i have no more excuses. i've just officially been a slacker since i got back from brussels. so, without further ado, 'kim-and-louise's spectacular expedition to brussels':

first of all, if you get a chance to go to brussels, you most definitely should. the people are amazing - my french was definitely good enough to get by [better than i thought it would be, even] and the belgians appreciated every word i spoke. they understood that i was trying to work on my french, and were just lovely at helping me out. nevertheless, i would spout out some long phrase in french and they would answer me in english. so i got in the habit of asking them to speak french to me unless i needed english, and they got in the habit of asking me if i had understood what they had said before automatically speaking english - it was a nice, symbiotic relationship.

as far as sightseeing is concerned, brussels is, to me, the quintessential european city. ok, it's not like i've been anywhere else in europe [and while st. pete technically counts, somehow it just doesn't [don't kill me, kat!]] but it seems to me that places like paris, vienna, berlin and such feel specifically parisian or french or austrian or german, and brussels felt like a representative of all those cities and more. could, of course, be the location of the eu institutions and nato and such, but still, it didn't strike me as particularly belgian, just european. and i like that, especially not having been to anywhere else in europe.

so, a day-by-day play-by-play?
wednesday.
we got in at about 9pm or so, got ourselves sorted at the hostel [top bunks goddamnit], and by the time we were finished it was 930 and we were starving. we decided to look for a small, inexpensive pub or some such food source to no avail. along the way we pass a yugoslavian-croatian restaurant [go world politics!] with a smoking man outside beckoning us - "bonsoir, les filles...". since we were both leery of older men who try to entice us into places, we walked on, and found a small greek pubbish-restaurant to eat in. we were served cokes and then promptly served the bill, and it was about then that we realized we were not, in fact, going to order food. apparently we were at the greek mafia hangout in brussels. the entire restaurant patronage seemed to consist of one large greek family, all eating huge plates of wonderful-looking food, and all staring at us as if we had slugs dropping out of our nostrils. so we left. the yugoslavian-croatian place ended up being absolutely wonderful, not that expensive, and quite friendly. and we eventually figured out what to do with the plate of cabbage.
thursday.
thursday we went and saw all of the sights around the city centre - the grand-place, manneken pis [pronounced 'piss', not 'pee', though both are quite appropriate], la cathedrale de saint-michel et gudule, the eu institutions and buildings, le parc en centenaire and the BIG ARCHES [you will see pictures of all of these things shortly, when i finish my next roll of film - update of course when it happens], etc and so on. we went to a smart little place called 'le gout des autres' - roughly translated to 'the taste of others' or 'the alternative taste' - and had a very cheap, very good lunch served by a very friendly waitress. we also went shopping on the brussels high street, paid 30 euro cents to use a toilet, and ate dinner at the grand-place at night [sooo beautifully lit up!]. i also had brussels mussels. or, according to us while we were there, 'bruscles muscles', hard 'c'. the only annoying bit of the day was having to change hostel rooms after the hostel staff fucked up. but louise got a bottom bunk!
friday.
friday was a bit more sightseeing. we went to the parc de bruxelles - where the real blair witch apparently practices her wood-tying skills - and made our way to la basilisque du sacre coeur, where you pay 2 euros to go to the very top of the basilica and see an unbelievable panoramic view of brussels. at this point we were hungry, and decided to take the metro to the gare du centrale [central train station] and grab some food. in some sort of ironic twist of fate, just as we were wondering if we'd recognize the area around the metro station exit, we emerge from underground and see le gout des autres across the street! so of course we had to eat there again. the rest of the day was filled with a horrendous hop-on-hop-off bus tour [which was neither hop-on nor hop-off - the only stop it made was the original boarding stop, and lucky for us the english headphones cut out for half the tour] and a trip to la place du sablon, a quite posh area filled with expensive shops and antiques boutiques. but we bought chocolate [finally!] and had dinner outside of the opera house, so not entirely a wasted afternoon. once again we switched hostel rooms [2 bottom bunks! hooray!].
saturday.
we had a few hours before we had to make our way to charleroi to catch our flight, so we went walking down a place we hadn't been. of course, at this time we realize that we had been taking the metro for the past 2 days to precisely the places we had just walked to in 10 minutes. also, we realized that there was a quite thriving red light district about 10 minutes away as well. not much else on this day, just back to scotland!

well i certainly think that's more than enough to read [but if you'd like more, then check out kat's webpage for a comprehensive essay matching songs to life-men]. if i've forgotten anything, i'll post it later... and pictures soon!

oh yeah, and i'd like to say hello to my pilf-mmehsg, who i am sure is, at this very moment, wondering if i would like to say hello to him.