Belgium: Land of Waffles and Frites

Said goodbye to Ireland for a while, and hopped a plane to Belgium! This is our first non-English speaking stop, and with it came the frustration of navigating around a large city with no clue where to go and not many people we asked for help could speak English. We wandered around a very corporate area of Brussels for a while and began to think that it was a really dead city. But we eventually found our way to the Grand Place: a bustling center plaza surrounded by beautiful building and filled with flower stands and street vendors. We happened to come when the "Belgian Beer Weekend" festival was going on, so the plaza was even more packed then usual and was filled with tents selling beer from all local Belgian breweries. We wandered around the surrounding streets to find Manneken  Pis: the famous landmark is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. It wasn't anything to write home about. I'm not exactly sure why it's famous, except that they dress the little boy up in various costumes. He happened to be wearing an astronauts outfit on this particular day. Wandered around again (see the trend here?) to find some street vendors where, of course, we had to try a Belgian waffle and  Yummmo. Left Brussels with a good taste in our mouths and took a train out to a small town (with some long French name I can't remember) to stay with a friend of Becca's. They treated us to some frites (french fries, as they were first invented here) Yummo #2. They were so hospitable and it felt wonderful to sleep on a masttres on the floor and have a clean shower and a big breakfast. After a long week of no sleep and go go go, a long night's rest was much needed. As a result, my body relaxed and I got a little sick. Not enough to ruin the trip though. The next day, it was off to Amsterdam!