Deniz’s Blog

Who: Katie and Deniz

What: 3-day weekend

When: Friday April 6- Monday April 9th, Easter Weekend, 2007

Where: Brussels, Belgium

Why: because it was the cheapest trip

How: with the help of money from my familia and the services of RyanAir

Katie and I decided to go to Brussels, Belgium for our last long weekend of the semester. Honestly, it was the cheapest trip RyanAir was offering and I speak the language, so we thought we’d go for it. Hotels in Brussels are VERY cheap, so we ended up staying at a 4-star hotel It was about the same price as staying at a nice hostel, so of course we picked the place where we could shower and leave our stuff in the room! The hotel was walking distance from the city center (Le Grand Place), right next to the European Commission and the European Parliament, and very near a huge park. I got to use my French, which was nice. Apparently I can acutally hold a conversation and be understood! AMAZING! I even got to do some translating for Katie Butttt we won’t go into that!
Katie and I had some great food: Belgian Waffles, [Turkish] Kebabs, [Moroccan] Falafels, and sandwiches! And for all you TinTin fans, the famous cartoon character is Belgian, and there was a store dedicated to him! (I bought a keychain) Delirium Bar is also a MUST-VISIT because it has the widest variety of beers from all over the world. It was pretty amazing Also, everything was pretty decently priced, even though Belgium uses the Euro.

Here are some interesting tidbits about the city of Brussels:

* about 1/3 of the 1 million inhabitants of Brussels are foreigners, which probably explains why Katie and I feel as though we still don’t know what a real Belgian looks like!

* it is the headquarters of the European Union

* Brussels is a bilingual city, meaning all street signs are both in Dutch AND French

Katie and I LOVED Brussels, and I would love to go back and practice my French there. The people were nice, and if you’d like to hear more about it, let me know!!

CHECK OUT THE PICTURES HERE!!!!!!!