Brussels

5th July & 7th July 2010

After getting back into Brussels from Werchter around 11.30, we said goodbye to Brendan who was catching the Eurostar back to London and we called in at our first hotel to collect our extra bags. We then made our way over to our new hotel. Matt and Jodie weren't leaving Brussels until later that afternoon so they came with us to leave bags in our room. Luckily when we got there, the room was ready for us, so we just dumped bags and headed straight up. Matt and Jodie quickly navigated us up a hill to the big gardens and the Palace. We walked through the gardens and started marveling at the circus that was in Brussels, The Tour de France!!! There were buses and tents set up everywhere, and by the time we'd passed the finishing podium we saw all the riders lined up, surrounded by a crowd of spectators. We arrived and within 30 seconds they were off racing. Although it was only brief, I can now say that I have seen the Tour de France, even if it was only the start of the stage and it was for less than a minute!

After the riders had left and the circus began frantically packing up, we found a nice grassy spot to set up our picnic. We had bought some sandwich supplies on the walk up and sat in the sun and enjoyed our lunch. When we all made it back to our room, Dan and I laid on the bed while Matt and Jodie showered and repacked bags for their bus trip to Germany that afternoon. Dan and I both fell asleep and they had to wake us up when they were leaving around 3pm. We said our final goodbyes - the last time we'll see them until we all meet up back in Bendigo…

After they left we got up and showered - it took a bit to scrub 4 days of filth off, and quite a bit of effort to get my hair un-matted. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the laundromat, doing some massive clothes washing, which would hopefully see us through until we get to Germany or Austria. I'd been craving some vegetables or soup, so while our clothes were washing we set off in search of soup. The only places open near us was a pizza restaurant or a Panini shop. We went for a Panini, and while we were waiting, he offered us a big up of Veggie Soup each. Absolutely friggin' delicious. I was almost going to cancel my Panini and get another cup of soup. Glad I didn't, my tomato and mozzarella Panini was pretty awesome too!

When our washing was done, we thought we should get something little for dinner. We ended up just grabbing a little kebab each, and I stopped in at the Vietnamese restaurant across the road for some takeaway fried rice. We ate up in our room and it wasn't long after that we were sound asleep - catching up on the last 4 nights!

We were up early the next morning to head off on our day trip to Bruges and Gent - they will have their own blog!

Our final day in one of the most expensive cities we've visited would be done quite cheaply. We checked out of the hotel, and left our bags there for the day. We set off on foot and wandered throughout the city, checking out all the main sights. My favourite place in all of Brussels would be the main square. It is this massive square; surrounded on all 4 sides by some of the most beautiful buildings I've seen. We ended up sitting in the square for quite a while, just watching all the people go by. I also really liked a small symmetrical garden that we stumbled across. We checked out a few palaces, gardens, churches etc etc. If we had have had more time we would've headed out to the big Atomium structure (Left over from an old World Expo) or out to the Herge Museum, but that was not the case. Late afternoon we headed back to the hotel where we collected our bags before going on a bit of a trek to the Nord Station. We jumped on the train which took us out to the Brussels Airport. We had a bit of a wait to check in for our flight (Only 2 desks open - stupid Easyjet), but while we were waiting we were provided with a bit of entertainment. There was a flight checking in headed to Lebanon or somewhere like that - and they're queue was moving heaps more slowly that ours, it was much longer too. Some guy decided that he wasn't going to wait so he and his family just pushed into the queue, which obviously caused some problems with the people behind them. This ended up in a pretty violent fight between two of the men, and some rather abusive shouting (In a language we're not too sure of). This continued for quite a while before someone eventually thought to get the police, but they did nothing, and the pusher in stayed put.

While we were checking in, the girl was looking at our passports and asks "Where's your Schengen Visa? Australian's need one for Switzerland" I was pretty sure that we didn't require any visa's for our trip after Turkey, and was a little bit confused. I also knew the South Africans need Schengen visa's for everywhere they go in the EU, and we're don't required anything like that. She eventually called over her manager and he made her look it up in the system, "Oh sorry, I was wrong, you don't need any visas!" Duh, that's what we just told you. Her manager just smiles and says "Sorry, she's new, not that great at this yet!!!"

We walked the 3kms this time to our gate (It was the very last one in the massively long airport), a bit stretched for time because of the bloody slow check in process, but we managed to grab a seat and eat what was left of our burgers we'd picked up along the way. The flight to Geneva only took about 45 minutes, and we got in around 10pm!!!