For spring break I traveled to Belgium with my family. My cousin Joey is studying in Brussels for the semester and his family was going to visit, so a whole bunch of us jumped on the bandwagon. All together there were 10 people roaming around Belgium trying to become as cultured as possible while still having a great time. The flight there was around 7 hours long, which wasn’t that bad seeing as I had my Sudoku to keep me occupied and my brilliant neck pillow for cat naps. It was a night flight and we got served dinner. We had the option of chicken or pasta, or something vegetarian. I always go with the pasta, I never trust individually packaged airplane meats. The meal came with a salad, cheese and crackers, and a water cup. I felt a little like Ed Norton in Fight Club, with all the individualized items. The meal looked something like this:
It actually wasn’t that bad, but of course it was nothing compared to my homemade manicotti 
We got a little breakfast on the plane, some juice and a muffin, not quite a meal, but enough to tide us over. When we landed we had to take the metro into the center of the city. As soon as we got off the metro into the central station, up the escalator to go outside, we smelt the most delicious scent. Waffles! They were beckoning us to them. The Belgians have two kinds of waffles, one is covered in a sweet glaze and the dough is a little thick – it is often eat at dessert or as a treat during the day. There are street vendors everywhere selling waffles as we sell hot dogs in NYC. You can put almost any topping you like on them – ice cream, whipped cream, fruit of all varieties, chocolate sauce, nuts, and the list goes on. They are absolutely delicious. I had one almost every day, and went for the chocolate sauce because the Belgians are well known for their chocolate, and I could eat the sauce out of a bowl by itself, it was that good. Here are some waffles my father and I got our last night there:
The other type of waffle was more of what we think of when we hear Belgian Waffle. It is crispy on the outside with a fluffy inside. Usually they are in a rectangular form and can be eaten for breakfast or dessert. I ate mine for lunch because I was just dying to try it. I am a pancake and waffle lover, so I was in heaven.
Belgian food has been majorly influenced by French food, so they eat a lot of croissants and baguettes for bread. Our lunches were frequently on baguettes, with a wide range of sandwich fillers from grilled ham and cheese, to omelets, and sea food. Most of the food was very familiar and I didn’t encounter anything I haven’t seen before. I was surprised at how many Italian restaurants there are. My cousin said that since it’s so easy to travel between countries in the EU, many people relocate to different places and that most of these restaurants are run by real Italians. We ate at an Italian restaurant once and the food was excellent. The only thing that threw me was the presence of mushrooms in lasagna. It wasn’t labeled mushroom lasagna, it just said lasagna and it had a ton of mushrooms in it and in the sauce it was covered in. I wound up trading with someone else because I’m not the biggest fan of mushrooms – I don’t like the texture.
The Belgians are famous for chocolate, and there’s no question as to why. All types of chocolate were much better than American chocolate, most likely due to the fresh ingredients and lack of preservatives. One of the fancier chocolate stores told its customers to eat the chocolate within 8 days otherwise it would go bad. That chocolate was expensive and exquisite. — The people of Brussels had a strange obsession with this statue called the Mannequin Pis. It is a little boy who is peeing into a fountain. He can be found on magnets, t-shirts, bottle openers, and made out of chocolate, as seen here:
This cracked me up, although I don’t know why it’s such a big deal there. A national symbol in a national delicacy. Yummmm.
There were also some more artistic chocolate sculptures, like this dragon, that reminded me of the food network challenge to make fashion out of chocolate. I’m sure the Belgians could do it!
That’s it for part one, wait for more deliciousness in Part 2!
