I was like, hello?

On to the next leg of my trip: Belgium. Just after Christmas break ended, Lasse and I promised Louise that we would come to Belgium for her birthday, which was conveniently situated for two reasons. 1) it is right in the middle of our Semesterferien and 2) it was on a Saturday. So I showed up in the early afternoon on Friday the 7th of March. After dropping my stuff off at her apartment (which was really, really close to such lovely tourist attractions as the Mannekin Pis, you know, the small little pissing boy that Belgium is famous for), we made directly for the important stuff. You know what I am talking about: frites. Now, fun fact: the "French fry" was actually invented in Belgium, but I guess whoever named was like "eh, they speak French there, we'll call it the French fry." But make no mistake, they are not, in fact, French. Anyways, they were delicious, and my life is forever changed. 

We did a little meandering after that, but not for too long. Louise had a study group and a class from 3 to 6, so she left me her keys on the presumption I might need them so that I could, I don't know, perhaps go out and explore. Instead, I took a shower and accidentally napped for 2 and a half hours. So yeah, go me! When Louise got back, she laughed at me for my nap and then we went to the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner, and, of course, beer. After getting home, Louise showed me the magic that is Bugles and goat cheese (these Belgians are brilliant!), and we drank beer while waiting for Ameline, another Belgian girl who had studied with us in Tübingen during the Wintersemester. We drank, ate a lovely dinner of salmon, pepper, and zucchini pasta, and baked a fondant au chocolat cake. Eventually midnight rolled around, and it was to pick up Lasse from the bus station, after he rode for nearly 10 hours on 5 some-odd busses from Tübingen. That boy is nuts. We continued with Louise's birthday debauchery. First we went home, dropped off Lasse's stuff, and sang happy birthday with the cake Louise had made. Did I mention that Belgians know how to do food? Afterward, we went to some of her favorite bars and just hung out and talked. It was quite a lovely evening. Except when Louise thought she lost her keys and they actually ended up being in her room the whole time. That wasn't great.

Grossmarkt

Lasse, Louise, and I got a late start the next day, but ended up walking around most of the tourist-y places of Brussels, including the Grossmarkt, the palace where the king and queen don't actually live, some unstable old building that has guards on it, a garden, the stock exchange, and a few cathedrals. We also ate sandwiches where the bread was waffles because Belgium. For the most part, it was quite a bit of walking. However, we had to cut the tour short, because we had to catch a train at 16:50 to go to Louise's parents' house in a small town called Péruwelz near the French border. It only took maybe 2 hours to get there, including our short stopover in Monse, where we over heard a very interesting and vulgar conversation between a drunk guy and his girlfriend, which Louise translated for us. It was pretty graphic. So much so, that the old woman next to me laughed and asked, "il est discret, non?" to me. I laughed back and was proud for understanding what she said. Mediocre French for the win! 

We got to Louise's around dinner time and were greeted by a dog, a cat, Spaniards, and the rest of Louise's French-speaking family. The entire gaggle included: Louise's mom, dad, older brother, his wife who is Spanish, his wife's brother (also Spanish), his wife's brother's girlfriend (also Spanish), and Louise's younger brother. It was a crew, and it was very French speaking. I felt bad that I could barely string sentences together in French without it turning to German or just straight up not knowing enough French and hitting a wall. But her mother spoke pretty good English as did her brothers. We hung out and ate dinner before the great spooky walk. Now, you may be thinking, Sarah, this isn't Halloween, what is this nonsense? On this side of the Atlantic, it's Carnival season, and I guess Belgium doesn't care that it normally stops with Ash Wednesday, because they are still doing Carnival things, which includes the great Péruwelz spooky walk. 

We arrived at the town center, and I swore I was in French Gilmore Girls. Everything was so Stars Hallow from the cheesy decorations to the washed up 80s music to the fact that everyone knows each other. So we got our stamps and commenced with the walk, which wasn't exactly scary but instead just a walk that had periodically strange things throughout. For example: there were people dressed up as rabbits playing bongo drums, at another there were a bunch of dressed-up old people eating a fancy meal and singing French (possibly drinking?) songs about a lawyer and a gorilla. So yeah, that was kind of a trip. 

We did our second round of birthday cake after that back at Louise's parents' house, an awesomely tasty fruity thing, and shortly thereafter went to sleep to prepare for the 7AM wake-up call. 

And so it was, we were awoken at 7AM, in order to go to Chimay, another small town that is famous for its beer brewing. In this case, we were going there to walk. Louise's dad, brother, sister-in-law, sister-in-law's brother, and sister-in-law's brother's girlfriend were running in a race there, and simultaneously the community held a walking fundraiser thing for those of us in not as good of shape. So Louise, her mom, her sister, Lasse, and I walked 10k that morning through the Belgian countryside, which was actually pretty wonderful. It was a balmy 65ºF and the sun was out. I got sunburned even! In March! Afterwards, we met up with the rest of the family to go back to Thuin for a barbecue and our third-round of cake. As with the rest of the weekend, it was very fun and very French, but I think improved more in that weekend than it had in a long time. I actually understood some things! ("Sont ceux les seuls mots que vous connaissez?"–are those the only words you know?–Louise's dad's question after we started singing Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit; my response "Oui" with a laugh. Proudest moment of the weekend.) 

After eating way too much food, the Bonnave family (minus Louise's older brother and the Spanish gaggle) piled into the minivan with us to take us to a brewery a little outside of the city of Thuin. The entire cathedral and monastery where it was originally brewed is in ruins, but the brewery remains a-brewin'. We then headed back for Brussels to drop off the three of us and Louise's younger brother back at their universities. We chatted with Lisa over Google+ after we got home and ate some of the food that Louise's mom had sent with us. Then we packed it in early and went to bed because Louise had an ungodly early class the next morning. 

The next morning Louise left her keys with Lasse and I so we could go exploring. We went out around 11 and just walked around. It was a beautiful day, verging on being called hot. It was at least 65ºF, all the signs read 20ºC; so nutty. We ended up doing a large circle around Brussels, starting at Louise's, going through the financial district, cutting up to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and slowly making our way back to the Senne River to drink some beer. We continued the walk after that, ending up close to Louise's apartment and by the stock exchange. By that point, we figured we had walked our required 10k for the day and decided to take a break at Louise's apartment. After 3 some-odd episodes of South Park, we went back out, this time in pursuit if two things waffles and finding the EU parliament. The waffles were first because the 1€ waffle place was on the way. I got one with strawberries and chocolate, and life was awesome. Then, we wandered around looking for the parliament for a while, got horribly lost, asked for directions, took the underground, and ended up at a very disappointing modern-looking office building in the shape of an X. After that, we wandered a little ways up the street to what Lasse and I called the belgian Brandenburger Tor, as it looked a hell of a lot like the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and then made our way back to Louise's. 

We skyped with Team Boring (Lisa, Anna, Hannah, and Lucia) after getting home, and then decided to have a chill evening, got Vietnamese food, and watched the third Hangover movie, which was a significant improvement from the second. 

The next day was typical, leaving-day stuff. We woke up, cleaned, and packed while Louise was in class. Lasse and I also went to buy postcards. When Louise came back, we wrote on the postcards and then went to get one last round of Belgian fries. Nomz. (Yup, Pookie and Dobby, all I do is eat.) After the deliciousness, Louise and Lasse accompanied me to the train station for my 14:50 train to Amsterdam.

And that, my friends, is my time in Belgium. Stay tuned to hear about fun times in Amsterdam.