Day 5 - Good Bye Amsterdam, Hello Brussels; Stolen Backpack

It was tough to leave the sweet life of Amsterdam, but it was time to explore new territory, Belgium to be exact. We jumped on the train at Amsterdam's Central Station and were expecting about a 2.5hr ride to Brussels with one quick - 6 minute - transfer. However, we hit a bit of a hiccup along the way.

Inside Amsterdam's Central Station

Our chariot to Brussels

Lots of open green land in the country side of the Netherlands

A herd of cows

In my 10+ years of international travel, I've been fortunate enough to avoid lost or stollen possessions, but every streak has to come to an end and it did on Wednesday. My backpack with a handful of my items including my computer and passport was stolen from the train. A super bizarre situation because the back pack was right above our heads on the luggage rack just like I've put it a thousand times. It was wedged between our bigger roller bags so it seemed nice and secure, but if a person with enough balls and enough motivation (and skill) to steel then he'll take his or her chances. It was at one of the stops after the transfer and people were getting off the train, it was normal commotion of people exiting, but we were watching a movie so didn't really pay attention to what people were doing around us. It wasn't until about an hour later when we were approaching our stop in Brussels that I got up to put some stuff away and realized it was gone.

We arrived to Brussels around 2:30pm and made our way to the police office at the train station to file the stolen backpack report. We followed that up with a stop at the U.S. Embassy to inquire about a new passport, which they said to come back the next morning to sort out.

With the stolen goods somewhat sorted, we were ready to begin to enjoy Brussels. Around 5pm we headed to the Place du Chatelaine Wednesday street market. It was small but plentiful with stalls of cheese, olives, salami, fish, fried goods, fruit, and of course waffles (it is Belgium after all). We noshed our way around the market and then popped over to an outdoor cafe for some beers.

The assortment of stalls at the Place du Chatelaine market was very impressive

First waffle of the Belgium visit...hoping it's one of many

The vendors were all local farmers, fruit growers, butchers, and cheese makers

Salami sticks. We got 20 various flavors of salami sticks for 5 euros.

Lots of of olives

The snacks at the market were tasty but not filling so we headed to dinner at a traditional Belgium place called Le Chou de Bruxelles specializing in the country's best known dish moules-frites (mussels with fries).

Night one dinner at Le Chou de Bruxelles in the Ixelles part of town

They bring a cooking pot full of seasoned muscles with a paper cone of fries on the side. They had about 20 choices of ways you could have your muscles seasoned, we opted for three different styles: curry, seven herbs & garlic, and a spicier Thai-style cream sauce. All were delicious and easily topped my list of best muscles - granted, my experience eating mussels is limited but I think anybody would find these to be really good.

Mussels can get messy so we had to bib-up

Before...

after

The travel day and getting some important stuff stolen wiped us out a little bit so we headed home to catch the 10pm World Cup matches and then got some rest. Thursday and Friday are days to walk around and see the sites of Brussels and more importantly on Thursday is the third and final US match that'll determine if they advance to the knockout stage.