I got another slice of home this weekend! Dustin (who is studying abroad in Hull, England) and I met up in Brussels, Belgium. We had a fabulous time exploring, eating, and catching up with one another!

I flew into Brussels Friday afternoon and Dustin got there around midnight. I got to have some quality alone/relaxing time while I was waiting for him (in our lovely apartment rental) which included listening to Spanish music videos, going to the super market to get us food since, planning things to do in Brussels, and Skypeing Austin for two hours! When Dustin got to the apartment we enjoyed a nice glass of wine together and talked and talked until we were falling asleep in our chairs.

The next day we woke up early, ate our lovely breakfast and drank our orange juice, and then hopped on the tram into the city center! FIrst stop: Grand Place! We got off at the stop and decided we should "walk toward the tall pointy thing sticking up into the sky in the distance." And it worked out! The plaza was awesome. It was surrounded by amazingly beautiful buildings that looked so unique and original. There were quite a few painters there (so obviously I bought a painting) and also lots of people selling flowers, cafes, and..you can't forget about the tourists! After spending some time there we checked out Mannequin Pis. It is a surprisingly famous statue of a little boy peeing who always has different outfits on. He was about two feet tall and gave Dustin and I a good laugh.

Next we headed toward the St. Michael Cathedral. We checked out the inside of it, went down into the crypts, and failed to make it up to the top even though we did see people up there from the outside... We sat on the bench outside and enjoyed the view while we ate our sandwiches for lunch.

After the cathedral we went to the Royal Palace. The park in front of it was really pretty, so we walked through that to get there. As we were admiring the palace and taking pictures of each other in front of it, the map happened to slip out of Dustin's back pocket into the bushes way below! It was probably the best part of the trip considering we then wandered around aimlessly for the next hour or so, until we decided we needed another map. :) A great experience! We went into a random church that we thought was a different museum and then we went to Palais Coudenberg (the undergroiund original ruins of Charles V castle that the Royal Palace is now built on top of).

We then walked through an antique market, which was really cool but expensive, and also the Mercedes store and admired the beautiful cars and shiny things. :) Then we saw the Palace of Justice and of course took a selfie in front of that too. Lots of selfies were taken the past two days! I guess that's what happens when yout travel in pairs. :)

The next thing we did was walk through the high end shopping center of Brussels. We felt really cool going into Burberry and Loui Vaton. Dustin even got a bag from Long Champ! How neat. :)

The next part is the best...we got a waffle! And it was indeed the best waffle we had ever eaten. :) Then we walked and walked a ways to a beautiful park on the outer edge of the city center. We met up with a girl who had studied abroad in Iowa and lived with one of Dustin's friends from college. She was a really sweet girl and explained to us the biking girl/boy scouts event that was going on in the park (which was really cool-lots of bikers and venders and people hanging out and having a good time). She got us crepes after we hung out for a while, which were also delicious!

Then we began to head back toward our apartment. It was quite the walk but we were up for it! We stopped at a little food market and bought things to make dinner (along with a bottle of wine and some Belgium beer). At our apartment we made a fantastic spaghetti meal that even included fresh bread with olive oil! We enjoyed our creation outside on the terrace overlooking the street in front of our apartment. It was definitely my favorite part of the entire weekend-so relaxing! It made Dustin and I realize how old we are getting! We had an amazing night just hanging out and talking before we went to bed. We watched about ten minutes of Devil Wears Prada before we passed out from our exhausting day.

In the morning we made our way to the airport (where we bought chocolate...haha) and then had to say our extremely sad goodbye. :(

I was so happy the two of us got to meet up with one another and share the awesome experiences that we have been having. Overall-one heck of a weekend!