Home bound at last

The hotel we went into turned out to be the famously best "boutique" hotel in Brussels. We explained what had happened and the man at reception was really sweet and gave us a good deal but it was still was ridiculously expensive in comparison to what we had spent so far. But what to he'll, we didn't wantonly venture far as it was past 1am and we were tired. The room was really nice and after contacting home to let them know they shouldn't be expecting us back soon we got into bed around 2am and fell asleep instantly. The bed was really comfortable and I slept nearly straight through until 10am. We got up and Jonny had been on the phone to megabus but found out that even if they were willing to help us the next bus that afternoon was sold out.

We went down for our buffet breakfast which was delicious and we ensured we made the most of including snagging something for lunch (after all we are our mothers daughters). Whilst we ate we debated our options to get home which was a plane or Eurostar. A plane wouldn't have worked out well though as we had lots of chocolates, alcohol, shower gel over 100ml and tweezers, basically half our things would have been taken off of us so we opted for the eurostar. It was again really expensive but we wanted to get home and this meant we could be home by that afternoon.

I had a shower, which felt great after the stress of the day before and then checked out of the hotel at midday and headed to the train station. We got there over 2 hours early but we weren't in the mood to do anything to delay us. We picked up our tickets and the man gave us Christmas cookies as a little Christmas treat which pretty much sealed our love for eurostar and hate for megabus. After security and passport control we were sitting waiting when a man showed us this photography set up they had with changing backgrounds. We proceeded to have fun with this for the next half hour. The journey itself was blissfully fast, 2 hours from Brussels to London. The highlight was a woman looking out the window whilst we were in the tunnel under the channel and commenting how dark it was for 4pm. We got the tube from St Pancreas to Richmond where Jonny picked us up to save us getting a train which would have been more than miserable and slow 2 days before Christmas. 2 hours later and we were thank goodness home!

Bon Voyage Brussels!!

It may not have been the journey back we planned but it's certainly a story to tell and we were back in time for Christmas. The trip, even with the mishap at the end was amazing!

Wheres Wally? More like wheres the megabus stand!?

So the journey home did not go to plan. We were meant to be getting the 12:15am bus from Brussels to London and then a train to Bournemouth. We started out confident because we had looked up the address for the bus stand and had found it in our map. It was only a 20minute walk but we set out an hour and a half before to be safe. The walk to the address went fast and we were there in plenty of time, however there was no bus stand there and when we asked a policeman there he had no idea what we were talking about and didn't know where the road was at all.

We then asked some passersby who were really helpful and found the address on their phone and gave us directions. It was a 20minute walk from where we were but we still had enough time at this point thanks to setting out early, though we did start to speed up the pace. We got near the address but couldn't find the exact road so glad to ask for more help. It took a while but we got to the road we had been given on our ticket but we couldn't see anyone else on this road waiting for the bus and there wasn't any kind of bus stand either.

We were desperate at this point as the bus was due to depart soon. I called mehabus customer service off my phone (I don't want to even think about this bill) and asked for help. The woman didn't even have any idea where the bus stop was and provided no help except informing us it was "kinda near central station". Central station being near where we were originally. She also told us it looked like the bus was running 20minutes late. By this time it was 10minutes past the departure time meaning we had 10 minutes to do the 20minute walk from where we had gone originally. Cue running, asthma/panic attack, water, inhaler (thank God I packed it) and reaching the road we'd been eventually to see megabus. A man told us it was further up on the left so a bit more running but still nothing.

We were too late. We started walking now that our departure time had passed by a half hour, not quite knowing what the plan was now it was nearing 1am. Suddenly we saw a megabus pass the end of the street we were walking down but after a scream and a burst of running (not quite sure what we could achieve at this point) it was definitely too late and the bus was on its way to London without us...

There wasn't another bus until the next afternoon so we knew we had to stay in a hotel but exhausted and unwilling to venture any further from this elusive bus stand (even though we still didn't have a definite location on it) we ducked into the first hotel for the night.

The calm before the storm

We has a really nice lie in this morning, safe in the knowledge we had all day to explore the markets, get souvenirs and go ice skating. When we did wake up we each had showers (not gonna lie this was much needed after the 14 hours travel and day in Brussels) and got ready. We checked out at 12am and walked into the centre for breakfast/ brunch. We found a small little shop that did waffles and crepes just round the corner from Grand Place. I had strawberries, cream and chocolate sauce on mine and it was amazing. Gemma had a nutella crepe.

