This is the last Belgium post…then it’s on to our normal weekend routine! Promise. Of course, I have about 300 pictures from Belgium, and not EVERY day was spent inside a dark bar…but this blog is about beer, not family vacation. So i’m trying REALLY hard to stick to the topic at hand. So, lets talk about Delirium! We went there…after a lot of hesitation. At first we weren’t sure if we were going to go, because we didn’t want to be disappointed, or get stuck paying too much for beer because it’s so popular with tourists. But after a few days, we finally wandered in here at about 3pm on a weekday.

This bar holds the world record for having the most beers available, and THIS was their menu. It’s printed exactly like a small phone book and the bar tenders have a system that resembles a library look up to help them locate the less “popular” of their 2000+ beers. I just decided to let the bar tender pick my beers for me. In all honesty, I have no idea what I drank…but it was cheap and good.

Here is a little peek at the inside of the menu. It is organized by country, then by brewery. If your familiar at all with Brewdog, you will notice it’s VERY expensive in Belgium! I mean, it isn’t cheap in the states, but when your thinking in Euros, those prices are kinda crazy.

We sat in the basement section. Apparently the upstairs area is huge…but this is the part that I saw Zane Lamprey in on ‘Three Sheets’, therefore…it is where I wanted to be as well. It was dark, musty, and just exactly what we needed in the middle of the day. In fact, we had such a great time chatting up the bar tenders and other tourists & locals that we ended up staying there well into the night. We met a really cool guy from Belgium, a girl from Cali (HI Katrina!), a girl from Latvia, and a guy from London. We ate sausage and cheese, drank way too many beers, and decided that we definitely needed to make it back there at some point in our life.

Here we are after a few beers. My eyes are crazy puffy because apparently I’m spoiled by all the non  smoking areas in America. Basically, Delirium bar is a win. It may be touristy…but hey, we ARE tourists after all.

Here is Chuck during lunch one day. That hoegaarden was HUGE. 50cL I believe…

 

We managed to meet some friends on the bike tour, and had dinner with them later that night at Chez Leon. KIND of a touristy place, but the moulles were good. Those weird looking wormy things are actually shrimp native to the area…they are good, but they look super gross. I will say that while Chez Leon had good food, the service was awful (even by european standards), and they were constantly trying to up charge us.

We also went to Moeder Lambic, which is a pretty well known bar in Brussels. They have a ton of beer, and pretty cool atmosphere. EXCEPT, the bathroom situation is really confusing and i ended up in the mens “section”….with our tour guide. Awkward. Note to the ladies…Bathrooms are not very clearly marked in these parts.

 

Here is the bar area….notice allll the different kinds of glass wear. That is one thing I miss. Most bars here do not serve in proper glass wear. However, in Belgium, you could go to any restaurant/pub/bar and you would get your drink in the correct glass.

Their menu was much more extensive than this, but here is a little snipet. When we were doing all of our research before we left on vacation, I was disappointed that we couldn’t find more “menu pictures”…so I was determined to take some and put them out into the world. It really helps you plan ahead and budget if you have an idea of pricing.

 

 

This beer was NOT my favorite. Very bitter, which was on purpose…but not my style at all.

Here are some of Chuck’s purchases that are now resting peacefully in our cabinet. In case you are wondering, you are allowed 2L of Beer per person, through customs before you have to pay taxes. Although, we have heard from several people that as long as it is beer and not liquor, you can actually get away with much more than that. Just be honest with them and tell them how much you have…they most likely won’t want to tie up the line with paperwork.

 

And I can’t end my vacation posts without showing everyone the BEST CHOCOLATE EVER. THE BEST. I swear.

See that little duck shaped one? That was my absolute favorite. He’s filled with salted Caramel and crunchy cookie.The Earl Grey one’s were pretty amazing as well. We brought home quite a bit of chocolate from Pierre Marcolini. We tried all the little shops we could find, and Pierre Marcolini was far and above the best. They had very original flavors and you could tell it was great quality chocolate. Plus all the employees were super nice.

 

And finally this is one of the Palace’s….This one is actually just used as offices and a place for visiting dignitaries to stay, because the King thought it was “too small”. So now the royal family has a larger palace on the other side of Brussels. Crazy. We took a tour of the small section that was available for tours, and let me just tell you…there is NOTHING small about this place. It’s larger than Buckingham palace, and older I believe….but don’t hold me to that. Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed our little Belgium vacation re-cap! If you have any questions, or any amazing places that you have been…please let us know! We are always looking for new, fun travel experiences!

 

OH! I guess I should end with the title of the post…So, on the WAY to Belgium, our plane was really nice and had little TV’s and phone chargers at each seat. When we were at the airport waiting to return, I was playing on my phone and noticed the battery was almost dead. Considering I had finished all my paper books, and read through every magazine already…I was banking on reading on my phone some and maybe watching a movie or two on the little TV on the way back. I never thought that maybe our return plane wouldn’t be as nice as the one we took over there…never even crossed my mind. So, all the time I could have spent charging my phone and iPad, I instead spent playing on them. When it was finally time to board, both of our phones were almost dead, and the iPad only had about 30% battery life left. As we were walking down the aisle, I immediately noticed that the first class section looked a lot like our coach section on our way, so I started to get concerned. Sure enough, we were in a crazy old plane with nothing but those little off color TVs hanging from the ceiling. No cell phone charger, no games, no private TVs with tons of movies to pick from…and I had a dead cell phone and almost dead iPad….with no magazines or books to read. I can’t sleep on planes, and neither can Chuck….that was the LONGEST 10 hours of my life. Seriously. Ugh.