Today was my first day in Brussels. Leaving Krakow earlier this morning went fairly smoothly, I checked in my bag and went through security in a matter of minutes. The flight to Frankfurt was delayed about 20 minutes due to some control tower issue in Frankfurt but once the plane arrived at the terminal the boarding process was prompt. Arriving in Frankfurt I franticly rushed to the “A” terminal to go to my gate in time for my second flight but no matter, since my Krakow flight was delayed I had missed my flight to Brussels. I had to rebook and print out my ticket again for the Brussels flight. A few hours later my rebooked flight departed from Frankfurt for Brussels airport, the flight was under an hour. I was surprised by how many languages the announcements on the plane were in, there must have been at least three languages each announcement was in.

Arriving at Brussels airport I walked towards the baggage claim. I followed a seemingly endless labyrinth of baggage claim directions through what looked like a shopping mall until I finally found the baggage claim. One monitor said my flight was on one baggage carrousel and another said I was on another carrousel in the room. Just by a fluke I ended up waiting by the actual carrousel that was for my flight, I got my bag and headed to the taxies to take me to the airport.

My taxi driver spoke a limited amount of English so I attempted, surprisingly successfully I might add, to tell the driver where I was going and negotiate a price for the drive with the limited amount of French that I knew. Not knowing much French there was little conversation with the driver on the way to the hotel. The driver daringly weaved through traffic often honking at nearby cars and trucks. There was not much scenery a long the drive as we mostly drove through the freeways until the last part of the taxi drive when we drove through what looked like a office block. Once we had gotten closer to my hotel the drivers’ aggressiveness with driving had increased a long with the amount of traffic in the streets. At one point we drove through a bus only lane at full speed until eventually during into a small street which my hotel was on.

I checked into the hotel and placed my items in the room. I went on the computer for a few minutes to check my email and Facebook than I went out again and headed towards the Grand Place which is a medieval square within Brussels. The way to Grand Place was through a narrow arcade lined with restaurants. Each restaurant had a waiter in front soliciting passerby’s if they wanted to eat at their restaurant. The air smelt of tobacco from people sitting outside their respective restaurants. The buildings’ architecture looked like something right out of Paris complete with the cobblestone streets. Once I had arrived in Grand Place I saw articulately carved medieval buildings.

I headed further on to find food, perhaps a Brussels Waffle. I did not need to look too far for that. I stumbled upon a place that made Linge Waffles, which is waffles with sugar. I had got a waffle with chocolate sauce and cream which was filling in of itself but I had decided since I was out I should try to get more substantive food. I continued back and stumbled upon a street that seemed to only have Greek/Turkish restaurants. I stopped in one of the restaurants and ordered gyros and fries. The food arrived quickly, it was ok but I could not finish it.

After dinner I retired back to my hotel room. Tomorrow I am going to see some sights within Brussels.