Day Five - Brussels

The mission: Waffles. This was going to be a touristy day, might as well kick it off with the most touristy food in all of Belgium. But before we can feed ourselves, we gotta feed the meter. See, you can park on the street overnight, but by 8:00 a.m. you better have fresh money in that meter! Jacob being the good sport would wake up early each morning to drop in those Euros. Now we can start our culinary mission and spot a little waffle place on a corner, walk in and are greeted warmly and cheerfully. We order Nutella covered waffles and coffee. We sit on the stools facing out the window, watching a Chinese couple fumble with a selfie stick. Hey at least we weren't that bad. We head across the street and we notice we are suddenly in gift shop alley. Tourist shops are speckled by sweet shops and sandwiched between waffle shops. So many waffles. We should have waited for these waffles! We get to the end of the street to see a small crowd gathered and we realize we've just walked up on the Mannekin Pis fountain. The famous naughty toddler playfully taking a perpetual wiz and usually dressed in a seasonal costume. It was so much smaller than I had

always imagined and half heartedly protected by black iron bars (which many selfie hungry tourist chose to ignore). We get our picture and move along. We walk to the Grand Place, a gilded, ornate town square with gorgeous architecture. We stroll up and down the cobble stone streets then arrive at our watering hole, Delirium Cafe. It was huge and dark, decorated perfectly. We relax and enjoy some of their many great beers. At this point I realize I am not feeling well, a feeling of nausea had been slowly creeping up on me all morning and from this point and for the next 5 days, I will just feel, lousy. Not so lousy that I can't enjoy the day, but lousy enough for it to be super annoying. Ok, so we leave Delirium and spot a little bookstore with a winding staircase. We wander around and explore the unique area. We see a bin with old lithographs and steel engraving prints from the turn of the century. I buy two art nouveau prints and one architecture elevation / floor plan for a French chateau. We make it to the Museum of Musical Instruments. It is vast and beautiful and full of interesting specimens. We peruse for hours until a group of wild children disturb the peace so we decide to go. We take a bus back to the hotel to relax for a bit, then call an Uber to go back out for dinner. The first restaurant we entered we were ignored and never seated after waiting for a very long time, so we just head to another restaurant. I get goulash and Jacob gets steak. We get an Uber back to the hotel, but make another stop at the deli on the corner for beers and sweets then finish the night as before. Beer, candy, CNN, sleep.