Belgium (October 18-21)

If I have one piece of traveling advice, it's this: Make sure when you travel that your family is currently hosting a Belgian exchange student, so that her parents will offer to let you stay with them in Brussels, at their giant house at the top of a hill in the suburbs, with a cute dog and a charming little sister, where they will feed you beer and wine and toasted cheese, and eggs from the chicken they keep in the backyard, and take you out to restaurants that tourists don't go to and insist that you order three courses and two drinks. They'll take you around the city to chocolate museums and then to dinner at their best friends' house, who will feed you the best lasagna you've ever had and talk to you about modern art and cure your cold with magical cognac-laced drinks. 

This is cherry beer, not a cognac-laced drink, to be clear.

(Probably not enchanted) chocolate pots

Yeah, Belgium was a lot about eating for me, but I think that Belgians are very much about eating and drinking (at least, the ones I met), so maybe that's appropriate. All the inhabitants of Brussels I met liked their before-dinner drinks and their after-dinner drinks and lingering long at the table just talking. They were also very giving and very affectionate. They do the kiss-on-the-cheek greeting thing (but just one kiss, not two), which at first startled me and which I never quite got the hang of; I always just ended up kind of pressing my cheek against the other person's face, which I'm sure was a really nice experience for everyone. But I like it. I feel like so often I'm afraid to reach out and touch people, that lots of people are, afraid our intentions will be misconstrued or we'll be turned away from, but I like this easy exchange of care (I might even say intimacy of some sort) even between strangers. I think it's pretty great. 

Here's that peeing baby everybody thinks is so great.

Anyway, I did more than just eat in Brussels. I went on a walking tour and got shown some other sights by a friend a met in Prague, who goes to school here. He took me to the Palace of Justice and up to the top of a parking garage with amazing views. And I also went to the Atomion, to an underground medieval street buried beneath the royal palace, and to Mini-Europe, which was neat but which I couldn't help feeling would be even cooler if it were mini-golf Europe.

After Brussels, I went to Bruges for a day, but I don't really have too much to say about it. It's very small, and often beautiful, and I had a super-awesome roomful of people at my hostel that I ended up spending all my time with, wandering around and drinking (12%!) beer and eating waffles, and it was just really nice. Definitely a recommended way to see a city.