went to see all Brussels had to offer. We saw the Parliament building for all of EU. Jill and I (being the smart ones that we are) saw a sign pointing the direction of each country's office.Jill and I almost made the mistake of asking "Where is the US's office?" but caught ourselves just in time. Then we went to the King's office which is a palace where we re-created some Asian tourist pictures (see the ones in the album where we are jumping the air). We looked at some more buildings. Some we knew what they were, some we didn't (all the signs were in Flemish or French) and then we made our way to some museums.

First we went to see a museum of Belgium's second finest import, chocolate. It looked like somebody bought some chocolate artifacts and strategically placed them throughout their home. There was also a demonstration, but it was too crowded to see it. We did get some delicious free samples.

Next we walked a block down to see the Brewery Museum. The entry fee includes entrance to the 'three-part' museum and free beer at the end of the tour. The three part museum was very deceiving.

-Part 1 - The room where you pay which includes a beer tap and one or two tiny tables where you can enjoy your beer after.

-Part 2 - A small room which contained tools that were used to brew beer back the 18th century.However, not one thing was labelled (not even in other languages).

-Part 3 - The modern brewery. Again it had a few random steel containers which were probably brewing beer, but no labels. Also a video was playing in that room. We sat down to watch and literally about 7 out of the 10 minutes that we watched it they showed pictures of beer. Just labels of all the different beers.However, the video did have a quote which we found highly amusing…

Beer is great for all occasions.It is best enjoyed in a café or pub, with friends or by yourself.

What a bunch of alchys.We then went back to part one and enjoyed our free beer.T he museum brews a new beer every week and they won't tell you what it is until the next week's beer comes out. After the museums we wandered through some little shops, enjoyed a delicious Belgian waffle and went back to the hotel to get ready for the night.

We cleaned ourselves up and went to the fish market section of town for dinner. The market is a small street/alley-way full of seafood restaurants right next to each other. All the matradees stand outside and try to convince you to come to their restaurant over their competitors. We picked the one with the best ambiance. It was open to the street with just a roof over top. We sat in the more outside section under the heat lamps so we cold people watch while enjoying our dinner.T hey had a three course menu with a few choices for each course which we tried.My main course was a huge bowl of mussels (apparently they are very popular and fresh in Brussels). They were delicious.

After dinner we tried to attend a special event, Museum Night Fever. You would buy a ticket and you had access to about 7 different museums throughout town. It was the younger, artistic crowd so they did a lot of cool events.There was live music, body painting, catwalks, special exhibits, etc. At one of the museums Red Bull was hosting an after-party and DJ Spinna was flying in from NY to DJ it. We had no idea how massive it was going to be, so by the time we go there all the tickets were sold out.

Instead we went back towards Grand Place to a bar called Dellirum. It is one of the most famous ones in Brussels because it has 2,004 kinds of beers from all over the world. It was pretty packed with people so we sat around, tried the different beers, sang along to the random music choices (everything from 90's hip-hop to Michael Jackson to techno to some rock songs) and made friends with some British boys sitting next to us. Yeah, we would travel all the way to Belgium just to meet some Brits. They were all pretty entertaining, so we talked to them.J en and Brumit headed home and Jill and I headed across the street to another bar with one of the Brits.We wandered back to the hotel at 4am-ish and passed out.

Sunday morning we woke up, had breakfast and had to check out.Even though we had to be out of our rooms we still had a good amount of time before we had to catch the Eurostar back. Since we felt as if we saw all of Brussels, we decided to take a train to a nearby town - Bruges.

Bruges is an old medieval town with lots of cool architecture and canals running through it. It was about an hour away and by the time we arrived we only had 2-ish hours so we had to have a speed tour. We decided to take a canal ride through town to see as much as possible. Again an amazing city, we all decided we wish we got to spend the weekend in Bruges instead of Brussels. Oh well!

On the train ride back to Bruges these girls next to us overheard us and could tell we were American. They were visiting for the week and were asking about where to stay, go out, etc. Then they asked us what school we go to.I said IU and (small world) they do too. I think they actually both lived in Brumit's dorm freshman year. Crazy!

We got back to Brussels, grabbed our bags from the hotel and booked it to the Eurostar. We got to London at a decent hour 7-ish. After a quick story swap with Melissa the three of us got ready and had to rush out to go meet all the boys to celebrate John's 21st birthday!

Everyone was at Zoo Bar in Leicester Square so we went their first. Being the great neighbours that we are Melissa, Jill and I each treated John to a birthday shot. What we didn't realize is that we all ordered ours at once. John, being the champ that he is, decided he could take all three of them in a row (which he did) .First was mine, American Beauty - some sort of vodka with raspberry puree. Next was Melissa's, Firecracker - something with Tabasco mixed in. Finally was Jill's - something with kahula and baileys. A nice little mix. Somehow he managed to hold it all down. Eventually things started getting rowdy and John was pissed that the DJ (who was playing upbeat techno music) would not play Freebird. We left and tried to go one other place, but being a Sunday night everything was closing.

We made our way back to the flat. When we got back John decided to lie down between Jill and Melissa's bed (prob the smallest space in the entire flat). Jill and I presented him with his birthday gift. We bought it in Brussels and it was still wrapped in newspaper. He bit off the newspaper, saw his gift (a Beerstein), kissed it and then army crawled back to his room where he called it a night. All in all a very entertaining end to the weekend.

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