Brandon O'Brien

Sunday, September 11, 2022 @ 7:20 PM in 2022 Germany and France

Day 18

Today was our last full day in Europe. We catch our flight at 8:55am tomorrow from Nice to Munich. Then we go from Munich to Houston and finally Houston to Albuquerque. It's going to be a really long day so we wanted today to be pretty chill. We got a little packing done this morning then headed down to the beach around 10:00. Unfortunately there were some jellyfish in the water so we didn't actually get in, but we met up with Kat and hung out there for about an hour and a half.

We just went to the beach that was closest to our Airbnb and really close to Kat's place. It was a smooth rock beach instead of sand which made it a little more uncomfortable to sit on. By noon we were all getting hungry so we dropped all our beach gear off at Kat's house and set off to find lunch. We aimed for a seafood restaurant that had really good reviews but it was closed when we got there, even though it was supposed to be open. A little disappointed, we walked to another place called Waka Bar and sat down there.

I got a beer and a chicken and avocado salad with some couscous which was really good. I also ordered some loaded fries which were delicious. Sam got a burger and a spritzer. After I finished my beer I ordered an Aperol spritz since that's basically the official drink of the area and I hadn't had one yet. It was pretty good and had a lot of orange flavor.

After lunch we walked back to Kat's place to pick up the rest of our stuff then came back to the Airbnb to do some more packing. For dinner I walked down to a pizza place and picked up a couple pizzas as an easy last meal. We hadn't actually looked in the freezer at the Airbnb until today and we discovered someone left some ice cream pops in there. It's too bad we didn't look sooner or we could have had them through the week, lol.

We're going to have the ice cream a little later then give Dakotah a bath before heading to bed early. We probably need to leave the Airbnb around 6:30am to catch the tram and get to the airport in time to check in and get to our flight. The trip has been great and we've done and seen a lot. It's always bittersweet leaving a vacation but we're looking forward to getting home and back into a more normal routine.

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Tags: france, nice, europe

Posted from: France

Wednesday, September 11, 2013 @ 2:56 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 77

I ran out to a Carefore market to pick up some food for dinner and lunches over the next few days. I picked up some chocolate croissants for breakfast and some fruit to snack on. After that I went to Aldi and got what I thought was peanut butter but ended up being some kind of weird biscotti cookie tasting spread. It was alright at first but didn't sit to well later on. I had a couple beers, watched the latest episode of Breaking Bad, then went to bed.

There was a couple in my room that was spending 2 weeks traveling around Europe from England. I talked to them a little bit then went to bed. I was exhausted from traveling and walking all over Brussels so I slept really well.

This morning I got up and had a croissant and some grapes for breakfast. The croissant was really good! I microwaved it for 30 seconds so the chocolate inside was nice and melted. I found some peanut butter in the shared food shelf at the hostel and used that to make a sandwich for lunch. I didn't want to have another one with that weird spread.

My plan for the day was to see a few of the sights and have some Belgian beers. I started off by going to the Manneken Pis fountain. The fountain is of a little dude peeing and is supposed to represent the irreverent spirit of Brussels. It gets dressed up in a different outfit a few times a week. The fountain is tiny and is located in a random intersection in Brussels but it was pretty funny to see.

I started walking toward Jubelpark which has Brussels version of the Arc de Triomphe but on my way it started to cloud up and look like it was about to pour again. Rather than get caught in the same situation as yesterday I decided to eat lunch in the Grote Markt and then find a bar to have a drink at. In my research I found the Delerium Cafe that has a Guinness World Record for most number of beers at 2400. I had a beer there, then went next door to their Monistarium for a trappist beer.

It rained when I was in both of the bars so my intuition to drink instead of getting rained on was correct. When the rain slowed down and I was finished with my second beer I set out to find some frites. I stumbled across the Friktos Tabora and got some frites with andalouse sauce. I think it's some kind of mix of mayo, ketchup and peppers. Whatever it was it tasted really good. It reminded me a bit of animal style fries at In-n-Out.

Sufficiently happy after eating the frites I set off for another bar I found online called Moeder Lambic and had a beer there. Belgian beers really are good. I had 3 different beers today and each of them was different but really good. Also, the lowest ABV of any of them was 8%!

I decided it was probably time to head back to the hostel so that's what I did. I stopped at a Lidl along the way and got a pepper, pasta and pasta sauce for dinner. I'll probably start making that in a little bit before the kitchen gets overrun.

For tomorrow I'm thinking about getting a day pass for the metro so I can see more of the sights without getting rained on and stranded a few miles from the hostel. I also need to buy my ticket to Bruges tomorrow.

Teaser photos:

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Tags: daily journal, belgium, brussels

Posted from: Belgium