Waffle on

After that hearty breakfast I went for a ride to to Jordaan area, this is one of the first neighbourhoods that was expanded out after the red light district area so the architecture is really interesting. Then back down around to the Vondelpark. There were a lot of joggers/bikers doing laps around the park as it was a really sunny day. Everyone was enjoying their riding without helmets as was I.

I returned the bike and packed my bags and headed to the Amsterdam Centraal trainstation. About 2hrs later I was in Brussels. I walked up the main street to my hotel. It was in a great location near shops and central to most things. Although there were about 5 sex shops on the street so it didn't feel like I had left Amsterdam.

As well as the sex shops there was also a local armoury.

The hotel wanted me to pay 8 euros a day for wifi in the room so I headed out and got a SIM card with data for 10 euros. I sat down at a nearby cafe/pub to work out a plan. The waiter came around and I got a beer and on the menu it said "chips". I thought I better get some chips which the Belgians are famous for, you can imagine my disappointment when out came a packet of chips.

I quickly trip advisored some bars in the area and found one called Mappa Mundo. It was a pretty cool place and had an odd brass band playing with a lady on the banjo. I ordered a charcuterie board and out came this massive pile of meats. After finishing that and trying some of Belgium's beers I quickly slipped into a food coma and had to go back to the hotel for a lie down.

Crazy band

This was half finished all for about 14 of the euros

The next day I got up and had un cafe at the only place that was open and headed into the Hotel de Ville(town hall) to try and get a bike tour. This was a complete failure so I stocked up on tourist maps and went for a walk around the town center.

Centre de ville est spectaculaire.

Manekin Pis (a small boy peeing) apparently this guys gets different outfits all the time

Being the colossal fatty that I am, by this stage I needed some food and I saw there was a cafe in the main square which had moulles and frites on the menu. I ordered some of them in wine sauce. They were pretty good, it was interesting that they came with heaps of celery. The sauce was great and I dunked the frites in there after I was done with the moulles.

After my awesome Dutch cycling experience I decided that walking was for chumps and got a villo bike. After consulting the tourist map I decided to cycle to the Bruxelles' arc de triomphe or Cinquantenaire.

Along the way there was a medieval festival getting  setup. I imagine it was a tourney to celebrate the new hand of the king. It is good to see the Belgians getting on board with game of thrones too.

I resisted the urge to start larping and continued to the Arc. There was some kind of crane setup to hoist a dining table into the sky in front of the arc. http://www.dinnerinthesky.com I am not sure about this concept. It wasn't up in the air yet, but I couldn't help thinking if you had 3 beers during dinner you would probably need to go to the toilet at some point. Do you just go off the edge or what?
Anyway the area was pretty impressive.

Contrails over the arc.

I cycled back and went to the Cantillon brewery. This is a beer brewery that uses the natural yeast in the air to ferment their beer, they also put the beer in wine barrels when its fermenting so the end product is pretty unique. The beers didn't have much bubbles but tasted like a winey beer. There were a few fruit flavoured beers too. The tour was interesting since the brewery equipment is similar to how it was hundreds of years ago.

I had a tasting at the end of their delicious beers then went back home. I had to go past 4 villo bike bays before I finally found a bike bay which had a spare spot to put my bike back in. I went to a local restaurant and asked for a steak and frites with the steak medium rare. It came out grey and overcooked. At least the frites were good.

The next day I packed and walked down the main drag grabbed a waffle with burre and chocolate on the way to the trainstation and hopped a train to Paris. Once I arrived at Gare du Nord I went to my new accomadation in Montemart. Our friend Delphine graciously offered her apartment for me to stay in. It was in a great spot, really cool area with cool bars and cafes in close walking distance. I walked around for a bit to check out the area, then grabbed some saucisson from the marché locale to cain with the wine Delph left me as a present. After some saucisson and wine from provence, I had a steak tartare for dinner then retired.

The simple things

Steak tartare sans egg