Brussels Adventures!

This week, I traveled to Brussels with a friend from school, Erin. We stayed with her friend Becky from Mizzou. We took the train on Tuesday, a trip that takes about an hour and a half. We had a busy day of exploring. We saw the Grand Palace, which is a beautiful square in the middle of Brussels. It was once a market. One side is the town hall, parts of which date from the 14th century! We saw the Manneken Pis statue, which is famously of a little boy peeing. We visited several churches as well. I really liked Brussels. It was very pretty, with lots of cobblestone streets and window boxes. It felt so small compared to Paris (only 4 metro lines, compared to Paris' 14!) We ate some street fries for lunch on Tuesday. We went to several parks. To me, it seemed that Brussels had more parks scattered across the city than Paris, but all these parks were fairly small, while Parisian parks are usually large, especially considering the extreme space constraints of the city. It was weird to be in a city without a source of water in it (Paris-Seine, London-Thames, Barcelona-Mediterranean) I bought some chocolate too!!
All of the signs were in Flemish and French. This is because Brussels is located in the region of Belgium where Flemish is spoken (very similar to Dutch.) However, Brussels is a French-speaking city. The French speakers basically refuse to learn Flemish, so they learn English, while the Flemish speakers must learn French (both are official languages) and by default, learn English as well. There is also a small German-speaking enclave, but its really only near the German border. But it was nice to be able to understand people after my half-comprehension of Spanish!