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Got up early as usual, got a cab to Estacio de l’Autobus Nord where we caught the bus to Girona. Flight was no problem, caught another bus from Charleroi to Gare du Midi. It took me a while to figure out how to get to Gare Central - we ended up taking the metro out of our way and changing lines but we got there. Our hotel (the Moon) was extremely easy to find, right close to everything. Got up to our room and the cleaning lady was still working. I had to merde, of course, and while I was, Les called our room phone and told Meghan he would pick us up in a half hour. So much for taking a nap!

It’s a good thing we quickly started the tour though, he showed us lots of stuff, grand place, Manneken Pis, had some lunch w/ kriek (cherry brew - very tasty), caught some rays on one of the rare Belgian sunny days (we were not surprised, having been sunburnt in Scotland), checked out some more sights, Les told us about Atomica and we saw it from a distance. Les also told us about his viewmaster collection, stopped for a Hoegaarden, etc., then we met up w/ Nancy and we saw Janneken Pis (the female version), had Mort Subite at the official original place.

We decided we needed mussels for dinner so we wandered around awhile and returned to the place where we had Hoegaarden and ate proper mussels w/ garlic and cream sauce. Les showed us the Belgian way where you use the shell as tweezers to pull the meat from another. They served the mussels w/ frites - we learned that potatoes are a daily staple in belgium. We were getting sauced at this point. Belgian beer buzz is very comfortable.

As the sun went down, it got chilly so we swung by the hotel so I could grab my sweater, then we walked to the royal palace - while walking, they explained how one prince was gay and the other was known as “prince woof” since he cared so much about dogs. Apparenly neither are a suitable heir to the throne, but only the old people care about the royal fam anyway. Found out the park in the courtyard between the palace and parliament is a hot nighttime gay hookup place - these are the details they don’t tell you in the Lonely Planet books.

They took us by the big clock that has little dolls that change position every 15 mins, although we didn’t wait for this. Went back near the grand place and had some Duvel (devil) - very strong (~8% alcohol according to Les and Nancy). All the while we had a great time discussing language and culture. In Brussels everything is in French and Flemmish, and most everyone speaks English. This often results in confusion. For example, in Flemmish eck sounds like ijk, one is oak, the other is calibrate. When translating the street from French, the Flemish got screwed up and now it is “calibration street”.

To add to the confusion the dialects vary greatly, and the further apart people come from, the more difficult it is to understand each other. He also said that the people of Brussels have a very humorous dialect. Apparently one of the ways to say “of course” is to literally say “no maybe.”