Reading list

You should read this darling article on the weather.  Snow is predicted for Thursday.  As a result, odds for a White Christmas have gone up with bookies.  I kid you not:

"The British Met Office expects the unsettled and wintry weather to continue towards the Christmas weekend and as a result bookies have slashed the price of a white Christmas with Paddy Power quoting odds of 9/4 for Dublin, 2/1 for Belfast and 11/8 for London."

Gotta get in the Christmas Spirit.  Also, when it talks about people running the taps that's because they don't pay for water here. Fun fact.

Back to writing papers. Whoop.

Jane Eyre is not a Romantic Comedy

This may come as a surprise to the cooing old lady contingent of the audience at the Gate Theatre this evening, but Jane Eyre is not a comedy.  Mr. Rochester is not so emotionally effusive and neither is Jane, nor is she so consistently overjoyed.  Moreover, as I imagined her, her voice was not quite so whiny.  The narrator - Old Jane - was quite good on the other hand.

Overall, it was an experience.  Made thoroughly unique by the absurdity of the old ladies taking a field trip to the performance.  At one part, they laughed after every line.  For the entire conversation.  I guess it was a bit impressive the director twisted the words of Charlotte Bronte to elicit so much laughter from an audience that was supposed to be viewing an adaptation of a Victorian Gothic novel.  They cooed, awed, and chattered for the entire show.

The young Jane shouted and Rochester relied on his accent to carry his character.  Helen was decent and so was the aunt. But get this folks, Jane Eyre is depressing.  It's ok.  Sometimes it's alright not to be bounding with joy.  And I wish they'd had more of crazy Bertha from the attic.  And that the silly women surrounding us, dear readers there were at least twenty of these elderly women all acquainted with one another who seemed to misremember the novel as an adorable romance, would not let an opportunity slip by them without ooing or sighing (very audibly) or chortling or gasping. No friends, that's just not how it goes.

I'd probably have enjoyed it better had the genre not been changed and had the audience withheld their gooey delight.  But I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles.

The Weekend

I cannot believe how fast time is flying here.  I've finished 2 of 4 essays, have one scary 3000 word one left (frightening because it's a topic without anything to reference and is pretty vague, but I made it up and it's my fault), and one that has words written down (whether they form logical thoughts is another matter).

For this past weekend, it being my last in Dublin, I went to brunch twice, checked out the still-icy Iveagh Gardens (I found them! before I hadn't been able to locate them), and explored the Dublin Christmas Market.  I went to the market with friends early this evening. I bought a delicious brownie and had some cherry punch.  I think there was something funky about the punch, though.  It tasted fine, but the smell of the alcohol steaming off the top was a little gross and I didn't drink that much.  However, when I got back to my apartment I suddenly became really lethargic for about a half hour and couldn't really move.  My arms felt like lead.  Even two hours later, my right arm still felt like I'd gotten a shot.

So that's where my life is right now.  I'm desperately trying to get through these essays and take in as much of Dublin as possible in my last few days.  I promise if I find spare time, a Barcelona post is very high on my priority list.

today i made cookies

Today I made cookies. Kristen helped. Self-explanatory.

Caving

I cannot believe how fast time has gone.  I'm leaving in two weeks, but it feels like I've only been here for two weeks.  Where did the time go?  Anyway, the worst part of it is that the last couple weeks of my time here are unfortunately being consumed by essay writing.  Stupid, I know.  I also recently found out I have to write an extra essay on top of everything else.  Basically, dreariness is overtaking my life.  (This is not helped by the fact that I developed self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder, thank you 3:30 sunsets.)  But I'm determined to live in denial of these responsibilities, and make time for long overdue blog posts. (Pictures/media to be added later because they take a surprising amount of time.)  For example, tonight I am having a Christmas celebration with my roommates.  We will be making the delicious peanut butter hershey kiss cookies and enjoying a movie and hot chocolate.  I'm thinking The Santa Clause, but I'm not sure yet.  We're supposed to decorate, but I don't think any of us actually went and bought decorations.

Now, for some more interesting information, here are my tales of Dublin in the snow.

Actual shot of Ireland covered in snow last week. 
Yeah, I'm awesome.

