Atiqah : What?
Conscience : You still have two more entries of the Paris trip to finish.
Atiqah : Meh. Not feeling inspired.
Conscience : Lazy bitch.
Atiqah : DID YOU JUST CALL ME A B...WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!
Conscience : Your conscience.
Atiqah : Dammit. FINE. I'll write one tonight.
* * * * *
Hey! I'm writing this on the Thalys train, on my way back from Brussels, Belgium. We started today earlier than usual because we had to catch our train to here from Gare du Nord at 9h01 in the morning. I find the aerodynamic shape of the Thalys train rather futuristic, and watched in amazement at how the departure status board change (it flips to the right letter one by one...you have to see it, its great). Either I am easily amused, or very jakun. I reckon I'm both.
Looking out the window of the train on the way to Brussels was a bit nerve-wrecking because everything was covered in snow and fog, I was so worried Brussels would be freezing. At first it was indeed very cold, but it was at 5 degrees towards the end so all is fine.
To be honest our main goal for coming to Belgium is the chocolate and the waffles, and not so much anything else. But we did go for a visit at the EU government building seeing that it is the center of EU. It was unfortunate that the visitor centre was closed for the holidays though, it could have been way more meaningful than just a few pictures.
We then went to Palais Royale and Grand Place, a complex of 400 year old buildings with stunning architecture. From there we went hunting for lunch. We got very, very, lost.
Edit : aaannd then I decided I was too damn tired and fell asleep on the train. Hi! This is the present Atiqah typing this blog from now on.Being lost wasn't much of a problem in Brussels though because, unlike Paris, LOADS of people speak English. However, this fact was unbeknownst to me when we first got there, and the fact that the bus driver referred to the monitor bolted at the top of the bus as the 'flying tv' did not help at all.
So when we were lost in the middle of the city near Grand Place I walked up to a (young and very good looking) police officer and asked;'Excuse me, Sir...can you speak English?'
To which he replied with a bemused expression on his face and he bent down (he was at least one foot taller than me) and bobbed his head left and right, in what appeared to be a mockery of my question. After laughing at me for a good bit, he answered 'I sure can, miss.'
His directions weren't very helpful, so we decided to ask a few of the many (and I mean many) Muslims roaming the streets. They were very happy indeed to direct us to the Halal restaurants. To our absolute delight, the one we chose served the most delicious briyani I ever tasted in my life EVER, at a very reasonable price. This restaurant was the place where it became obvious to me that Belgian men are gorgeous.
(Side note : I left the restaurant for a bit to find a place with internet and print our return train tickets. I spent 20 freaking minutes trying to type the right password with the stupid European AZERTY keyboard to log in to my email)We then prayed at a Pakistani mosque; the story of how we found the mosque was indeed very amusing, but I won't type it here, this entry is already too long. After that we split up to pursue our personal missions; mine, obviously, was Belgian chocolates and waffles. I managed to get both alhamdulillah,
...but not before getting lost yet again. And being Atiqah, I was slow to learn from experience. I stopped a couple of pedestrians to ask for directions, and started with - you guessed it -
'Excuse me...can you speak English?'
To which the guy replied (with a grin), 'Yeah I definitely can,' in a very obvious American accent.
*facepalm*
Markah memalukan diri sendiri sepanjang di Brussels : 873.
xoxo
Atiqah
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