4th of July in Belgium??

​July 21

Today was definitely the most spontaneous and surprising day of our trip so far! We woke up incredibly early for a train out of Gare de Nord at 6:50am. We headed north and arrived in Brussels 90 minutes later. Belgium is the first new (to me) country I’ve visited this summer!

When we arrived in Brussels, it was still fairly early in the morning for a Tuesday. The city was sleepy and as we made our way towards the center of town, we started to see lots of military personnel and what looked like the beginnings of a festival? As it turned out, today is Belgian National Independence Day! We had no idea!

There were military vehicles in front of the national palace and we were allowed to climb into one of the tanks on display which was so cool and surreal! The officer explaining the weaponry to Alastair couldn’t remember the English words for “machine guns” so he mimicked the sound instead.

There was a climbing wall, a zip line, a mobile hospital, and the streets soon filled with thousands of Belgian citizens.

As we sat down for breakfast (Belgian waffles) with our bags, we decided that instead of heading straight to Bruges, as we had originally planned, we would stay for the military parade at 4pm. We found lockers for our backpacks, accidentally paid for 2 days, and made our way back towards the main square.

The buildings were beautiful and covered in gold. As we walked around town, Dagny investigated tattoo shops and we made our way to one where she could get on the wait list. While she waited for the call, we walked through the Royal Gallery of Saint Hubert.

When it was time for D’s tattoo, Mags and I went to watch and Alastair went to get a haircut. Dagny got a small seashell to commemorate the Camino!

Alastair’s haircut came out great too!

At this point, we were all hangry so we settled on a lunch of disappointing and overpriced burgers. That’s what happens when you choose a restaurant on an empty stomach. Oh well.

We made our way back towards the parade route and then found a park where we laid down in the grass and fell asleep for an hour. 

When it was time to line up for the parade, it was the heat of the day and very crowded. We saw many groups of soldiers march by, and there were fighter jets, helicopters, and larger planes that flew overhead. We honestly found the parade to be underwhelming but given that Belgium is approximately the size of Maryland, it made sense.

By the time we were ready to grab our bags and ditch town, we realized that we were on the opposite side of the parade route from our belongings. Eventually, we figured out how to use the metro to cross under the parade. Our bags were conveniently stored next to the main train station (another happy accident) so we grabbed some snacks and hopped on a train to Bruges.

Bruges is a much smaller Belgian city but it retains the charm. We checked into our hostel (St. Christopher’s Bruges) which has a bar on the first floor that’s one of the busiest in town. Alastair picked out a (Michelin recommended) restaurant for dinner: Onslow. 

It was obviously delicious and then we walked to the city center square where a large dance party was taking place to celebrate the holiday. The songs being played were an interesting mix between American pop songs from a decade ago, and funny sounding Dutch songs. Alastair and I went to bed not long after but Mags and D stayed out to dance their hearts out. Apparently, Dagny asked a local girl if they were celebrating Belgian Independence and the girl said “no it’s like the 4th of July in America, only they do it better!”

Adelaide