Beautiful as it may be, Dublin simply shut* down when it snowed.  It managed to hold it's ground for a few days, and in fairness it was a really annoying snowstorm.  For six days it snowed and hailed and thundered.  Seriously.  It would go on.  It'd snow for an hour, take an hour break, and snow for another two hours.  Or hail.  For six days.  Very seldom in my life have I ever disliked snow, but Dubliners do not own/know to use shovels.  No one bothered to start clearing the sidewalks on campus until this past Monday, more than a week after the snow began.  And since it was by that time a 3 or 4 inch thick sheet of ice covering the ground, it took construction equipment.  It was actually kind of funny, I wish I'd taken a picture.  They also use brooms to sweep stray snow away.

Trinity was closed Wednesday-Friday, and the library closed for the entire weekend.  What was more frustrating was the fact that on Thursday and Friday when the library was supposed to be open with shortened hours, they would announce at 2:30 they were closing at 3 instead of 5.  On Monday, they seemed to think for some reason closing at 8 instead of 10 was justified by the fact it snowed 5 days previous.  It doesn't make sense.

Taking issue with this all is entirely on me.  By now I should be used to the endearing bureaucratic peculiarities of Trinity, but just when you think you've got it, they sneak back up and yell surprise.  Not the fun kind.  Like this morning for instance.  Tutorials were supposed to end last week, but my Shakespeare tutorial got snowed out.  So I emailed the coordinator yesterday to ask if it was going to be made up.  At 10:15 this morning, I checked my email to find she had forwarded less than an hour beforehand an email my professor sent at 9:30 am on Monday that our tutorial was rescheduled for 11 am today.  Super.  Love the advanced notification.

This post is really rambling and I apologize.  I need to get back to finishing my Shakespeare essay, which is unfortunately even less coherent.  (Seriously.  My own comments on the essay as I have written it include the phrases: "does this make sense?" 3x, "is this true?", and "absolutely disgusting phrase.  find something else". Paper writing is buckets of fun.) I also may have repeated information from a previous post.  Again, sorry.  Barcelona post coming soon, promise!

*Edited to remove Freudian slip/profanity 14/12.

Too Much Snow

Dear Glorious Weather Gods of the Sky, 
    I can't believe I'm saying this, especially since there's only maybe 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground.  But enough is enough.  It's too much and it needs to end. Or else someone needs to give everyone in Dublin a shovel and instruct them on its proper usage.  It's difficult to go anywhere because you're literally walking on a 3-inch thick sheet of ice.  And they keep closing the library and the 24 hour reading room so I can't do my work. Plus it's distracting. It's bad enough that the sun sets around 3:30.  Everything has gone far enough.  Now stop, sky, stop.  I took my pictures and Centra doesn't have hot chocolate.  And I'm destroying my sneakers.
   End it.
Regards,
Rachel

Seriously, this is the only the second time in my life I've disliked snow. Thanks Ireland.

Here are some pictures from that time before this emotion developed:

From St. Stephen's Green

From Campus

 

It's not real snow anyway.  A lot of it is hail, so the snow looks like weird packing styrofoam.

Then today in the library, I took pictures and video instead of doing my work.  This represents my distraction and mostly misdirected anger since I just really don't want to have to deal with my history class.  In addition to the assignment that is going painfully slowly, I just found out I have another essay to do.  Not fun.

Yes, I also took video footage of the snow.  That's how bored and ineffective I was.

A post on Barcelona is coming, I just want to wait until I'm in a better mood.

the post about the reading week road trip

Trinity has this wonderful thing called reading week during which classes are canceled for the week for the intended purpose of allowing students to catch up on their reading. During this week, Mom, Dad, Aunt Diane, Mommom, and Gramps all came over for a visit and we took a road trip vacation around Ireland. I've already posted a good smattering of the pictures and don't want to bore you with repeats, so hopefully you'll be able to bear reading a long, relatively un-pictured post.  Warning: this will be very long. Maybe I'll do pop-out quotes.

So, the family arrived seriously exhausted on a Saturday afternoon. I quickly showed them campus with the few hours of daylight left, dragged them through the Archaeology Museum to see bog bodies and viking ships, and them plopped them down in pub for an early dinner. I was really glad to see them. Especially with Christmas getting closer (the Christmas season starts right after Halloween in Ireland) I was getting a wee bit homesick.

The next day, I only met them for lunch and dinner since I was supposed to be finishing my history paper. I did finish half of it. They took the hop-on, hop-off bus tour of Dublin and saw the Dublin Castle Chapel, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Kilmainham Gaol and probably some other things. I remember it being cold then, but I must have been mistaken because it wasn't nearly as cold as it is now.

