Brussels, Belgium

When preparing for this trip I read a lot of posts, and articles about traveling with a baby. Most of them suggested to take a red eye flight so that your child would sleep the whole way. Lizzy was and is a really good sleeper, but on our flight that was not the case. FYI if by chance your baby does not sleep on a red eye flight it will be a flight from Hell. Problem #1 was we had an hour delay. Problem #2 we postponed putting her to sleep till take off so her ears would pop (another useless advise in Lizzy's case). Problem #3 Lizzy was not used to going to sleep in our arms. So after 8-9 hours of off and on crying we finally got to London. We had a few hours at St. Pancras and King's cross before we took a train to Belgium. To be honest all I remember about that layover was eating a really good meat pie and visiting platform 9 3/4 as Lizzy finally took a nap.

My cousin and his family were living in Brussels at the time so once we got to Belgium we rented a car and headed to their place. I say this like it was no big deal and easy to do. However even though Brussels seemed to have competent drivers, with visible road signs, driving still took a little getting used to. The markings on the road seemed to directed us in and out of trolley lanes we did not feel comfortable driving in. But we survived. For some reason driving around Brussels at night reminded me of driving through Philadelphia. As we navigated our way to my cousin's apartment we tried to find a unique place to eat, but the only place we found open was a burger joint. To our surprise it was one of the best burger we have ever had, either that or we were just so tired and hungry it seemed to be. 

That night I was naive in thinking Lizzy's would sleep wonderfully do to her exhaustion. But that did not happen...however after that first day and getting used to the time zone she was a sleeping queen. 

Staying with my cousin and hearing about their experiences living abroad was wonderful. I feel like we got to learn a lot about the city in the short time we were there. They pointed us in the right direction for a good day tour. We walked around the Cinquantenaire, Basilica of Koekelberg, and ate lots of waffles and french fries with mayonnaise around Grand Place or Grote Markt. 

Now, Belgium waffles really are amazing! Even though there are many imitation all around Europe and US, none compared to the real deal. You can top them with almost anything, but we found they are best to have plain.

What I would give to be eating one right now...