Brussels

So... I did kind of a crazy thing, haha. We decided to rent a car this weekend because we wanted to take a couple of day trips, one of which was to Brussels, where Matthew's flight left from this morning, meaning I would have to drive back to Germany by myself. Well, we got to the rental place, and it turned out all they had were manual transmission cars... Now, to be clear, I had learned how to drive a manual, once upon a (long) time—but the last time I actually made any kind of attempt to actually drive one was about 12 years ago, and I was never really road-proficient. But I really wanted to go to Brussels! So I was like, "Sure, I can do this... it'll be fine. Probably." (Sometimes I feel like that's my life motto: "It'll be fine... probably.") So that was Friday evening, and I had to drive back through 3 countries and on the famous Autobahn Monday morning, so I had approximately two days to relearn how to drive stick and get good enough to do it long distance, solo. *Nervous laughter*

It actually was not as difficult as I worried. I had always kind of suspected my aversion to stick shift was more of a mental block than actual inability, and I was right—with sufficient motivation, I didn't find it too hard. I spent some time practicing on Saturday (including driving with just Rebecca out to her friend's house about 20 minutes away, haha), then actually drove about 2/3 of the way to Brussels on Sunday morning, and by the time I was on my own, I was basically an expert (or, you know, sufficiently capable...). I even hit some stop-and-go traffic—oh, and I wasn't actually certain I would have GPS navigation, but it turned out I randomly had data in Belgium (even though I had none in Germany..?)—and it only made me stall a few times, and never more than once in a row (which is the real issue when driving stick). Also, I've decided I'm really a fan of the Autobahn (I only ever got up to about 95, sorry...), or maybe just European freeways in general (it was kind of rough heading into the Netherlands, you know, with speed limits and all, haha). Everyone is really good about observing fast/slow lane etiquette (I mean, you kind of have to be), and they have gas stations right off on the side of the freeway, none of this driving halfway into town nonsense. Oh, ya, I also very nearly ran out of gas on the way back, lol. It kind of ran out quicker than I expected toward the end, and by then I was already in Dusseldorf (sort of) and there were no gas stations until I got back to the rental place. But I made it! And now I feel pretty awesome, not gonna lie. :D

But I am SO glad I went for it, because Brussels was absolutely wonderful! It was technically Mother's Day, but our anniversary is coming up, and it's not like we're going to do much after spending 3 weeks in Europe, so we took this opportunity to celebrate. And you know what, Brussels was actually surprisingly romantic! It was raining when we got in (and most of the way there, actually—ya, when I was driving stick on the Autobahn, because that's a thing that I did). We'd gotten a really good last-minute deal on a hotel that was right near the main sights, so we checked in and then went to wander over to the Grand Place, which was gorgeous. All the buildings are gilded with gold overlay, and there's a giant ornately carved building that looks like a church but is actually the city hall. We got waffles for a late lunch—we split a ham and cheese lunch waffle (apparently savory waffles are a thing in Belgium) and a chocolate and speculoos liege waffle. We walked over to the mannequin pis, which I'd heard Matthew talk about (he lived in Belgium for 3 months), but wasn't expecting to be literally exactly what it sounds like—it's the statue of the little boy peeing. It's much smaller than you'd expect, and they'd dressed it up for some holiday, but there was a chocolate shop next door that had a much larger one made out of chocolate out front. I made Matthew stand next to it to show the size, haha. Since it was raining and Matthew didn't think there was much else to see, we went back to the hotel for a nap (and to call our mothers since, you know, Mother's Day).

We woke up around 6, and the sun sets super late in Western Europe, apparently (probably because the time zone is weirdly enormous), meaning we still had a few hours of daylight, plus it had stopped raining! So we decided to walk out a ways to see the Palais de Justice (which was disappointingly completely covered in scaffolding) and the royal palace. There were some youths kind of loitering outside the Palais de Justice as we were walking around, but they turned out to be surprisingly friendly. They greeted us and wished us "une bonne journee"—I totally blanked on the French word for thank you (ironically, since French is the only language I sort of speak/understand), after traveling through so many countries, but I finally managed to call back a belated "merci," haha. Our walk took us through the high end shopping district before we found the royal palace, which I think is probably one of my favorite palaces in Europe (the one in Salzburg is supposed to be pretty great, though). It had these cool gardens out front and the architecture was very classic. Apparently they usually do tours during summer months, but for some reason it's closed right now till August. We also walked through the park next to it.

By then it was time for dinner, and Matthew knew exactly where all the restaurants are, so he led us straight to the street, and we picked one where we could get a bucket of mussels (in Brussels—apparently that's a thing). We also tried Burgundy snails—Matthew had never had escargot—which I didn't really care for, but having had escargot before myself, I'm pretty sure it was just the sauce that I didn't like. Snails don't actually really taste like much themselves, they're just chewy, kind of like clams. The mussels, though, were soooooo delicious. They were in a garlic and butter broth, and I couldn't get enough! After the restaurant, we went in search of some Belgian chocolate to finish up the evening—there were chocolate shops everywhere, but it was pretty late when we finished dinner, so we almost missed it, but there was one last place still open, so we took them out to the Grand Place. I asked Matthew as we were heading back if it was pretty at night, like if they lit up the buildings, and he was like, "Um, ya, it's lit up, but I don't know if it's necessarily prettier than during the day..." He was wrong. We walked into the square, and I literally gasped. I was expecting like, just floodlights at the base of each building, kind of like they have on temples, but there were smaller lights in each nook of each building, and it gave them the most beautiful glow. It was the perfect way to top off a romantic evening. Traveling with Becka's been fun, but it was nice to share something special with just my sweetheart. :)