Monday morning, the slave-driving bunch had me up at an unfathomable hour to meet them at the hotel so we could leave. By virtue of providence, I was somehow mostly on time. The car they'd rented was not. It came eventually, about ten or 15 minutes late which wasn't really a big deal. It did not however have a GPS. That turned out to be perfectly fine since Mom had printed directions everywhere anyway and both of us make fine navigators, being able to read maps and what not. (We only got lost three or four times!) Also, Ireland has really easy to figure out road signs. The plethora of roundabouts also is fairly easy to work out, and though we only did it once, it makes it possible to go around twice if you're not sure of the exit the first time.

Dad also did a fine job driving, especially since he started driving on the opposite side of the road in downtown Dublin during morning rush hour. His impeccable driving record for the week included not hitting a single person or livestock, grazing only one car and the curb only once or twice in very acceptable situations, and not running into any walls. His only frequent errors were hitting holes, rocks, and continually driving too far on the shoulder. But altogether, a commendable job.

We discussed the likelihood of it being arson. 

I don't remember what we determined.

Enough about cars, our first adventure was to Powerscourt, an estate with gardens about 40 minutes south of Dublin. It was very pretty and we took lots of photos. The estate had burned down in the 70s(?) and from the information video, it seemed they took a ton of video footage before calling the fire brigade. We discussed the likelihood of it being arson. I don't remember what we determined. After exploring the expansive grounds, moseying around the central pond and stumbling upon a pet cemetery, we packed Mommom into the very back seat and loaded ourselves in the car to make our way south.

We stopped at the National Heritage Center aka Viking Farm which was unfortunately mostly drowned, but we found a few viking huts and replica ships, as well as a cozy-looking sheep skin which when I thought about it, made me sad.  Sheep are such gentle, helpless creatures, adorable as long as you aren't near enough to smell them.  I think we got into Viking Land for free since most of it was under water.  It was pretty neat though.  After that, we made our way to Waterford to reach our first B&B of the trip.  I don't remember the couple's names (Phyllis maybe?) but they were very nice.  The husband recommended a great pub to us where we went and got giant and delicious portions of food.  Gramps totally lied to the woman, telling her grits were more of a dinner item.  We all watched confused, wondering why we'd never heard of it before.  Obviously, grits are for breakfast.

The next morning, we hit up the Waterford Crystal Factory and learned how glasses and vases, etc, are made.  They're all hand crafted.  The process involves blowing the glass, drawing on lines, then carving in the designs with a spinning wheel. That description very bad I know, but for some reason I don't have any pictures.  Dad does though, so see him if you're interested.  (Luckily for you all, I found a vintage video that depicts the process.  Skip to 2:43 to see cutting, and I think glass blowing begins around 2:00.  I didn't watch the whole thing, but here it is. Don't try it at home though! It takes 8+ years of apprenticeship to do that stuff.)  The crystal was pretty and then Mom got excited because she has a glass with a pattern they no longer make and hopes it's worth lots of money.  Not that she'd sell it or anything.  I don't know why people on Antiques Roadshow get so excited about things when most of the time they want to keep their family heirloom items rather than sell them.

Later in the action-packed second day, we departed Waterford and headed to the seaside town of Cobh.  According to Mom, I threw my first of a handful of mutinies, rearranging the events of the afternoon to maximize our use of the short hours of sunlight.  I maintain that it worked out for the best and we still got everywhere.  In Cobh, we split up Scooby-Doo style as Dad, Mommom, and I went to take pictures of the town, Mom and Aunt Diane went to see the Lusitania, Titanic, and Irish Emigration exhibition, and Gramps bought toffees (I think he did other things too, I just don't know what).  Dad, Mommom, and I saw a cathedral and decided to walk up to it.  That involved walking up San-Diego style sloping streets which Dad later insisted upon driving.  Mommom made it really far but then had to stop short.  We left her on the side of the road, but did ask a bunch of smoking schoolgirls to keep an eye on her. (We also asked them how to get to the cathedral.) So we got there, took a bunch of pictures of the view and the outside of the cathedral, and then quickly went back to collect the grandparents we'd left scattered around the city. The fickle schoolgirls were nowhere to be found when we got back to Mommom, tsk tsk.

I've posted this picture of Mommom's high watermark before, but here it is again for reference.

