Brasileiros em Bruxelas

As most of my friends and family know, I took a small trip to Brussels this weekend with my Brazilians (Bruxelles in French and Bruxelas in Portuguese- my spelling will be all kinds of messed up when I get back to the States).

Victory dance

Before I talk about that, though, I need to add some pictures from the basketball game of José Lucas. His school has a small team, and they played against my school this last week, so Bia, Henrique and I all traveled down to campus to watch him play. He is better than I thought he would be at playing ;) Although he was very tired after only about half of the game haha. I tried to take several pictures of him laying down on the ground to rest, but he always would get up too fast. One of the French asked if we could take score because no one was there. I'm American, so of course I know some things about basketball, but not THAT much! haha The Brazilians like to joke that because I'm American, I know how to play basketball really well, just like the rest of the world thinks they know how to play football (soccer) very well! Not always true in the case of some Brazilians....hahaha

Teaming up after winning

Now Bruxelles!! We woke up extremely early in the morning to make it to the train station on time for the train at 6am. Priscila bought her ticket literally the day before we left (we were all afraid she wouldn't get to go with us because she procrastinated so long!). The first day was the hardest because we were all so tired after walking maybe a mile to our hostel, and we finally had wifi at the hostel, but we (Bia, Henrique and I) rallied and ended up visiting some of the town. Priscila slept until the evening haha. It was very cold, so it was difficult to walk very much. We saw many interesting and beautiful buildings, most of which were closed, so I only took pictures of the outside, and then we would move on to the next place. We did visit a very beautiful park in which there was a fountain that Bia told me I needed to wish for something in ;) There was no money already in the fountain, so I didn't want to throw a coin in, but I made a fake wish of course.

It's difficult at time to get Nathalie out

So happy to find McDonald's! 

There were many beautiful cathedrals, and there was even a small street market with antiques. My favorite part though was the Grand Place, especially during the night. It was so beautiful to see all buildings covered in gold lit up in every direction that you looked. It is one of the most beautiful man-made places that I have ever visited because of its elegance and grandeur. It is interesting in that it has architectural styles from three different epoques! I wish my iPhone had done a better job of taking in the beauty of it all. It's a shame that we don't have technology to capture exactly what the human eye can see.

Street market with antiques

Belgium flag in the rain

Beautiful building....

Grand Place

One of the many parks

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That night, I had the honor to visit a gorgeous Brazilian singer, Paula Fernandes. I have been learning one of her song, Não Precisa, so I was able to sing along when she sang that song! I enjoyed some Guaraná Antarctica (a Brazilian beverage), and the company of MANY Brazilians. It was impressive how many Brazilians were all in attendance at this event!













The next day, we got up around 10am (much later than normal because we had stayed out until 3 in the morning to watch Paula!), and we took Priscila to see some more things in Brussels, including the Grand Place again in the daylight. We also visited the European Commission building and the Manneken Pis. For those of you who don't know, this is one of the most famous statues in Belgium, a major landmark of Bruxelles, but it is also the smallest. If you expect some large, grand statue, you will be sorely disappointed. It rained A LOT this day, so we were glad to be on the train to Lille.

Another beautiful park with Nath

European Commission building

The Grand Place during the day

Manneken Pis

Lille is a city in France in which some of our friends lived before coming to Amiens. To my mother, you would LOVE Lille. I take what I said about never living in France back. Lille is beautiful. It is a city MUCH larger than Amiens, and there is literally everything you would need in it, but it still somehow how this feel of a small, quaint town to it. It doesn't feel so large when you are walking through the streets. It doesn't feel like a huge city, but rather a small college town. But in reality, it has both H&M AND Nike outlet! I'm in love with this town. The first night, we just spent some time together in the hostel's bar, and we tried to make it an early night because we were all so exhausted from the day before. On Monday, we visited some major landmarks, but it was raining, so we ended up going into the large centre commercial and shopping for some time :)

Church in Lille

Coffee :)

Streets of Lille

Needless to say, I was happy to be back in my own bed. Some times I just want to travel all over the world every weekend, but it's months like these that make me grateful for the downtime. I went to Ireland, went to Bruxelles, this next weekend I have Paris, and then the weekend after that, I will be in Bruxelles again for a trip to the Johnson & Johnson headquarters to shadow a European representative. Keep your fingers crossed for a possible internship opportunity or good connections stemming from this trip. After these next two weeks, I will be more than glad to crash in my bed and sleep like a bear for the next three months (Priscila ;)). 


Thanks to Nathália for the weekly song :)