Brussels: Round 2

Mark emailed me last night letting me know that he had bought us two train tickets to Brussels for this morning. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to travel spontaneously so of course I was happy to join him on a weekend trip to Brussels! My last trip to Brussels was with Dad in February and that was more of a sightseeing kind of type. This trip was more geared towards drinking on sunlit patios and experiencing Brussels nightlife.
We woke up super early this morning to catch our 8AM train from Gare du Nord. We arrived in Brussels without a hotel to go to so we found an internet cafe and booked a hotel off of lastminute.com. Mark's friend from UBC and his co-worker were staying at the Sofitel Hotel and from the looks of it on the map in was bordering a large park and in the heart of the European Union buildings. So we go onto lastminute.com and see the "secret hotel special" whose description included "bordering a large park and in the business district". That HAD to be it, right? So we booked. It was the secret hotel special so they wouldn't give us the name of the hotel so as it was processing we waited anxiously with our fingers crossed. Up popped "Husa President Star Hotel" nowhere near the Sofitel. Just our luck! Oh well, we kept it and turns out it was a nice hotel, just a bit far.
We met up with Kevin, Mark's friend who works at RBC in London, and his co-worker Ewan. We basically spent the whole day drinking on patios and laughing uncontrollably (on my end) - turns our Ewan is quite the comedian! It was a lovely day and a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Tonight we went for dinner at a super fancy restaurant that Kevin's friend had suggested to him. There were old men wearing sunglasses, little kids in proper school uniforms and dolled up housewives sitting around us...I think it was the old man in the sunglasses' birthday. Dinner was fabulous but I was excited to get out of there to a less formal atmosphere. We ended up at a club that was in an old church in the city. Very cool place with very beautiful people but it wasn't pretentious at all so I really liked it. We got a table in the middle of the club with a couple of bottles and danced the night away, as they say. A few hours later we were pooped and ready to go home. Kevin and Ewan went back to the Sofitel and Mark and I got a gyro and cabbed back to the Husa. Nightlife in Brussels gets a thumbs up from me.

Love,
Alexis