Day 16

Sunday August 12

7:40am CET - woke up after a pretty good night's sleep. Caught up on the computer and took a shower.

9:45am - after amanda finally woke up (well I'm sure I woke her up with all my typing and showering, etc. sorry :p ) we went down to breakfast. It was a zoo! But omg! Anything you can imagine! Many types of pastries and croissants, a whole tray of cheeses, another tray of cold cuts, various breatds to toast for yourself, fresh fruit salad, juices, a coffee machine with about a dozen choices for drinks that it dispensed, rolls, and a hot tray with various options like scrambled eggs, some kinds of sausages, pieces of very tasty bacon, fried mushrooms, crepes, etc. Basically, we were absolutely stuffed, which is great because that means we can have lighter cheaper lunches!

10:15am - set out to find the Grand Place, which was easy to find on the map and just a few minutes' walk away. Followed the Rick Steve's Grand Place walking tour where I bought some chocolate at the least expensive of the 4 "big names" - it was literally 1/3 the price of the others!! Yummyyyy. Also bought 3 measly pieces at the famous Neuhaus store because they just looked oh so good. Found the Manneken Pis and there was a huge tour group gawking at it. I mean….. It's a little bronze statue of a boy peeing. It's cute but LMFAO! Found a couple little street markets that were selling nice stuff and were nice to walk through but nothing really special.

1:15pmish - found a Frites place - FINALLY. So we would have fries and waffles for lunch. Cone full of the best fries I've ever eaten were 2.40 with just salt. I can't even describe how good they were, so I won't even try. We sat outside (cloudy but nice day) the Frites place for a while and just people-watched which was nice. Then we went into another chocolate store and had another sample and walked down one of the main streets beside the Grand Place, where there were lots of fun stores selling neat souvenirs and stuff.

3:15pm - WAFFLE time - bought them from a guy running a stand - with chocolate syrup draped over it, it was 2 euros. You could see (and smell and taste) the sugar baked right into the warm waffle. Mmmmmmm. So good but so rich. So lunch was: fries, a chocolate sample, and waffles. All that was missing was a beer, HA!

4:00pm - walked around a bit more and found an open supermarket where I bought some water and came back to the hotel to rest at about 4:30pm.

5:15pm - Ugly Betty dubbed in French is on TV… LOL

6:30pm - went out to the Grand Place area to eat. We knew the places were touristy and probably not the best food but we figured it would be an experience. Found a place that had a 12.50 3-course menu that sounded good so we tried that. I had a salad, steak frites and the dessert they gave you was chocolate mousse. It was pretty good, considering the price. The fries were fresh and tasty and the beef was pretty decent sized though a little bit too rare but still pretty tasty. All in all a very good deal considering that this city seems expensive. Surely we can get better food here, but not for that price. But as I said to Amanda when we were at the restaurant, it's a good thing I drank orange juice and ate some fruit at breakfast because otherwise it was one unhealthy thing after another all day LOL!!!!

Day trip to Brugge tomorrow, so earlyish night tonight.