Land of Beer

Belgium. The land of beer. I love it.
We took a high speed train from Paris to Brussels at 3pm. We had decided that we were going to meet my cousin Nicolas in a rural town called Tilly after he finished work. The trip to Brussels was uneventful, as we took extra care to make sure we got on the right train. When we arrived in Brussels we discovered to our dismay that the majority of train employees had gone on strike around the time we left Paris. Great. So, unable to find help we were forced to scury between 14 lines checking for our connecting train to Ottignies. This wasn't exactly easy in a station filled with angry commuters, lost tourists and one Korean guy who told us he'd been waiting for a train to Amsterdam for over 5 hours. Did I mention the only help available was one person in a booth that was swarmed by hundreds of angry people pushing and shoving... Welcome to Belgium! Well eventually we caught a later train to Ottignies by the skin of our teeth and Nicolas picked us up there instead of Tilly, as there was no way to get there with the strike. We found out that night that the strike had ended that evening. So basically they decided to strike during the only time we would be on trains in Belgium. No luck but bad luck eh?
Nicolas and his girlfriend Catherine were very accomadating and super friendly. Catherine wasn't able to hang out with us too much as she was working on her thesis for school due quite soon, but we still had fun with her.
Nicolas showed us around Brussels, and to my joy, is somewhat of a beer connoisseur, so he introduced us to some phenomenal beers. Belgium has over 400 beers and a large number of them are brewed in Monesteries. The Trappiste Monestary beers are what we were shooting for, as they are the best. I got to try 4 of the 6 available brands as the other two are quite hard to come by. All six are still brewed by monks in monesteries! Now that I could devote my life to! The beers are quite strong ranging from 6 - 14 percent! That was a pleasant surprise standing up :) Price wise, even the specialty brews were a little cheaper than in Vancouver. Canada has some great beer, but Belgium easily comes out on top. I hope I'm still allowed back after saying that!
Speaking of being allowed back - in an attempt to better my surroundings, I chose to do laundry one night chez Nicolas. Unfortunately, our passports were in the hidden pocket. Yeah, hidden pockets, not such a great idea. So after being good and washed, we discovered the next day that our passports were a soggy mess. It must have been hot water as the cover had shrunk! We called the embassy who told us to come in and start the paperwork. We arrived at 12:15 in Brussels (3 trains from Tilly) on ly to find that they had closed for lunch at 12. When asked when lunch was over, they said they don't come back from lunch. Yeah, that's right. Last time I ever pay tax. Anyhoo, we had to spend another $20cdn to come back the next day to start everything. This time they rejected our photos and we had to go to 3 different camera shops before getting something suitable. Good grief. The next day we showed up around 11 hoping our passports were ready and they were. I'll give them credit there, at least they were quick. Cost me €96 for each one though. In the end all, including extra expenses, it cost me about $500cdn. Most expensive load of laundry in the history of time. Do you know how much beer that is?!?!
Amongst all the horror, Nicolas also took us to Bruge in northern Belgium. This was a beautiful little town with canals running through it. We had "Moules et Frites" (mussels and fries) a Belge specialty. Mmmmm. Washed it all down with a small white beer Hoegaarden. All this in the town square sitting in the sun. Life is rough.
One of the beers we came across was called Kwak. All the beers in Belgium have their own special glass. You should see the glass counters in bars! Kwak has a very unique glass. It is cone like with a round bottom so you can't put it down! No it's not so you have to keep drinking. It also comes with its own special holder. It was designed for carriage drivers in mind so they could put their beer down whilst driving! Hahaha this country rocks! Oh and did I mention that the majority of beer is served in half litre bottles!? I love Belgium. It helped so much to have my cousin there to show us around as well. He also took us to Amsterdam which I'll write about later as there's a party starting here in Cesky Krumlov and a half litre of Budvar is a dollar! Gotta go...