Bruselas + TACOS!

On Sunday afternoon I returned to Valladolid from Brussels, Belgium with about 15 pounds of chocolate. YUM! It was quite the adventure, let me tell you.
First, I forgot our airline tickets. Cool. Good thing we had a little bit of time before our flight! We took the taxi ride of our lives back to Valladolid to print our tickets off Sarah's USB and then back to the airport to run to our gate. Whew. Once we got to the Brussels airport, we realized the language barrier we were about to have because in Brussels they speak French and Dutch. Thankfully, many people also spoke English and we got directions to the bus that takes us from the airport to the city. We must have taken the wrong bus because it only took us to the Charleroi train station.
However, we met a really nice Italian man on our way who plays American football in his hometown and speaks English. His name is Fabio pahahahaha! So, we bought train tickets and got on the train with Fabio. Then our train broke down. We transferred to another train that was full, so we stood between the cars and prayed that we would know what stop we should get off at.

When we finally arrived at our stop, we were clueless as to where to go from there. Thankfully, we found a woman who spoke English and asked her for directions. She knew exactly how to get to our hotel, down to every last turn! We checked into our hotel around 9pm, making the trip about 9 hours total from Valla to Brussels. Whew.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a personal kitchen in our cheap hotel room, so we decided to make some macaroni and cheese that some lovely friends of mine from home sent me a few weeks ago :) Buenisimo! We decided to stay in that night because it was raining pretty hard and it was dark so we couldn't see anything anyway.

In the morning we got up early to make the most of our day. As we were walking down to Grand Place we decided to take a picture next to these statues. Then these guys in suits jumped in the picture. Oooookay. Hahahaha they were super nice and invited us to go out with them that night, but we were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel so we didn't actually hang out with them at all.

We got to Grand Place and stopped some kids with some waffles to find out where they got them. Turned out they were doing some sort of school project where they had to trade hard boiled eggs for anything people were willing to give them. We gave them some American change and headed out to find some Belgian waffles.

We stopped at The Waffle Factory and met our new friend Oosed. Don't really know if that's how you spell it. Probably not. BUT he was super funny and gave us lots of recommendations of what to do and see in Brussels. We walked down to Mannekin Pis and then took the metro to the Atomium and toured that bad boy, buying lots of chocolate along the way, as well as some yummy Belgian "frites". We returned to our hotel exhausted and hungry, dropped off some shopping bags, and headed to "Volle-Gas" for some mussels and other Belgian delicacies. Oh, I almost forgot! We tried some escargots too! There was a street vendor right by Mannekin Pis that was selling them and we had to try them while we had the chance! They were authentic! Sarah and Alyssa both ended up spitting them out, but I ate a few. They were alright.

The next morning we traveled back to Valladolid and rested for a bit before we caught an autobus to Laguna (a pueblo) to make tacos at Rut's house (a girl from my Bible study). A bit exhausting after a weekend trip to another country, but muy fabuloso! There were about fifteen of us there sharing quesadillas, tacos, and nachos for dinner. I don't know if you guys understand how much I have CRAVED Mexican food since I have been here. Thank goodness I could find almost everything I needed to make them. What a fix.

Well, there we are, friends. 

Adventures,

adventures,

adventures!!!!