We then departed Cobh, going to the Old Jameson Distillery in Middleton, outside of Cork.  We arrived just in time for the last tour of the day.  Long story short, I became an official whiskey taster, and Mom developed an affinity for expensive 15 year old whiskey. We got to our bed and breakfast, which was run by Jerry.  He was pretty cool and had spent 20 years "in the bush" (Australia) and had stories of Aborigines and coupons for steak dinners.  In Cork, there was a cathedral that had a ladder going all the way up the steeple.  Just looking at it made me shudder The picture I have of it is utterly appalling because my camera cannot take pictures at night, but here it is.  The ladder is the tiny line on the left side of the steeple.

You have to click on the picture to see it bigger, otherwise you can't see it at all.

After we got back from dinner, we all watched a TV program about a servant in Tralee from the early 20th century who murdered her employers and wore different sized shoes.  This was because Dad was fixated on watching something in Gaelic and also because there were only three channels.

The scenery was breathtaking and we did have to stop for three escaped sheep who pranced across the road.

On our third day, we drove around the Ring of Kerry, a beautiful, scenic drive that was thankfully uncrowded since it was November and therefore not tourist season.  The scenery was breathtaking and we did have to stop for three escaped sheep who pranced across the road.  We did the outer-loop (taking the drive clockwise) which ended up working out perfectly since all the overlooks were on the left side of the road.  We stopped frequently and occasionally unpacked Mommom too, because the coast was just so beautiful with the deep blue horizon, gently splashing waves, and small rock islands.

When we finished the drive (it took three or four hours possibly, I don't quite remember), we went to Ballyseede Castle outside of Tralee, where we spent the night.  Our suite was beautiful (see facebook album) and the castle even had a rainbow over it when we left the next morning.  Dad took advantage of the fact that he didn't have to drive one night (he did have to drive the entire trip) and had fun at the castle bar.  The bartender had spent several years in West Virginia, and Dad also made friends with a nice couple from Texas. I stayed with Dad at the bar and didn't properly think about what I was doing.  I had a lot of whiskey and cokes and just didn't consider that each time I had one, I was having a bottle of coke.  Therefore, I woke up four hours after going to bed and could not get back to sleep.  But the castle was definitely cool.

It was a bit windy, 85 mph to be precise, so the parking lot had giant danger signs all around. 

The next day there was a big storm, but being the resilient travelers we are, we decided no little storm could get in the way of our plans.  We made an impromptu stop at the ruins of a Franciscan friary in Askeaton (Dad unexpectedly pulled over to see these).  In Askeaton, we saw a unicorn!  We then continued to the Cliffs of Moher, the one thing Gramps wanted to see in Ireland.  It was a bit windy, 85 mph to be precise, so the parking lot had giant danger signs all around.  You were only allowed to go to one level of the platforms.  When we first drove up, we thought it was snowing because there were white flecks hitting the windshield.  However, I think it was hailing sea foam. It really isn't supposed to snow in Ireland in November, even if it did in the last week.  It was pretty bad weather.  But it was really fun to harness a gust of wind that would take you up the stairs and then harness another to take you back down.  Sea foam was blowing straight up the 700+ foot cliffs.  The wind was howling all day and night and the waves were giant and beautiful.  I do concede that it would not have been a good idea to take the ferry that day as we'd originally planned.

Better quality video here

 For reference, above back in September when I first visited the cliffs, and below during our road trip.  

The second time was much more exciting.

We made it to the B&B in Doolin and the lady didn't believe us when we told her we'd been to the cliffs because of the inclement weather. We went that night to a pub recommended by the friendly Texas couple that had good music and food.  Gramps met a group of hurlers at the bar and made friends.  He also befriended a man named Billy, whom neither of us could understand no matter how hard we tried.  At the start of the night, though I tried to convince him otherwise, Gramps made the faux paus of ordering a half-pint then tried to put it off on Dad.  By then end of the night, he was doing whiskey shots with his bar friends and left the bar with a Munster Rugby jacket from one of his friends. So props to Doolin for being pretty cool.

The next day, we started our journey back to Dublin.  We stopped at the ruins of an abbey in Doolin.  The roads were in bad shape from the previous night's storm and a few were closed, so we had to adjust our route.  We had a detour to see Dunguaire Castle.  Also, we ran into a cattle-herding traffic jam.  One of the cattle drivers was literally a driver, holding a baton out of the window of his car.  The cattle ran along behind him, followed by the other herder on foot.  By about noon or maybe 11 we were still on the west coast so we put the pedal to the medal and went east.  We did indulge in another detour at Trim Castle since we were driving through Trim and the I felt the family deserved to see a real castle. We just walked around the outside though, because we were pressed for time.

