Westforth Travels: Belgium and Basketball

We went to Belgium for a very quick weekend, not only just to see the city of Brussels but also to see a former Indiana friend play international basketball. Lenny has been playing for an international basketball team for the last eight years and on a team in Belgium the last six. We knew that we wanted to go see one of his basketball games and when we checked his schedule there was a game the same weekend that we were free for a getaway!! The timing worked out perfect, we would be able to explore Brussels and go to Lenny's game all in one weekend!!

{Saturday}

We took the Eurostar to Brussels (2 hour train ride)...we left bright and early!!

walking into the Grand Place, the central square of Brussels

King's House

Guildhalls on the Grand Place

Brussels Town Hall

We quickly learned that Belgium has three languages; French, German, and Dutch, depending on the region. Everything in Brussels was mostly French!

After we walked around the Grand Place and the surrounding area, it was time to get on the train to Charleroi, which was about 1/2 hour from Brussels and where the basketball game was.

Chris can sleep anywhere...oblivious of me snapping a picture of him!!

Here's Lenny, he's a "big dog" (even taller than Chris)!! He plays for Spirou Basket team and it's in the part of Belgium that speaks French, SO the game commentary was ALL in French!!!

Yaay!! Spriou won...the team did great, there was even two slam dunks!!

Chris had to get himself a team t-shirt.

After the game, Lenny drove us back to our hotel and then showed us the night-life in Brussels.
He also showed us the famous statue of the little boy peeing; I guess this is where it originated!!

I didn't do a good job of taking pictures at the basketball game or with Lenny! Oops!

{Sunday}

It was a cold and rainy day in Brussels (good thing we slept in)!! Here's Chris in the middle of the Grand Place as we start our search for what Belgium is famous for- chocolate, waffles, and beer and in no particular order!!

Lenny was telling us about an architectural flaw that the Brussels Town Hall building in the Grand Place has, so we went back and had another look to see if we could see what he was talking about.

Can you see what is wrong with the front of the building?

Can you see it now from a view further away?

Apparently after the building was already built, the architect realized that the front of the building was completely off-centered. The center of the archway above the doors doesn't align with the center column that goes all the way up the building. The legend has it, that once the architect discovered his "error" he jumped off the top of the building.

We FINALLY found some chocolate!!!

Here was just a FEW of our options to choose from...holy chocolate craziness!!

And then we found more treats...chocolate covered strawberries and waffles with ice cream, strawberries, and chocolate!! Yummy...but kind of felt sick and was on a chocolate overload!!

Here is just SOME of the chocolate shops that we came across!!

Of course we managed to find a McDonald's...the US represents!!

It even had a real fancy clock too!

And then we found a Chi-Chi's! We were excited, went inside to eat and then walked right back out after deciding we had already had WAY to much to eat that day!!

I found this really cute French place that made all kinds of "biscuits".

There was a lot of them...

You better believe I bought some to take home, and unfortunately I couldn't understand the pricing signs, so I ended up spending a BIT more than I wanted to!