After we'd eaten we started exploring the various chocolate shops that Brussels had to offer and brought some treats. One shop we stopped in "L'art du chocolat" was really nice and the woman was really helpful and offered us lots of free samples. We then walked through the markets and I got a bracelet to add to my collection as a momento.

We continued to walk around the markets and I got myself a special hot chocolate which is hot milk and chocolate  on a spoon so you mix your own hot chocolate. It was delicious! We returned to "L'art du chocolat" and finished  off our souvenirs/Christmas shopping. We headed over to the ice rink where our intention was to go ice skating however it had rained a little and the ice rink was practically a swimming pool and we were acutely aware that we were going to be sitting in a coach for 8 hours even if we fall and got soaking wet. So instead we stood watching others skate and fall over into the huge puddle that awaited. We got a burgers from a burger van nearby which were delicious and then headed to Aroma, the place we had breakfast yesterday, for a hot chocolate.

We had a great time pretending to ice skate

We spent the evening laughing at more people falling over ice skating, watching the light shows and I brought myself some chocolates for myself. We got some food at one of the markets for dinner and reflected on our trip. Then we headed to the  bus station for our return journey. This is where it all started to go wrong....

Food, Ferris wheels and beautifully lit buildings.

The rest of the journey into Brussels went smoothly and we arrived at about 8am. Our first stop was the Atomium, a big sculpture of an atom, we got there as the sun was rising which was really beautiful.

Sunrise at the Atomium

We headed into the centre and eventually found a nice little cafe for breakfast where I had a chocolate croissant and orange hot chocolate, and it wasn't any of this powdered nonsense either! We then started on the sightseeing. The building in Brussels are amazing! There's numerous cathedrals, each as impressive as the last. We walked through a lot of the Christmas market but decided to save any shopping until tomorrow. We saw, and photographed, the Manneken Pis, the most photographed statue in Europe...Does that say something about Europe? Out of all the amazing statues the most popularly documented one is a 3ft boy peeing fountain...

We then rode the Ferris wheel which provided some great views of the city and we also visited Santa's village where we met Santa and git photographs with him and even received certificates! (We may be in our 20's but we're children at heart).

After a few more sights we got to our hostel about half 3 where we checked in and went up to our room to settle in and have a much needed nap (my body clock is severely confused right now). When we woke up a bit more refreshed we headed out yo see Brussels at night. It was beautiful! All the Cathedrals were lit up and there's a big sound and light show in Grand Place where all the impressive building change colours in time with a soundtrack. We then walked around the Christmas market and saw more lit cathedrals and got some Churros and Sausages for dinner and some hot chocolates as we watched thought show st Grand Place again.

Grand Place at night

Brussels bound.

Me and Gemma have been really excited about our trip to Brussels but it also just didn't really sink in that we were going until the day. This meant it got to the day we were leaving and I had yet to pack, we had no adapter (after I left mine in Twickenham) and Gemma hadn't yet got her Euros. Luckily we weren't leaving until late afternoon and it's only a short trip so didn't have much to pack. Our priorities in packing was warmth and comfort seeing as we have an 8 hour bus journey!

We left our home at 5pm and headed to the train station, (via Asda so Gemma could get Euros). The train ride was uneventful and we got into Waterloo on time. We got Wasabi for dinner, Gem's first time, and ate as we walked to Victoria Coach station. Victoria was packed!! We were having to push past oceans of people to check in and then get on our coach.

The coach journey started out OK, however problems arose. We picked seats based on their location to the door that would mean we could recline our seats all the way without reclining into people. Unfortunately, the seats did not recline. No sleep for us then. We arrived to Dover at about midnight and had to get off the coach into the cold to go through passport control. Once through, the coach parked up and we discovered there were up to 3 hour delays on the ferries, the driver didn't speak much English so that's all we got relayed. Suddenly we were on a freezing cold coach (doors open to allow people to get on and off for cigarettes), unable to sleep and stuck like this for a while. Luckily we got moving again after about an hour or so but then a passenger informed the driver someone was missing...

Basically all possible mishaps have occurred and we're not even half way...

The ferry was good and delightfully uneventful as well as fast. We got a drink, planned our attack on Brussels and had 5 minutes shut eye and we had arrived.

It's 5:20am (4:20 UK) and we have just arrived in Calais. (Surfice to say we will nit be arriving in Brussels at 6am).