9th & 10th August

At 3:30am, I woke up on Kifahh’s sofa bed, after four hours of very broken sleep. After stumbling my way down the road to the bus stop, I arrived at the airport at 4:30am, ready to catch a flight to Brussels, Belgium. After a day of big runs, no sleep, bag-dragging and late busses, I was pretty wiped out. The plan was to store my bags in a locker at Brussels airport, and explore town for a few hours, before returning to meet Caitlin. I found the info desk, found the lockers, and realised they only take cash. I only had my card, and so sat down for a five hour wait for Cat’s flight to arrive. Turns out the ATM was right next to the info desk, and had been obscured from sight by a combination of exhaustion and other travellers.
I found a supermarket at the other end of the airport, and discovered a local chocolate brand with an array of flavours so impressive it put Pana chocolate to shame. I bought a block of lavender chocolate. For the record, lavender and chocolate aren’t the best combination, but one has to at least try these things!
At 1:20pm, I went to the arrivals gate to meet Cat. I watched the gate like a hawk, excited to meet one of my closest friends in a new country. At 1:40pm, a voice behind me casually asked, “So, are you ready to go now?”
Apparently she’d walked right past, waved at me, and I was oblivious with fatigue.

By 3:30pm we were safely cosied up in our apartment. Cat was busily researching places to visit and eat, whilst I grumpily bemoaned my lack of sleep and increasing hunger pains.
We rectified this finally with a visit to MoonFood, a buffet style restaurant with industrial décor and a tonne of delicious eats. Hunger issues sorted, we spent the next few hours walking around the city, looking at wall art (mostly comics), chocolate shops, and gold covered buildings in the Grand Place. I got incredibly snap happy. Grand Place is a square with a series of grand buildings. The architecture of each is slightly different, but the styles are all detailed and striking. It was only the day after that Caitlin took the time to research what we were actually looking at. I’m sure we’ll find out much more on our walking tour tomorrow. The first view of Grand Place is only a glimpse of what's there. The more you take the time to look around, the more detail you see. It's impossible to take it all in at once, and I gave up trying to take a photo which even comes close to conveying the size and splendour.
I managed to come home with a collection of local gourmet chocolate, including candied citrus peel. I might accidentally come home with

more chocolate more regularly whilst I’m here.
Caitlin found an ice creamery called "Australian Home Made Ice Cream". We're not sure how authentic it is, but it comes with a mini waffle, imprinted with a kangaroo, so it must be close to the real deal.

We'd read about a famous water sculpture in Brussels, called Manneken Pis. It's a small boy, cheerily pissing into the fountain basin. It's been there since 1619, and has been known to have several clothing changes. Brussels tourism seems to be heavily focused around Manneken Pis, with chocolate moulds made in his likeness, and pop art sculptures in the windows and entrances of many shops. The local souvenir store had a huge selection of Manneken Pis novelties, including magnets, bottle stoppers, and miniature toilets. We finally found Manneken Pis, and it was smaller than expected. The sculpture, that is. I'll bet no one has ever used that line before.

The most obvious tourism draw card is the food. Every corner advertises frites or waffles, and there are so many chocolate shops I lost count. The architecture may be impressive, but the food is where most of the people congregate.

Wednesday was a more relaxed day. We took the train into Gent to meet Nathalie, who’s been back in Belgium a little over a week. First stop was a Belgian frites shop. Most food in Belgium is laden with animal fats, cream, egg and milk. Nat had managed to find one which sold almost exclusively Flemish style snacks, with a vegan twist. We ordered the smallest fries, which came out in a cone so big, I wasn’t hungry again until late afternoon. Cat and I finished ours like the challenge it was, and then we all walked it off on the way into the city centre.

The afternoon was a combination of photography, and food discovery. Food wise, Gent is known as the vegetarian capital of Europe. It lived up to its name. It was another day of indulgence, and the three of us ate a combined mix of cakes, chocolates, slices and snacks.
The architecture is decidedly Flemish, with colourful building facades and painted murals and motifs. There are sculptures, fancy buildings, and a lovely network of rivers and canals. Unfortunately St Bavo’s Cathedral still had the scaffolding up from restoration works, but the other buildings were still impressive to see. We passed Romanesque, gothic and art nouveaux designs, all different and stand out structures. Even the train station in Gent is a sight. It was

built in 1913 for the World Expo, and is covered in detailed paintings and patterns.
We finished our afternoon with a trip to Lekker Gec. This place had an all vegan buffet, which we packed into biodegradable containers, and ate on the train ride home. Gent had so much more to see, but we had limited time. It was lovely to spend time with Nathalie, and despite the rain, we had a very pleasant day.