Brussels Beer Tour

And now for part two of Mom and Noelle's trip.

After receiving our apology cakes on the day after Thanksgiving, we made our way to Cochem for the Christmas market. I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone by going to Cochem - we could see a castle and go to a Christmas Market. The castle was easy (and nice) to see, but the Christmas Market was not what I was thinking of. There was only six tiny booths, and well, it was generally tiny. Not exactly what I had in mind. Not how I wanted to show off Christmas Markets. We did enjoy a traditional brat and french fries. Luckily everyone was content to just head home and hang out for the rest of the day.

The next morning we were up and driving to Belgium to catch our train to Brussels. I am so glad we used the train. It took us just about an hour to make it to the town we were going to leave from. We got parked, hopped on our train, and were in Brussels in about an hour and 20 minutes. There was no fighting with traffic (which we had done on our previous trip to Brussels), and the stress level was low. I was also able to find us a much nicer hotel closer to everything since I wasn't having to worry about finding a hotel with parking.

We got checked into our hotel and then went off in search of some lunch before our tour started. We wandered through the shopping district, which I didn't have a chance to see on my last trip to Brussels. I wish we had more time to get some shopping done while we were there. After lunch we had enough time to show Mom and Noelle some of the major tourist spots before our tour started.

I was really looking forward to our beer tour. I was hoping it was everything people said it would be online. All the reviews for it were positive. We met up with the tour guide and the other tour participants outside of a chocolate store and got started. The tour was pretty small, there was under 10 of us. The tour guide took us to four different bars, and though they were in the touristy area, they were definitely off the beaten path. They were bars we would have never found on our own. It was interesting because two of the bars we went to were old, and our tour guide told us some of the history about the bars. One of the bars was the oldest bar in all of Brussels. What I found interesting was this bar is located right by one of the most popular tourist bars in Brussels, yet we would have never found it without our tour guide. We didn't get full sized beers, but rather 0.2 liter "taster" beers, which I thought was good because I didn't want to be sloshed after the third beer. Each beer was different - some of the beers were fruity and light, others were darker. I have to say, I really liked all of the beers we tried, and none of them were beers I would have ordered on my own. My favorite was this cherry beer - something I would have never ordered. It was sweet, which I was surprised by, but still very refreshing.

All of us (Josh, Mom, Noelle, and myself) had a great time. In fact by the end of the evening, we were ALL (as in the whole tour) having a great time. Everyone on the tour (minus the tour guide) was pretty tuned up. The last bar we went to was modern and was playing popular dance music. The beer tour quickly evaporated into a beer fueled dance party. Which was highly amusing for me, and I'm sure even more amusing for any patrons of the bar.

The night ended with our tour continuing (unofficially) at another bar... then finally for a late dinner at  restaurant our tour guide took us to. We made it back to our hotel and I believe we all slept quite well that night. I believe everyone really enjoyed themselves. I think it was just what I was hoping it would be. It made for a fun introduction to Brussels.

The next morning we got up and were trying to decide what to do for the morning. We had pretty much done all the touristy things the day before, and the only thing Noelle and my mom were interested in doing was shopping. In true European fashion, everything was closed as it was Sunday. So we had a quick brunch at the train station and caught a train back to our car. Sunday was Josh's birthday. When we got home, he opened his presents and we went out to dinner. Luckily I didn't have to worry about making him a birthday cake as we already had three cakes at our house. The day was quiet, but I think he enjoyed his birthday.

We spent most of the evening preparing to leave for Paris the next morning. Our train was leaving at 7:15, and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get to the train station and get parked, so we were planning to leave the house at 5. Which for me meant getting up at 3. Maybe it was the anticipation of the trip ahead, or just knowing my alarm was going to go off so early, or knowing we were about to leave for Paris (PARIS!)... but I swear I didn't sleep at all that night. When my alarm went off I was dead tired... but so excited for the adventure to come.