After our uneventful flight to Brussels – and equally uneventful train/metro to our hostel – we are delighted to be welcomed at the “Sleephere” Hostel!

Karl is an incredible host – and our palace on the 3rd floor (yes – it’s a walk up – again) – is glorious. We finally have our own bathroom – and it has marble everywhere! Shower, sink, floor, walls – it’s so beautiful – and just ours! No sharing. I hate sharing – there is something about dealing with other people’s mess that just doesn’t work for me. The Intrepid Traveler and I have our corners – we allocate our spaces and know automatically whose towel is whose. I suppose it’s a bit like an old married couple – but with none of the strains!

Our Palace – besides having it’s own bathroom – is lovely. It’s in the attic of a home built originally in the 1600’s – then renovated in the 1800’s – our room was one of the last added – and our ceiling height ranges from 10′ in the center to under 5′ on the sides. I know this for certain – I’m bumped my head twice already. But it’s clean, it’s got windows on 4 sides – and we’re very very happy to have a space that is ours alone.

The common area of the “SleepHere” is awesome. Leather furniture everywhere – and super comfortable. There’s a Piano (which our host plays occasionally), a large TV, a giant dinning room table where they serve a lovely breakfast (can you say – coffee please), and a huge kitchen with tons of working space, a nice fridge, lots of dishes ands of glasses.

Most importantly to me – and the reason I reserved here in the first place – a garden terrace. The Intrepid Traveler and I are so very pleased to have a terrace – and the roses and peony’s are in bloom.

I chat up Karl – and get a quick tour of the dorm rooms. We’re in the only double – but the house sleeps 20. The dorm bathrooms – like ours – are all done in marble – and equally glorious. Unlike Russia – where the name of the game was to cram as many beds into a sleeping space as possible – here there are no bunk beds, and everyone has a ‘dresser’ to call their own. It’s dorm living the upper class way! Karl proudly shows me the historic parts of the house – the current entrance was the original carriage way – and when they had to do some repairs to the ground floor – they dug up the original foundations – from the 1600’s. This place is amazing.

We dump our gear, relax with our bread and cheese in the garden for a late dinner and it’s relatively early to bed. Tomorrow will be a long day.

Some quick notes – Brussels, in comparison to St. Petersburg, is dirty! There’s dog poop everywhere, overflowing garbage cans, and homeless camped out here and there. This is when I realize what I didn’t see in St. Petersburg – homeless and garbage. Interesting, eh? I also realize that people smile and say hi a lot more here – and the kids are playing. All things we missed for 2 weeks.

Up early on Saturday, we relax over breakfast at the hostel – our host makes a point of joining everyone at breakfast – and it’s time to share information. Where are you from? Where are you going? What are your plans for the day? Did you see something cool? We relax – we chat – and then it’s on to our plans for the day – Laundry first!

That is when Sticker Shock really hits us – and it hits hard. In St. Petersburg – laundry was free. Here it’s 3.5 Euro a load to wash, and since the token machine was empty at the laundry mat – drying is going to be done the hard way – on a line, in our room. And it’s not just the laundry that pricy – fruit is twice the price, wine in the grocery store is double what it was in St. Petersburg – even the bread is more expensive.

Quick lunches – which we could find for $5 (4 Euro) in St. Petersburg are 22 Euro here. I’m sure they are worth the extra money – but how as budget travelers are we going to survive? It’s going to be take out and grocery stores for us here!

Laundry done – we walk the streets of Brussels. The area near the hostel is closely packed with restaurants and shops – and of course a Catholic Church – so services are on the menu for this afternoon. We also tour the Grand Place – the tourist heart beat of the city. 6:00 finds us at the Cathedral – listening to the organ play as services start. For dinner we opt for take-out – Peking Duck, Rice and a nice bottle of White Wine. Like St. Petersburg – it’s light out till almost 11:00 PM – so while it feels early, it’s actually quite late when we crawl up the 2 additional flights of stairs to our palace.

Sunday – up somewhat early – we head out to the Weekly Flea Market – and not surprisingly – anything nice is very expensive. The sellers (mostly professionals who do this for a living) are clearly very aware of the value of every single thing that they own – and price it accordingly. Silver – real silver – is extremely expensive – and while stuff from the 50’s and 60’s abound – anything that smacks of history or value is long gone. I struggle to find a set of silver spoons – and end up with 12 nice looking silver plated ones. Not as great as I’d hoped – but better than no spoons! Oh well.

For lunch we need to sit down – so we find a relatively inexpensive cafe – and share a bowl of onion soup and a Croque Monsieur. It adds up quickly – but we are so happy to have a toilet and a place to just sit – we just quietly camp out and let the world pass by for a while. This is why we can’t do organized tours anymore – when we crash and burn – we need to stop!

Vitals restored – we walk towards our next destination – the Royal Art Musuem. On the way – we pass a ‘Frite’ Stand – and I do a hard left! No way I’m not having French Fries here – they are so yummy with Mayonnaise. We share a big cone of awesome frits – and continue on our way.

At the museum – they are doing a major exhibit on Chagal, one of my favorite artists – but at 15.50 Euro – each – it’s well over our price range. We opt for the much less pricy permanent exhibits – and tour the ‘Margrite’ museum, and the old masters. Rubens, Rembrant, Bosch, and of course 6 paintings by the Bruggers – 3 younger, 3 older. All magnificant. Dinner is wine, bread, and brie. Yum.

Monday – all museums are closed in Brussels – at least all the major ones. So we do the public tram tour. You buy a one day ticket for just a few Euro, and ride from one end of the line, out all the way to the other end – and back! It’s really interesting to see what Brussels looks like when you aren’t in the heart of historic Brussels!

Back at the hostel we have a lovely easy dinner – bottle of wine, cheese, some of the lovely sausages that are literally everywhere – and conversations on topics ranging from life in the US, to finding and keeping a good boyfriend, to getting into a good university, to the challenges of deciding on your direction in life. All the things that young people worry about – and old people – like us – love to listen to! (and secretly sing – “I’m so glad I’m not young anymore”)

Tuesday – our last day together on this trip – and we decide to tour 2 different museums – the Military life museum and the Museum of Ethnology – I want to see the statue from Easter Island. We keep running into fellow re-enactors – the Battle of Waterloo 2015 (200th anniversary) is this weekend – and of course a tour of the Military museum in Brussels is a must. I will admit that the exhibit they had on World War II – from the Belgium perspective – was extremely well done, and very very interesting.

Despite the sticker shock – our economies have paid off – and we actually have enough Euro’s left to spluge on a nice dinner. Our decision – Waffles and Hot Chocolate at one of the top chocolate makers in Beligum! Oh my – it’s delicous. Awesome actually. Seriously finger licking good.

Wednesday – Victor – lovely Victor – picks us up at the hostel with his rental car and we battle our way out to the airport to send the Intrepid Traveler home. These 4 weeks have just flown by.

Then my husband and I head back to the area near my hostel to eat a seafood lunch of mussels (yum) and frits. I’m really getting addicted to those frits – and while mussels aren’t in season – (June has no “r” in it) – they still beat the pants off most of the mussels we get in Montreal. Then it’s on to our BnB and to the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball.

So – having basically caught everyone one up to date – I’m signing off now.

Blog alert – the next blogs are going to be re-enacting based – Napoleon’s forces are massing on the borders of Belgium – the trumpets are sounding – and it’s off to war I must go.

The Soup Lady