belgium
I believe that most of you are aware that Jordan and I are making a mad dash across Europe. I assume this because most of the people who read this blog are related to us, and therefore somewhat privy to our plans. In the cases when we have plans, of course.
When we were face to face with the Europe map we couldn't really help but go everywhere, and so we scheduled about four nights everywhere. Three nights in some of the places we're stopping in towards the end, and five nights in Paris, because well, it's Paris. However, we scheduled a whopping seven nights in Belgium. Because while Paris may be Paris, Belgium invented the french fry.
French fries are probably my favorite food. And when I realized that they are in fact not even French, it became obvious that we should go to their home country and pay some proper respects.
Belgium it turns out is a very nice place for reasons beyond french fries (I continue to call them french fries because even though we were in Belgium eating them and trying hard not to call them French, it's really impossible not to). They have:
- the world's greatest town square, where you can drink the best hot chocolate
- our favorite cathedral so far
- a medieval town, much of which was built 150 years ago to encourage tourism (which was a great success)
- a room in their royal palace that is covered with millions of beetle wings.
Also they have waffles. I had always thought that a Belgian Waffle was just a waffle made in a waffle-maker with deeper grooves. It turns out a Belgian Waffle is, in fact, the most delicious waffle you have ever eaten.
Also, they created the Smurfs.
What more could you want?
If you are interested in eating yourself to death, I would suggest going to Belgium. Lots of places have delicious foods, but few have so many delicious foods that when eaten in large amounts will weigh you down to the point of complete immobilization. Between the waffles, chocolate, french fries and beer I'm pretty sure you could be dead in 2 weeks, less if you threw caution out the window. We were there for a little over 1 week and I know my stomach heaved a sigh of relief when we left. In fact, we didn't go to a single restaurant in Amsterdam (our next destination) and instead ate apples and salads from the grocery store. A bit of penance for our behavior in Belgium.
