Family Fun in Europe, Part 6: Brussels

This is my sixth post about our family's 2024 trip to Europe. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth posts before this one.

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Brussels, Belgium

We had an exciting day trip planned for Thursday, July 18 that would take us beyond Belgium to an entirely different country. Instead of doing that, I stayed in our Brussels hotel room alone, flopped on the couch, miserable. 

The rest of the family had left the hotel very early that morning. Even with cold medicine, I'd barely slept the previous night. By morning, my nose was a little stuffy and my throat felt a bit off, but mostly I was exhausted to my core. Everything hurt and I felt so weak. I was barely able to leave the bed, let alone the country. 

While I must have caught a cold or something, I think my symptoms were mostly a result of massively overdoing it in Amsterdam and Brussels. I was only 4 weeks post-surgery at that point. I had been asking a lot of my body for the previous 6 days. Nonstop travel will wear anyone out, but especially someone who is fighting cancer. I probably should have done fewer activities each day, but it's so hard not to want to see as much as possible when you visit somewhere new, particularly a place on the other side of the globe. And, until the previous night, I'd been feeling strong, excited to see and do as much as possible.  

I spent most of the morning reading. Then I took a nap. I snapped a quick photo of our bedroom after my nap. 

This is a good opportunity to tell you a bit more about Brussels' Hilton Garden Inn Brussels City Centre. It's a great place to stay during a visit to Belgium's capital city. Our King Deluxe Family Room had two good-sized bedrooms, a shower room with separate water closet, and a large main room with a kitchen and dining table. The hotel was clean, comfortable, and convenient. 

This was the view out of our bedroom window. 

At 1:00 pm, the fire alarm went off. Even though I felt lousy, when the fire alarm goes off in a hotel, you don't stay flopped on the couch. I grabbed my purse and passport on my way out the door; being entirely alone in a foreign country with my ID and all forms of payment gone in a hotel fire would be not good, to say the least. 

I evacuated to the street quickly and without incident (unlike the previous time I was at a hotel when the fire alarm went off). Fortunately, it was a false alarm. Since I was outside anyway, I decided to make a quick trip to the grocery store to buy myself some lunch/dinner. 

I wasn't thinking about the blog during this outing. My only thoughts were: Find Food. Return to Couch. But during my short walk, I did snap two photos of things that I wondered about. First was this Belgium 2030 logo. 

What will be happening in Belgium in 2030? I should have used the QR code to find out then and there, but again, my thoughts were: Find Food. Return to Couch. So I snapped the photo and forgot all about it until writing this post. I did a quick image search, which led me to a bunch of stuff I didn't understand (even after translating the websites from French to English). Now, I've spent the last 45 minutes learning about Belgian politics and I'm only slightly closer to understanding the Belgium 2030 logo. 

The short(ish) answer is that it is a campaign aim of the Mouvement Reformateur (MR) party. They want to "modernize" the country by 2030 through finance reform, reduced taxes, and limited unemployment benefits. MR is described as "the leading liberal political party for center-right and right-wing voters." MR has become increasingly right-leaning recently, adopting more conservative positions on security and social issues. By the way, voting in Belgium is compulsory for citizens. Oddly, one of the penalties for not voting is.... losing your right to vote. 

This is the second pictures I took. What does it mean? Should that bicyclist be worried that a car might suddenly sneak up on him? That bike lane looks a lot like a bike lane and not a traffic lane. More research. According to Wikipedia, it means "Cycle Street." What is a Cycle Street? 

I couldn't find anything about Cycle Streets in Belgium, but I did find a handy article from Ireland that shows a similar street sign. The sign marks "an urban road or street where specific traffic rules apply to allow for the priority and enhance the safety of cyclists. In such situations, cars would be seen as ‘guests’ with motorised traffic movement limited and no overtaking of cyclists." So apparently yes, a car might sneak up on that bicyclist.

I arrived at the Proxy (convenience store) exhausted. Despite lots of interesting things there, I took exactly three photos: the front of the store, a very odd "Diknek" endcap ("Puuuuur Belgisch Puuuuurement Belge"), and a picture of a refrigerated case with egg whites, cheese cubes, crepes, and pancakes. 

  

I remember struggling to figure out what to buy. I was so exhausted and overwhelmed, not to mention all the labels were in French and the only French words I know are ballet terms and cooking techniques. Not everyday food. I bought myself grissini, Belgian cheese, lemon Fanta, a peach, and a plum (apparently “prune” in French), which would serve as my lunch and dinner, unless I somehow found enough energy to head out again. 

I did not head back out. That short excursion took all the energy I had. I iced my incisions while eating; they hadn't bothered me in a week, but were really hurting when I got back to the room.

After eating, I set myself up on the couch. I'd packed along two MicroPuzzles (affiliate link), expecting to have some downtime for puzzling during the cruise portion of our trip. Instead, they were the perfect activity for a restful afternoon alone in a hotel room. I was really pleased with the quality and feel of these itty-bitty puzzle pieces.

  

I did the first puzzle with my hands, then tried using the tweezers for the second puzzle. I preferred using my fingers. 

While I solved my puzzles, I watched Karen Puzzles videos.   

I took another nap, ate my dinner, read more, and was already in bed when Steve and Trevor returned from their adventures. Hearing them describe everything they did made me bummed to have missed it, but it also confirmed that there was no way I could have gone. The day of rest was exactly what I needed and prevented me from getting even worse and missing out on more down the line. 

Tomorrow, with Steve and Trevor's help, I'll tell you how they and the rest of the family spent the day.