We went to Newgrange, a 5000-year old passage site that looks like this:

For explicable yet unjustifiable reasons, the last tour leaves a full hour and 45 minutes before the center closes and we missed it by about 20 minutes.  So instead we looked at the exhibit and Gramps found a rock that fit his hand perfectly.  I'm not sure what to conclude from that.  It was neat exhibit.

After that, we had dinner north of Dublin, found the airport and returned the car in lightning speed.  Seriously.  We unpacked our stuff and exited that car in the spans of a few minutes.  There was something about the shuttle driver leaving for the airport.  Sorry, it was a complicated experience.  We drove to the car rental place, which was closed so we had to return the car to a hotel next door.  The hotel had a shuttle to the airport, then we took a shuttle to the city, and I took my bag to my room then went to say my goodbyes. It was definitely the best vacation I've ever had.

So, thank you ever so kindly for bearing with the length of this post.  I hope the pop-out quotes helped.

Snow, Woes and Techno

I had a fantastic trip to Barcelona and arrived back to find Dublin covered in a beautiful layer of fresh white snow.  The only downside is that because the country ran out of salt last year, it decided just not to use any this year, a decision which doesn't seem to account for the safety concerns of salting sidewalks so that you don't step out on a sheet of ice when you get off the air coach bus.  Anyway, I hadn't realized it snowed in Ireland since I was having a blast in Barcelona and also because I was told it was warmer in Ireland than at home. Not true. In fairness, I was told this is the first time in 30-40 years it has snowed in Dublin in November.

So, I made my way back to my room taking some pictures along the way, and then slept for 13 hours (they were not consecutive, don't worry). Late at night, I got a call from my friend Natasha who I'd met up with in Barcelona and who is studying in Edinburgh.  I had met up with her and six other people from Edinburgh.  They were stranded in Barcelona for the night because Edinburgh had a foot of snow.  Which is awful.  As much fun as Barcelona is, it completely sucks to be stranded when you're trying to get home.  The flights they'd managed to get involved a twelve hour layover in Dublin today, which was pretty fun and the eventual plot of this post.

I had to go to one seminar in the morning and a lecture in the evening, but I had the bulk of the day to hang out with Tash, another guy from Georgetown (and Delaware incidentally) Christian, and Erin and Lauren who are Scottish.  Since it was snowing here, I limited our travels to St. Stephen's Green Shopping Center for them to buy boots and pants, and then a walk through St. Stephen's Green which was snowy and beautiful.  We were attacked by some stupid boys with a snow ball sling shot though. It was funny the first time, but they kept trying to hit us.  Obviously they missed every time because they were stupid, but it was very annoying and we left the park.  Then we hit up Doyle's before I headed to class. It was a pretty fun day and I'm super glad they were able to visit, albeit unexpectedly.  Unfortunately, they have a flight to Leeds and a seven hour bus ride ahead of them.  They're a fun bunch though, and make the best of the situation.

In other news, as I was going through Belgian immigration/customs last week when leaving Brussels, the immigration officer held me up a bit.  There was no one else in line other than Brooke, but he asked me if I knew Carl Cox.  I was confused and asked him if he meant Courtney Cox because I've gotten that one before.  But no, he meant Carl Cox and wrote the name on my boarding pass for me to look up.  I finally did that this evening and discovered this, Carl Cox:



In any case, I promise to soon post a detailed and pictured account of my Spanish excursion, as well as the long overdue post on the infamous road trip.  It's doing some freak lightning/hail/snow storm at the moment.  I also cut my hand on a glass and am liable to bleed out. Life is splendid.

Thanksgiving in Rathmines

Since I'm awake anyway, I figured I mind as well do a quick post on Thanksgiving in Ireland before I hit the hay.  Nothing makes you more homesick than holidays away from the family, but I had a really good evening.

This morning no one seemed to realize today it was Thanksgiving but I suppose that's to be expected.  However, the whole day I felt like I was rushing to get to dinner and to make sure I had everything.  I went on a fruitless search for mead combined with a failed (more forsaken on my half than anything else) attempt to photograph the swans on the canal, and sped-read a book for Monday - one of those delightful ones the library refuses to keep on the shelf and will not let you take from the library.

