Who are Ashley and Anna and why am I visiting them, you might ask?
Ashley is a friend of mine from high school. We have not seen each other in over 20 years, though we have kept up on Facebook a bit. Anna is her wife, who I just met on this trip. Ashley works for NATO. She seems to have a crazy cool (and important) job! And Anna is in marketing for KitchenAid. So they have lots of great appliances in their house! They were such gracious hosts while I was there. They live in Waterloo, which is just south of Brussels, so it’s quite convenient to go into Brussels, or really anywhere in Belgium (Also convenient to Paris and Amsterdam, apparently.) Ashley drove us around to several places, and Anna booked several great restaurants for us to eat in, and of course we went to some posh bars for some posh drinks while I was there.
Day 1 in Antwerp and Brussels, Thursday Feb 16
The plan for the next couple of days was to see several cities within Belgium. Ashley said they are all small, including Brussels, so we could see a lot in a short amount of time. Ashley and I went to Antwerp in the morning on Thursday. I have come to understand that traveling to see a city in the morning during the week is not a great way to see any city, lol. But we did get to see a beautiful town square, with a really interesting sculpture of a boy and his dog outside of this amazing old church. Because Antwerp is a port town, we of course walked down to the water’s edge, but it was not very visually appealing – kind of industrial, but oh well. Now I’ve seen it. And then we walked and had lunch at a lovely little place in town. After that, I wanted to go to this really crazy looking bar that had all of these religious figures in it. So we had a drink there.
Then we drove to Brussels to walk around for the afternoon. Again, we just saw the sites, walked around the town square area. I just marveled at the beautiful architecture. I don’t know what all these buildings are but it was just cool to be there.
One of the cool historic things in Brussels is the Pissing Boy statue so we went to see that. From Wikipedia: “Manneken Pis is a landmark bronze fountain sculpture in central Brussels, Belgium, depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. Though its existence is attested as early as the 15th century, it was designed in its current form by sculptor Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder and put in place in 1618 or 1619. Manneken Pis has been repeatedly stolen or damaged throughout its history. The current statue is a replica dating from 1965, with the original being kept in the Brussels City Museum. Nowadays, it is one of the best-known symbols of Brussels and Belgium, inspiring many imitations and similar statues. The figure is regularly dressed up and its wardrobe consists of around one thousand different costumes.”
We of course also had to go see the Pissing Girl statue. From Wikipedia: “Jeanneke Pis is a modern fountain sculpture in central Brussels, Belgium. It was commissioned in 1985 and erected in 1987 as a counterpoint to the city's famous Manneken Pis (Pissing Boy). The 50-centimetre (20 in) bronze statue depicts a little girl with short pigtails, squatting and urinating on a blue-grey limestone base. The sculpture is now protected from vandalism by iron bars.
The Pissing Girl is right outside this really cool beer place called the Delirium Café, which has a ridiculous number of beer on tap – 3 floors. It’s huge! And pretty divey. Very touristy but I loved it. I can tell also that locals go there to drink when the weather is nice.
We also walked through this beautiful hall that had all of these chocolate tears in it. Belgian chocolate is a major thing, as you probably know! Ashley bought us a box from a female-owned chocolatier called Mary, which was super nice of her.
Then we walked to have these amazing Belgian fries, which are deep fat fried in the fat. So good! After that, we went to meet Anna for a drink at this really cool place called La Pharmacie Anglaise where you can get fancy mixed drinks. It had a cool vibe for sure. We were going to go to dinner but Ashley and I were full from the beer and the fries. So, Anna ordered a bit of food from the bar.
When we left the bar we happened upon this incredible light show and one of the town squares. They were playing this music really loud and it was choreographed to these lights that lit up the whole square. I think this might have been the most amazing thing I’ve seen on my trip! It was just kind of easy to think you were in another world. Kind of euphoric! One song I remember them playing was Flowers by Miley Cyrus, since it’s a big hit right now. Just an amazing experience. Pictures and video do not do it justice.
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