Jess's 21st and Stonehenge!

Yesterday was Jess's 21st birthday!!! So, me, her and Ilana went out to dinner and drinks at All Bar One and while the food was actually so good, the drinks were even better. Afterwards we came back to the flat and had cookie cake and more drinks. All of the Praed people who weren't busy writing papers came and it was a big ol' party :) We ended up at Koko's (a crazy cool venue with weird music) and had sooo much fun. I probably had more fun on her 21st than I'll have on mine haha. There's a good chance I'll be going back to the US on my birthday....hbd to me!

Today IFSA-Butler has a day trip planned to STONEHENGE! It's gonna be a hell of a day with very little sleep and a packed day but I'm super excited to finally see Stonehenge :)

Hopefully tonight I'll have my full Amsterdam post up (spoiler alert: it's gonna be a reallllyyyy long post, like Brussels) and if I'm feeling ambitious, the pictures from Stonehenge too

BRUSSELS

Last Friday, us 4 Vandy Praed girls started our reading week vacation by going to Brussels! The flight from London to Brussels was less than an hour-- getting to Heathrow from our flat took almost the same amount of time as the flight itself. We spent 2 nights in Brussels and 3 nights in Amsterdam.

BRUSSELS IS AMAZING. I wish we stayed there for 3 nights instead of Amsterdam but before we went, everyone said Brussels was really boring. I can definitely see why people would say that but being there with 3 of your friends, with no definite plans and just running around was so much fun :)

When we got there on Friday, within 15 minutes of being in the city, I was pickpocketed and had my new wallet stolen :( Fortunately, the night before I had separated my money and credit cards into two separate wallets and so I ended up only losing about 30 pounds, 1 credit card, and just annoying cards to lose (like my student tube card, my UCL student ID, and drivers license).

On Saturday morning we paid a brief, VERY brief, visit to Halle Gate and its in the strangest area. It's in a fairly modern, residential area right outside of Brussels and then bam, there's this old looking rotund gate right in between some tall apartment buildings.

Afterwards, we headed towards the city because our hotel was in a shopping district (i think?) and about a 15 minute walk from the city center. On the way there we asked for directions and a very nice Brusselian lady told us to walk straight and take an elevator and we were like ok..... she clearly doesn't speak English, what on earth is she talking about?? Until.... we found out there actually was an elevator!

 You literally need to take the elevator down into the city! We were probably 4-5 stories up. Probably one of the more bizarre, but still cool, things I've seen :)

 The views from the top of the cliff area, before we took the elevator down

We had breakfast at this super chic, trendy cafe that was half cafe, half clothing/furniture retail.

 the teas on the left!

smoked salmon bagel and vanilla latte :)

And when we walked into the city, we passed this ADORABLE English bulldog that was just hanging out in the doorway of a store. Naturally I approached to pet it and it was the most well-behaved puppy! Photos courtesy of Jess and edits courtesy of Laura :)

 And when we got into the city center, we noticed a bunch of people gathered in a protest and it was a Ukrainian protest! So naturally we joined

 Hmmm what's that crowd over there?

 tried to get some of the signs in. There was a speaker and everything

 stickers!

 The big square at the center of the city

Prince Albert statue

Belgian waffle truck! They were everywhereeeee

We somehow wandered from one square into another square and then into a street full of museums. We walked around a bit and then headed for the subway to see the Atomium. 

 Church!

maybe the palace? we walked by super quick and I never figured out what it was

After a long subway ride and getting lost around the area and somehow walking into Little Europe.. we found the Atomium :)

 it's the structure of a unit cell of an iron crystal!

Built in the 1950s for the World Expo and each little pod has two floors and you can go into each of them :) the bonds holding the atoms are also where the stairs/escalators to each pods are!

 Views from the highest pod!

Little Europe haha

 can see the city center from the top (green roofed building)

Model size

 Chair and table exhibit...

 what the inside of the balls look like :)

 one of the many stairs/escalators between the "atoms"

BEST ONE BY FAR

 Just making my way down a metallic bond with some trippy lights

crystal lattice :)

After going through all the "atoms" in Atomium we headed back to the center to a busier street with shops and touristy things.

Awkward.. I knew the Germany flag was those 3 colors and I knew that half of Belgium spoke German (or was it Dutch...) and so the entire trip I walked around wondering why Belgium had the German flag everywhere.... turns out Germany's flag is those 3 colors horizontal and Belgium's is them vertical. Oops.

inside of a shopping center

BELGIAN CHOCOLATES. EVERYWHERE :)

Then, we had a surprising 3 hour French dinner that we almost dine-and-dashed at because we couldn't understand French and he couldn't understand English. Oops again

Finalllly, we found the Grand Place (where the flower carpet is in the spring/summer) and the beautiful Brussels town hall-- it had started drizzling so some of my pictures are a little fuzzy, but the whole square was so pretty at night. 

And, while browsing through tourist gift shops, we kept seeing a statue of a peeing boy and decided it must be culturally significant if it was on literally EVERY cup/magnet/key chain/shirt in every tourist store. So we went out to look for that too...

 Yup. There he is. The famous Manneken Pis and he's maybe 1 foot tall... this statue and fountain was also so small and located on a completely random street corner next to some Belgian waffle vendors and tourist shops... not exactly what we were expecting haha

 Apparently they dress him up on holidays too!

 There he is...

Last but not least... we somehow fooled ourselves into thinking Haagen-Daz is a Belgian thing (it's not- Americans founded it in Brooklyn, like what?!) and we walked in to get some real Belgian ice cream. This Haagen-Daz was sit-down only with a menu and everything, it was so so so fancy. And.... we got kicked out of a Haagen-Daz for ordering only one thing so there's that... haha

A great way to end the night and MY FAVORITE EUROPEAN CITY to date! I love Brussels, Jess loves Brussels, Ilana and Laura love Brussels...go to Brussels!!!! Study abroad there! Live there:)

Donate to me/panda for my going-back-to-Brussels fund! :)