Then around 6:20 or so I started to get ready for Thanksgiving in that I left the library, grabbed mac and cheese from my flat and headed to my friend Brooke's flat in Rathmines (via bus because today was absolutely freezing). She had prepared a scrumptious feast for us and two of her flatmates.  Svenja is German and Brenda is Irish and it was their first Thanksgiving.  We had chicken in place of turkey, but that's alright because I don't like turkey anyway.  I also did the honors.  Me and all of my food adventures this trip.  Everything was delicious - green bean casserole, sweet-potato something, pumpkin bread, my macaroni, and the delectable roast chicken.  To top it off, there was pumpkin pie, but I couldn't even finish my slice I was so stuffed.  At the end of the night, I returned to my flat and heard a bunch of guys singing the (US) National Anthem.  All in all, a very happy Thanksgiving.

36 Hours in Belgium

I'm behind on blogging and skipping past the Reading Week road trip to tell you all about Belgium. This past weekend I went with a friend on a 36 hour excursion to Brussels and Ghent.  We got in late Friday night and caught the very last bus from Charleroi Airport to Brussels (this airport is an hour south of the city) and arrived at the hotel around 1 am.  We stayed at the Hotel Bloom.  It was such a nice change from staying in hostels.  The beds were comfortable and there was a TV.  The hotel decor was pretty hip too.  They let us choose our room based on the painting because each room has a mural by a different artist. This was the one we selected:

Also, the hotel staff had ridiculous names.  There was Rainbow, Crocus, Angel, MC, and Sand.

The next morning, we woke up super early (7:15, yikes!) and set out for Ghent. I wanted to see some of the Dutch part of Belgium in addition to Brussels. We may have taken the wrong train because it took an hour to get there and I thought it was only supposed to take 30 minutes or so.  Once we got to Ghent, we got really confused about where we were and which direction we were supposed to go.  We bought a map, but it was in Dutch and we couldn't figure it out.  Eventually we just walked one direction and found the main square.

It was beautiful.  We bought some chocolate and took a canal tour.  And then bought more chocolate.

After that, it was nearly 12:40 so we made our way back to the train station and returned to Brussels.  We found the main square and then promptly bought waffles.  We spent the rest of the day buying chocolate and sight seeing.

The main square in Brussels is called the Grand Place or Grote Markt, in either French or Dutch.  Brussels is very seamlessly bilingual and almost everyone spoke English as well.  In Ghent everyone we ran into spoke English as well, but I read somewhere they don't really like French or something like that.  Anyway, in the Grand Place, they were string up sparkling lights on the massive Christmas tree.  They only lit them up in practice, however, rather than at night.  We also saw the Mannekin Pis, a tiny statue of a peeing boy.  When we were there it was dressed up as a painter.

 

Yes, I did attempt to add videos.  Now it's like you're almost there.

This was from our final morning in the main square.

First waffle!

After that, we made our way to passed St. Michel and St. Gudule Cathedral and the Parliament building to the Metro.  For whatever reason, the metro card machines only accept coins.  However, Brussels's was the cleanest metro I've ever been on and each station had a different decor.  It was quite pretty.

 The bells were lovely too.

We went to the Triumphal Arch, and then took a very long metro ride to the Atomium.  Once there, we went up to the top.  By the time we got there (it was a long wait for the elevator - the only way up), you could see all of Brussels at night much like the view from the Eiffel Tower, except unexposed and not in the center of the city.

Again, it's just like you're there! You can even hear the boy scouts murmuring off to the side.

By then we were pretty exhausted, and at this time I realized I hadn't eaten anything other than chocolates, waffles, a doughnut, and half of a yucky burger from a street trolley all day.  We deposited our chocolate in our room and went out to eat.  I had mussels and fries.

We then went to the Grand Place hoping to see it lit up for Christmas and were sadly disappointed.  We bought more chocolate and had waffles for dessert, before returning to the hotel.

Christmas in Belgium!

 Belgium is famous for chocolate, waffles, mussels, fries, and beer, so to round the trip out, we had beer at the hotel bar.  I had a Leffe Blonde which was really good.  Probably my favorite beer. And then, thoroughly exhausted, called it a night.

The next morning, we went to the main square for a final waffle for breakfast.  We had to eat at a cafe because it was 9:15, too early for any of the street vendors to be open.  In the middle of breakfast, we spotted Miss J from America's Next Top Model walking through the main square.  Then, having enjoyed our last delicious Belgian waffle and backpacks stuffed full of chocolate, we bid adieu to Brussels and headed for the airport.