Brussels, Belgium

Yesterday I went to Brussels! It was a day trip organized through the school. I signed up by myself so I didn't know if I'd know anyone else going on the trip. (Good thing I did). We had to meet at Gloucester station at 5:30am, which means I had to wake up at 445 and get ready. ughhhhh. For those that know me, you know that I don't function at that hour. Sanaz was still staying with me too. We ended up packing and talking until about 1am when we decided to sleep. I woke up at 445 and got ready, said bye to Sanaz and headed over to Gloucester station. There was one girl there already waiting, and soon after Victoria and Jessica arrived. I know them! woo. So they allowed me to tag along with them for the day, which was nice.
We took the Eurostar to Belgium. I must admit, I like it better than flying. It's much safer and MUCH MUCH more comfortable. It only took us 2 hours to get to Belgium. Oh yeah, and our "group" (of 4 people) met up with the other campus students which had like 15 students. So pretty much 15 freshman and sophomores, and 4 of us... yay. I sat next to one of the kids from the Richmond campus. I am not even kidding when I say this kid talked THE WHOLE ENTIRE WAY. I don't think there was one second of silence. I was telling Jessica and Victoria afterward that I'm so glad I brought my ipod or I would've killed myself.
We arrived in Brussels and the person in charge handed us all maps and said "have fun". Great... haha. So we just started wandering around. Immediately I noticed the ridiculous guy to girl ratio. It seemed like it was only the men that were out and about. Of course they noticed girls (especially two blondies) and began commenting. They're pretty aggressive over there. One of the most famous things in Brussels is this statue of a small child peeing. It's quite strange. We asked around at the significance of it and no one really knew. Also this child statue has a costume change once a day. They put a lot of time, money, and effort into this thing. Crazy. You could not imagine what they sold with this statue on it. Everything from a deck of cards, to a wine opener (with the child's wee wee as the cork screw), bottle opener, chocolate lollipop, soap, postcards, etc. Once we're near the square, we decide to get some street waffles. MMMMMMM. I got mine with strawberries and chocolate. It was so yummy. Belgian chocolate is delicious. I couldn't finish it all, it was too rich for me.
We walked around for quite some time seeing the sights and taking pictures. Then we stumbled upon a tour bus. On the side of the bus said it takes you to all the popular sites and it's a hop on hop off experience. So we think.. 'COOL'! We go over and ask the bus driver how much it is and he tells us 18 Euro for students. Expensive but we did it nonetheless. So he hands us pamphlets and headphones and we sit inside the bus. An hour or two later we're still on the bus because we decided not to get off at any of the stops thus far. I asked Victoria "how do they know once we get off the bus that we already paid and we need to get back on?" She said that she didn't know and he didn't give her anything. So we decide to wait until we actually want to get off in order to tell him about it. We decided to get off at the spot we got on at to get some lunch. Victoria goes over to him to tell him about our ticket and I see a slight argument going on with them. First of all.... I have a lot of built up anger right now, don't make me mad. Second of all.... poor poor guy. hahha. So anyway... I go over to him and i'm like.. what's the problem? He's like.. I already gave you guys your tickets. Right then i'm thinking he's an idiot. I continued to tell him that he was so flustered that he couldn't give us the right change, he told us to just go and sit and that he'd give us our change later. We figured he'd give us the tickets when he'd give us the change. He's like.. "No, no. you are wrong. I mean I don't want to argue because the customer is always right." I was like.. clearly the customer isn't always right if you're telling me i'm lying. He was telling us that if we want we can just stay on the bus. I'm like.. no. we paid 18 euro and we want to be able to hop on and off. Honestly we argued for about 10 mins... I was going to do the whole give me your name and the company's number thing but the other two girls kept saying leave it let's go. Passivity bothers me. It really bothers me. So I told him "you're lucky that we have to leave today and that they don't want to get back on the bus, otherwise I'd make this a real big problem for you", and we left. I mean i'm sure the guy probably didn't deserve so much attitude but I have a lot of built up crap that is just dying to come out. And he was being a douche, so he probably deserved it.
Anyway, we ate lunch at this square. They had outside seating next to the cathedrals and stuff. It was very nice and veryyyy expensive. A soda (which came in the smallest class) was 3.50 euro... reallly? So the waiter came over to get our drinks. He told us they don't serve tap water.. they're really trying to get every penny from you. So the two girls ordered drinks and I said I don't want anything to drink. Then he looks at us and he's like.. you guys are ordering right? This is lunch time. You have to order. And in that exact second I want to stand up and start saying some not so nice stuff to him. Instead I sarcastically said "REALLLLLLY??? I didn't realize it was lunch time. Thanks for that"
Don't get me wrong, I loved Brussels. I'm just not sure how much I loved the people. All of our interactions were either people trying to rip us off or trying to get us in bed. Like really?
On the way back of course I was sitting next to the same kid. He moved his seat though which was great but the two girls he was talking to on the way there didn't seem to like that he moved away from them. They began cursing up a storm pretty loudly and he came back over and told them to be respectful of the other people on the train that aren't part of our group. Then out of nowhere one of the girls slaps him. And I don't mean a little tap tap on the face... I mean probably the hardest slap i've ever seen anyone receive on their face. My mouth dropped. He just looked at her for a second and went back and sat at his seat. At that second I wanted to give her a piece of my mind and say a few not so nice things, but I figured I argued with people enough for the day. I could not believe it. I'm still in shock. Poor guy... I mean he talked a lot but he didn't deserve to get slapped like that. haha.
I guess that was the jist of my day. We got back at like 1030pm. I was exhausted and passed out pretty soon after.