While I’d never had any great aspirations to go to Belgium, the cheap airline prices and thoughts of delicious chocolate lured me into buy a flight spur of the moment one day while I was procrastinating at work (some people scroll through Buzzfeed to occupy themselves, I make questionable travel decisions!).

Soon enough, my flatmate and I had our single carry-ons stuffed to the brim with outfits and toiletries and were on our way to Brussels for four days of waffle-induced-food-coma bliss. We arrived and made our way to the train station within the airport to catch a ride into the city. This seemed simple, but unfortunately, none of the trains said anything about Brussels City Centre. After milling around for a few minutes, consulting google maps and stressing about our general lack of geographical knowledge, we boarded a train. Eventually we got off at a stop which was much farther from our hostel than anticipated, but still made it into the city all the same (thank God).

We chose the Meininger Brussels City Hostel, which is a chain of hostels that are scattered around Europe. After realizing that we were put in separate rooms, a very nice employee (shout out to Maple) switched us into a different room so we could be together. It turned out that even though we’d payed for an eight person room, we ended up in a four person room (score) with two mild Canadian boys with terrible taste in music and a habit of walking around (and speaking to us) whilst only in their underwear. However, deciding that it could be much worse, we were happy with the situation. The room itself was one of the nicest I’ve had in a hostel. The linens were clean the room was modern and the shower had fantastic water pressure. There were also separate rooms for the shower, toilet and sinks so that the bathroom wasn’t completely shut down when one person was in it.

The one bad thing was it was far away from the restaurants and nightlife of the city, so once you were there you were a bit isolated. Also, if you’re thinking of booking here, it’s more hotel-like than most hostels and there were multiple families staying there, so it’s not what I would call a “party hostel.”

After dumping our stuff, we set off to explore the city, bopping from one area to the next with no real destination in mind. We went to the Town Hall and explored the little alley way shops. Eventually we ended up eating at a conveyor belt sushi place called Kabuki where we spent the next hour taking our pick of Japanese dishes off a little train that traveled around the restaurant (this is not a joke) and drinking bottled water out of wine glasses (which sounds excessively fancy, but they refused to give us tap water so we had to go big).

Since we had gotten up at 3am that morning to catch our plane, by the time we’d finished dinner we were pretty much zombies, so we headed back to the hostel for the night.

The next day we did a full city tour through Sandeman’s New Europe tours, which have branches in multiple cities in Europe and were recommended by our hostel. Our enigmatic guide (an Irishman named Mick) led us through the city showing off the Grand Place, the famous Manneken Pis and the covered market (Les Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert).

Once this had finished we ate a lunch of chocolate covered waffles while overlooking the city and then made the decision to sign up with the same company for a beer tour (when in Belgium, right?).

The beer tour took us to two bars where we got to taste all the traditional beer flavors of Belgium, including a Trappist beer which is brewed by monks.This seemed a bit odd to me but hey, if God made water into wine, why can’t monks make it into beer? I certainly thought the Belgian beer selections were heavenly anyway. After the tour finished a big group of us who had been on it together headed to the Delirium Cafe, which has over 2,000 types of beer (cue dancing girl emoji) to have a few glasses of the strong stuff. I’ve always been a huge Delirium Tremens fan so this was a cool treat.

After stumbling home (those Deliriums have very high alcohol percentages), we prepared ourselves for another early morning.

We spent the next full day in Bruges, a city about an hour outside of Brussels by train. We booked the tour through the same company we’d used the day before (they made a fortune off of us) and the price included the train to and from the city as well as a guided tour (which for £30 didn’t seem too bad).

I immediately fell in love with Bruges. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site and seems completely untouched by the modern world. As an old medieval port, it had retained it’s old city feel, with cobblestones and beautiful churches and towers dominating the landscape. No cars were to be seen, with horses and buggies winding through the streets. We took a boat ride along the series of canals which was cool because it gave you a completely different perspective of the city than you got walking.

We ate lunch in one of the many little cafes and by the time the sun went down, both myself and my flatmate had agreed that this was the most whimsical spot in Europe and that we had to move here and rent a little flat along the canal (rent is expensive in Dublin, I can’t imagine how much it would cost in Bruges…).

My biggest regret from the trip is that we didn’t spend a night in Bruges, but in the end we took the train back to Brussels.

The next day we were killing time before our later flight. We had seen the sights, had all types of beer, eaten chocolate and frites (their famous twice-fried french fries) and waffles more times than socially acceptable and ended up strolling around the botanical gardens. While Brussels was fun and beautiful, it was definitely no more than a two day trip max.

Finally, we boarded the train (the correct one this time, huzzah) and started our trip back to the Big Smoke.