Brussels, Belgium

Friday night, Charla hopped on a train to see me here in Den Haag and we went out with some friends (yes,...you're right...they were the Marines) to the city center. Here are some pictures from Fiddlers:

Well, we didn't plan on staying out late that night because we wanted to get on a train early in the morning to get to Brussels at a decent time,...but....you know how that goes... After getting into bed about 2:30am, I decided to still set the alarm for 7am, but as everyone can expect, I hit the snooze for an hour or so. It was quite the struggle getting up and I had to pretty much scream to get Charla out of bed...haha...

Jonny decided to join us in our mission to become official tourists so we gathered our cameras and travel book and arrived in Brussels.

As you can see in the pictures, it was raining--more like a constant annoying sprinkle--and I forgot my umbrella.

The buildings in this square, called Grand Palace, were amazing! Their details were incredible. Here are some of the statues on them:

When we went looking for a place to eat, we came across a bunch of streets that look like the one in the picture directly below. They were streamed with restaurants with one guy representing each and then they would hassle you into coming into their restaurant to eat. It was like a contest and very annoying.

We finally got something to eat and walked around some more. Our night ended at a nice little square that had Christmas lights strung everywhere. We had a couple plates of cheese and meat...and my new favorite beer, Leffe. I am determined to find it here in Den Haag.

This little guy above is the Mannekin Pis--a very small statue of a boy pissing...and you can actually see the stream if you look close enough. haha There were so many people around it that it was hard to get in and get a picture.

We found this statue (in the pic below) as we were leaving. It was in a little alley all by itself and I thought that it was much better than the little statue of the boy pissing (Manneken Pis) that is so popular that crowds gather around it all day. No, we didn't really kick it.