After a stressful week from the onset of chicken pox to our little Addie and Harrison having horrible symptoms of his first tooth coming through, we decided to go ahead and set forth on our adventure to Belgium. We drove to the train station in Peterborough, then hopped on the fast train down to London and then walked across the street to London's St. Pancreas International Train Station where we took the EuroStar high speed train to Brussels, Belgium. It was just over a 2 hour ride through southern England, under the English Channel, with a quick stop in Lille, France before we arrived in Belgium.
The kids did great on the train and it really was the most convenient means of travel I think we've done so far. Our portable DVD player was the perfect trick to make the time go by. When we got to Brussels, we hopped on the city's metro to take us to our hotel, the Hilton Brussels, yes, it is the first time I have ever stayed at a Hilton. We had a corner room so we had big windows looking out two directions. I told Kevin to stay out of the mini bar because I read on TripAdvisor that someone had gotten charged for things for just touching something because they have sensors in the fridge. We asked them to clear it out for us so we could store some of the kid's fruit and juice in it but they didn't....crazy.
Well by the time we got to our hotel, it was 2:30PM their time but it was only 1:30PM to us and we were starving since I was stupid and forgot to pack us lunches for on the train. The concierge recommended a spot for us a few blocks from the hotel that could potentially be serving a late lunch. We finally got settled in with the kids who were pretty fussy and tired of being cramped up and after a pretty rude server gave us the menu, our mouths just dropped when we looked at the menu. First of all everything was in French...we asked for English menus (because lots of places do have them for us ignorant people), but she just handed us this sheet of paper that listed out a few words in French and then translations into a couple of other languages. With two kids getting horribly restless we didn't want to mess with translating at the time. The one thing on the menu that we did recognize was Club Sandwich with salad which was 22Euro ($28US)!!!!! It was the cheapest main meal on the whole menu!!!! So as Kevin and I have learned, once you get your kids settled in a place you can't easily get up and leave once you've realized you were going to spend a fortune on just a sandwich. We decided to split the sandwich and Addison was content with pomme frites (French fries).
After lunch we started our site seeing. Since it was Easter weekend, all the shops had amazing window displays. I loved all the chocolate shop displays with the chocolate bunnies, chicks, chocolate covered strawberries and more. Belgium was definitely a great place to be for Easter sweets. But there were also some really interesting display from other types of shops. I thought this bunny looked pretty psychedelic.
As we walked down this really busy street, I was stopped by Vincent VanGough who graciously wanted to have his picture taken with me.
As we walked on to the end of the street there was a huge crowd all concentrated on the corner and cameras were shooting all over the place. We had made it to Brussels' most famous landmark, the Mannekin Pis. Essentially it's a foot tall statue of a little boy peeing. The original statue can be traced back to the early 1600's, but no one really knows how it came to be or why it has become so popular. They do have fun with him though because there is a museum in town that houses over 400 different costumes that have been made for the little guy and sporadically he gets dressed up as Santa Claus, Elvis or whatever.
We made our way up to the Grand Place which is know as one of the most beautiful squares in all of Europe and it is truly amazing. The town hall and King's hall towered high with the most detailed statues and stone carvings decorating it. The other little buildings were sandwiched together, but each was unique in decoration because each building used to house a special guilds way back when like bakers, sailors, and traders.
We sat down in the middle of the square and just took it in. We must have drawn some attention because tourists from Japan came up to us and asked to have their pictures taken with our children because they thought they were so cute. I didn't realize we stuck out so much.
There was a couple walking around the square that did stand out a little more than we did. A French film crew was doing a documentary on Gothic couples. We learned this because the gentleman in the dreads on the left was the director and he was hiding behind our stroller while they were taping so he wouldn't be in the shots they were taking. The Goth guy actually looked like his eyes were all white...can you say "Marilyn Manson"!!!?? Yikes...
As we walked down a little further to where the old fish market used to be, there were lots of fresh fish serving restaraunts. Kevin thought this place looked pretty interesting...a walk up seafood bar.
After a long day of travel and walking we headed back to the hotel. Kevin got the kids all cleaned up while I ventured out to find food for dinner. After our lunch ordeal we didn't want to subject the kids to another sitdown meal, so about a 1/2 mile from our hotel there was a Pizza Hut. Kevin was so excited that both of the kids could now actually share the bath tub. The sad thing is that on vacation they don't have much for toys so they shared a water bottle and a toy duck the hotel gave them.
As we walked down this really busy street, I was stopped by Vincent VanGough who graciously wanted to have his picture taken with me. 
As we walked on to the end of the street there was a huge crowd all concentrated on the corner and cameras were shooting all over the place. We had made it to Brussels' most famous landmark, the Mannekin Pis. Essentially it's a foot tall statue of a little boy peeing. The original statue can be traced back to the early 1600's, but no one really knows how it came to be or why it has become so popular. They do have fun with him though because there is a museum in town that houses over 400 different costumes that have been made for the little guy and sporadically he gets dressed up as Santa Claus, Elvis or whatever.
We made our way up to the Grand Place which is know as one of the most beautiful squares in all of Europe and it is truly amazing. The town hall and King's hall towered high with the most detailed statues and stone carvings decorating it. The other little buildings were sandwiched together, but each was unique in decoration because each building used to house a special guilds way back when like bakers, sailors, and traders.
We sat down in the middle of the square and just took it in. We must have drawn some attention because tourists from Japan came up to us and asked to have their pictures taken with our children because they thought they were so cute. I didn't realize we stuck out so much.
There was a couple walking around the square that did stand out a little more than we did. A French film crew was doing a documentary on Gothic couples. We learned this because the gentleman in the dreads on the left was the director and he was hiding behind our stroller while they were taping so he wouldn't be in the shots they were taking. The Goth guy actually looked like his eyes were all white...can you say "Marilyn Manson"!!!?? Yikes...We found some pretty interesting things in Brussels to say the least. Number one we found that if you get too far away from the main square it can get a little shady. I wasn't too sure what had happened to this building. It looked like it has burnt down but then someone put up all these photos on it so it looked like art, but then some really scary homeless guy sat in front of it.
As we walked down a little further to where the old fish market used to be, there were lots of fresh fish serving restaraunts. Kevin thought this place looked pretty interesting...a walk up seafood bar.
After a long day of travel and walking we headed back to the hotel. Kevin got the kids all cleaned up while I ventured out to find food for dinner. After our lunch ordeal we didn't want to subject the kids to another sitdown meal, so about a 1/2 mile from our hotel there was a Pizza Hut. Kevin was so excited that both of the kids could now actually share the bath tub. The sad thing is that on vacation they don't have much for toys so they shared a water bottle and a toy duck the hotel gave them.
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