Day 6, Friday April 19th! Here’s my short recap from Instagram:

Day 6 (April 19) – travel day 🫠 DRS 👉 FRA 👉 BRU. When we arrived in Brussels we were like “um… this just looks like any large US city, where’s all the historic stuff?!” But then we walked a couple minutes and found it 😂

My good friend Dunja (@waclarissima) traveled from her home in Germany to spend this weekend in Belgium with us! She’s another friend I was meeting in person for the first time, and of course, she’s lovely and we had a wonderful time chatting with her!!! Meeting up with local friends like this made this trip really special for us 🥹 I wish I could do it more often!

BYE BYE DRESDEN

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad to leave Dresden! The beautiful architecture, the amazing vegan food, the orderliness of Germany, that amazing hotel room… sigh. But the trip must go on, to Belgium!

Us in front of our hotel – I look so tired! 

Thankfully we didn’t have a ridiculous wakeup call. I set my alarm for 7:00 with the plans to hit the road by 7:30 for 10:20 am flight. I can’t remember why (probably because of my need to TRY ALL THE VEGAN THINGS!), but we decided to go back to Starbucks to get the little vegan donut things they had. Starbucks didn’t open until 8:00, so we left right after that. We stopped and got gas (I had asked Katja how to do it so we’d know!), and still made it to the airport by 8:30, and were in the terminal shortly after.

Tasty!

DRESDEN AIRPORT

Remember when I said I was excited to go back to the Dresden airport because it was so small? As we were going through security (which, by the way, why is what you have to take out of your bag is so different in every country? Amsterdam was the nicest, Brussels was the most clear, Dresden was the moodiest) I noticed it looked hazy in the terminal. When I got through I realized it was because there is a smoking room in the terminal, and it was not well sealed.

Sigh.

Cigarette smoke makes me feel really ill. And thus began my day of “I can’t believe so many people still smoke!”

Oh, and remember when I said I was worried about getting through Frankfurt in 1.5 hours for our connection? When we checked in with Lufthansa it gave us tickets for both flights, so I wasn’t as worried. When our departure was delayed by 30 minutes I was concerned it would be delayed more and we’d have to run through the terminal, but thankfully, we only had the 30 minute delay.

We had time to kill before our flight left Dresden. Steven got an unsatisfactory croissant and I had an unsatisfactory pretzel. I had looked for a pretzel from a bakery or street cart the night before in Dresden with no success. I need to go back to Germany for pretzel redemption alone!

We checked out duty free and found some vegan chocolate for me and a veggie hot pocket type thing for Steven to try.

We eventually walked out on the ramp to board and had a quick flight to Frankfurt. We both nodded off  on the flight, and I read a bit too.

BACK AT THE FRANKFURT AIRPORT

To think, I originally was going to make Frankfurt our base city. I’m so glad Katja and Amber steered me clear of that. We landed, got off the plane, got on a bus (of course), and went to our terminal, which thankfully, was also the one we were leaving out of. We did the long walk to our gate, then got a salad to share. Steven got an apple juice and I got a chai.

Our departure was delayed maybe 30+ minutes? I don’t recall. But we eventually got back on the bus and boarded, and had a quick hour flight to Brussels (more napping and reading!).

Now I don’t remember the details – did we actually exit into the terminal in Brussels? I want to say yes?! I remember walking forever in the terminal, seeing lots of Magritte art, and struggling to find our driver. We eventually did, and got into his smoky (UGH) car to go to Brussels.

ARRIVING IN BRUSSELS

As mentioned in my copy and paste from Instagram, we were not getting good vibes on our drive into Brussels. It felt like driving around O’hare airport here in Chicago – lots of highway (okay, not THAT much highway, but still) and ugly corporate buildings. Could be the ugly corporate outskirts of any large city. We were both thinking “F*ck, should we have started the trip in this city? Does this city suck?” (Sorry, Amy!)

Riding in a car that smelled like smoke didn’t help. I had a headache.

Then when we got to our hotel it was right across from the train station and it just felt… underwhelming, dirty, and meh.

We could have just ridden to this train station, but it was nice to have a driver and not deal with our bags on the train!

The crappy weather also didn’t help. Gosh, the weather in Belgium was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I’ll talk more about that in later posts.

Our Hilton Brussels hotel room

DON’T WORRY, THIS HAS A HAPPY ENDING

We got to our room between 3:30-4:00 and had time to kill before we met Dunja, a German rock painting friend of mine, for dinner at 6:00. We did about 20 minutes of downtime, then left to check out the city.

