Oh, the places I've been!

After London, I met up with my friend, Shannon, who is studying in St. Petersburg this year, but who also goes to U of M. Here's what we've done so far...

Brussels, Belgium
Rue de Brouchers
This is possibly the biggest tourist trap in Brussels. It's an entire street of restaurants where people yell at you to come eat at their restaurant. It's really a weird experience. They're basically the Belgian version of Russian flyer-hander-outers.
Grand Place
The medieval square in the old town is really a sight to see. Unfortuantely, it has also been restored/rebuilt so many times since then, that it probably doesn't look anything like it did. But still cool.
City Museum
On the Grand Place is the city's museum. We were wandering around and we came upon this room called the "Dressing Room" and we had no idea what they were talking about. It was entire room full of outfits for the...
Manneken Pis
This is a statue less than 2 feet tall of a little boy peeing. No one knows where the Manneken Pis came from, so there are lots of legends about it. Very amusing.
Waffles
Next to the Manneken Pis we had Belgian waffles with Belgian chocolate on top. Amazing. Not like Belgian waffles in America. They must put sugar on the waffle iron or something, because they have this sticky, sweet, but kind of hard, coating on the outside of the waffle. Deliciousness!
St. Michael's
Beautiful church. HUUUUUUGE. The pictures do it better justice than this description. :-0
Congolese Food
So, we decided to take Lonely Planet's advice and go "off the beaten path" and try a Congolese restaurant in Brussels. I decided to get something we had determined was chicken, as well as plantains. Shannon, on the other hand, decides to get something random off the menu. The waitress gives her this look and says, "You konw that's [insert word we can't understand], right?" I say to Shannon, "Maybe you should just get the other chicken thing..." She decided to be adventurous and get the mystery dish. It turns out to be this green gunk that tastes (and smells) like fish. Disgusting. Shannon has learned her lesson: don't order random things off the menu, or if you do, change your mind when the lady looks like you're crazy for ordering it. :-)
Palace
The palace in Brussels was rather tame, except for the fact that they had these awesome bushes out front. Kinda looked like a mini labyrinth. Must be even cooler in summer.
Chi-Chi's
I didn't know that Chi-Chi's still existed! It was amazing. Except for the food, which was horrible. :-)
St. Catherine's
St. Catherine's is pretty much destroyed. All that's left is a dirty tower. Except there was this winter festival there where we got the world's largest cotton candy, and saw an "ice monster" almost a block long.

Amsterdam, Netherlands
Canals
The canals in Amsterdam are beautiful. They're also annoying. Only being able to cross the street where there's a bridge is weird.
Anne Frank House
It was amazing to see a place that I'd been hearing about for my entire life. Except for the fact that it in and of itself it's a good place to visit, it was a rather crappy museum. Also, it had shortened hours on Christmas. What's up with that??
Movies
I love countries that don't dub! We saw Eastern Promises and Enchanted, both of which you should see. :-)
Fatballs
Apparently, fatballs are actually a Dutch food, and not just a Holland-MI-during-Tulip-Time food. Amazing. :-)
Consulate
My first trip to an American Consulate! We went to get Shannon more pages for her passport. Then we tried to go to the Reijksmuseum, but it cost 10 euros! Ew!
Van Gogh Museum
Pretty cool. Van Gogh was a weird guy. Unfortunately, they also didn't have any famous paintings, just like the Picasso Museum. But I know a lot about Van Gogh?
Red Light District
The Red Light District is completely different than I thought it would be. Maybe I just never thought about it or something, but if you want to know more, I will be happy to getll you, I'm just not going to talk about it here.
Steidlijk Museum
This was kind of a bummer. The regular exhibition was severly boring, as it was only a partial view because they're in a temporary location. However, there was an exhibition on Andy Warhol, which was amazing! I am so interested in him now; he was one weird guy.
Burger Bar/FEBO
FEBO is a fast food place that has vending machines for sandwiches. HILARIOUS. Burger Bar was this place that has like 18 different sauces for your french fries. So much better than the typical mayo.
Train to Copenhagen
There was this really weird Dutch guy in our compartment. I don't want to talk about it. Blech.

Copenhagen, Denmark
Palace
We saw the changing of the guard, and we also went to some sort of museum. Changing of the guard was kinda lame, as well as the museum. It was basically the crap the royalty had left behind, plus some dresses the current queen used to wear. (Who knew Denmark still had a queen???)
Little Mermaid
I knew that Hans Christian Andersen was from Denmark, but I had no idea there was a statue of the little mermaid here! Sweet!
Lunch
We went to lunch at this cheap place. We both ended up getting something with french fries, plus a mountain of mayo. It was all over everything by the time we were done eating. Blech.
National Museum
The National Museum apparently has this really awesome exhibit on the vikings! ...But it was closed. However, I did get to see a really cool and informative exhibit on ...the rest of the world? Awesome.
Tivoli Gardens
This is like an amusement park from 160 years ago. It looked pretty awesome inside, but it was about $10 just to get in the gate. Not appealing.
Train/Bus/Plane to Krakow
Our plane was from Malmo, Sweden to Krakow, Poland. Malmo is just across a straight-type-thing from Copenhagen. How difficult could it be to get there? Actually, it wasn't that hard to get to Malmo. However, the airport was 30 kilometers from Malmo, and we missed the last bus of the day. So, we ended up paying like $75 to get a taxi there. Then we slept in the airport until 6am when we could check in for our flight. That is where I wrote the last really long post from.

Well, I've been using the computer here in Bratislava for entirely too long. Even though Copenhagen was like 2 weeks ago, you'll have to wait a little longer for more. :-) Tomorrow, Budapest! Yay!

*PS* Check out the new photos!