Brussels

While our houseguest was here, we took her to Brussels, Belgium. Our style of touring the city involves lots of taste testing at the various chocolatiers. Other notable gastronomic pleasures included an Italian restaurant called Le Sans 13 and a burger place called Hemgie's (I know, a burger in Brussels?)

The Grand Place is the main square in the city. It's spectacular at night.

Chocolate iPhones!

Chocolate strawberries at Godiva.

Hemgie's: "The Burger Place to Be." It has actually been difficult to find a good burger in Germany, so we were quick to try out this place. The burgers were pretty decent. The bottom of their menu has this disclaimer: " If your in a hurry, please consider that we’re always gonna care to serve you a very good food first, thank you"

Mr. Bloomsbury and I first visited this city a year ago almost on a whim. It was an anniversary trip, and we had planned to go to London and Istanbul. Only 5 days before our departure Istanbul started to get rowdy. We decided their tear gas and riots wouldn't suit our vacation vibe so we contacted the airline to negotiate an alternate destination. The best they could offer was Amsterdam.

I thought Amsterdam was only a red light district and a smoker's haven so I wasn't thrilled about spending time there. We decided to throw in a train ride to Brussels to finish off our adventure. Actually, visiting Europe had never been high on my list. To me, Europe was for young adults backpacking and retirees sipping wine and looking at old buildings. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed our visit and how wrong I was about Amsterdam. We even mused, "What if we lived over here for a time?"

After we returned from our anniversary trip Mr. Bloomsbury had the opportunity to apply for a job,
and nearly a year later to the day we moved our entire family across the pond. As I walked through Brussels on our recent trip I thought if someone had told me 14 months ago I would be back with my whole family, I would have never believed them! I am amazed at how much has changed in just 14 months.

This sign is in the lobby at the hotel we stayed at in Brussels. It impacted me when we were here last year. And now you know the rest of the story...