I learned a lot about Belgium while I was there (that’s true about every country!). The first thing we did when we left our hotel was walk through a tunnel that had Smurfs painted on the ceiling of it. Did I know Smurfs are Belgian before this trip? Nope, I sure didn’t!

So we left our hotel and walked for literally a minute and the city instantly became more stereotypically European looking. Phew. I was so relieved and felt my shoulders loosen a bit that there was actually cool buildings to see there. Mentally, I knew there was, Amy had even recommended places for us to see before we got together with her (I made a little map of them) but my emotional and travel-weary side was picking up bad vibes.

ANYWAY.

We found ourselves in Grand Place – a large square with gorgeous public and private buildings on all sides of it. It was breathtaking and overwhelming (with all the people).

We walked by the Bourse Brussels (their stock exchange),

then stopped to get some vegan frites to try at Frites Atelier. Belgium is known for their fries, but seriously, no fries in our lives will ever compare to the ones we ate that first day in Amsterdam. Sorry, Belgium. It’s not personal.

We walked by Sint-Katelijneplein, and sat down at a bench to eat our fries. It was so windy that day. They almost flew off the bench. That was interesting about these travels – seeing how much the wind picked up in squares and alleys.

We wandered a bit more, seeing Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.

Impressive organ

We walked through a beautiful gallery.

These European galleries (indoor malls?) are so neat. A lot of the Google Maps directions wanted us to walk through buildings and before I was in Brussels I was super confused – walk through buildings to get places? It makes sense though!

We eventually made our way to dinner, to meet Dunja!

LIU LIN & MEETING DUNJA

Amy had told me Liu Lin was her fave vegan place in Brussels so I wanted to try it, but when I went to make a reservation I was like “Getting Taiwan inspired street food? While in Belgium? Seems odd.”

Ha, joke’s on me, you can’t make reservations for under four people there. So Amy told us to get there early. When we got there, I was surprised to see none of the tables seat four (all had less than four seats), and were all reserved at 6:00 pm for dinners an hour+ later. But we got a table no problem – we just had to leave by 8:00, also not a problem (that was such a good tip from her to arrive early – there was a huge crowd of people waiting by the time we left!).

And, funnily enough, that morning, the idea of eating warm and cozy Asian food for dinner sounded AMAZING. Great recommendation with delicious food.

Dunja met us there and gave me the biggest hug. Ahh! I was so excited to see her!

So, Dunja is another rock painting friend I’ve connected with (duh) when I first started my rock painting Instagram account and we’ve been friends for several years. I wanted to see her in Germany but it didn’t work for her schedule, so she came to Belgium to see us! I love that she was willing to do that!

Conversation flowed so easily between the three of us. Dunja is a question-asker and we absolutely loved it. Steven and I don’t have a lot of people in our lives who inquire about our lives/interests/opinions (we’re usually the ones doing it), so when someone does, it feels really special.

Dunja brought me a gift and we laughed about how perfectly wrapped it was. She loves to wrap and knows I hate it. In fact, the gift bag I had for her was completely ripped from traveling through three countries! So on point.

We ate a delicious dinner – we got the mini spring rolls and wontons for the table, I got Lin’s Noodle Bowl, Steven got a dumpling soup, and Dunja got curry.

I loved that Dunja made a point to get photos of us before our meals. And that she was enthusiastic about photos in general!

THE GIANT WHEEL

It felt like we had all the time in the world after dinner since we ate so early (compared to the other nights)! So it was time for some wandering. We realized our restaurant was right by The Giant Wheel (a Ferris wheel) and decided to ride it.

It was chilly, but the view was beautiful, and we had a wonderful time!

MORE WANDERING AND OUR FIRST BELGIAN WAFFLE

Then we decided it was time to try our first Belgian waffle. There are two kinds of Belgian waffles – the Brussels waffle and the Liege waffle. The Brussels waffle is lighter, rectangular, and made with yeast-leavened batter. It often has toppings because it isn’t super sweet. The Liege waffle is circular, crunchier and bread-like, and has crystals of pearl sugar for more crunch and caramelization on the outside. Steven and I only tried the Brussels waffle on this trip!

We walked through Grand Place again,

then ended up at the Sisters Brussel Cafe. I got the peanut butter and banana waffle (and hot tea) and it was decent, but not the best I had on our trip! (It was vegan and gluten free…)

The three of us had a great time talking and getting to know each other all night! Dunja walked with us back to our hotel around 10:00, we made plans to meet the next morning with Amy, then she walked to her Airbnb, which was close by.

I was in a much better mood when I went to bed than when I first arrived in Brussels. Phew! All I needed was some time with friends, some good food, some fresh air, and some interesting things to see!