Belgium

When we discussed our itinerary, we each had different places that we wanted to see.  We made a list of places we wanted to go and whittled down from there.  We still ended up with a little too ambitious itinerary, but I wouldn't change that.  (I would do it differently next time, though!).
We also had little meetings, one of which we discussed our travel goals.  When we went to London, we went where Rick Steves told us to go and did the activities he recommended.  At the end of that trip, we realized that what he likes to do is not necessarily what we like to do.  We also realized that there is not going to be a resource out there that is going to fit our interests and goals - so we set our own goals and searched out activities to fit that. Perhaps calling these goals isn't perfectly appropriate; maybe this is our travel philosophy.  :)

Rural > City
Physical activities & Food > Museum & Arts
Avoiding overly touristy areas as much as possible

We weren't strict with these guidelines and absolutely ended up in our fair share of touristy cities.  But, it was our first time and we plan to work on perfecting this.

First Country: Belgium

After a long flight, a harrowing 1.5 hours in Heathrow and almost missing our flight, we arrived in Brussels.  Our first European city is one of the most diverse in culture.  Belgium itself is split in language - 1/2 recognizes French as its primary language, 1/2 recognizes Dutch but all speak English as their common language.  In Brussels, they speak French and English.  We thought that Belgium would be a good place to start our trip, given that the language barrier would hopefully be not as great as in other countries.

We were in Brussels for less than 24 hours and spent most of that time wandering the city, exploring, visiting a local landmark and partaking in the local cuisine:

Mmm, samurai sauce...

Belgians are very proud of their frites.  So much so, that it is a faux pas to call them "French fries".  After all, you are not eating them in France, are you?  Seriously, these are as good as they look.  And, as my mother's daughter, I do have a fondness for fries.  And frites are the best version that I could have.  They are double fried so that they are both crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  Served in either a paper cone as shown above or in a square container with a teeny tiny fork so you don't get your hands greasy, it is not just the tourists eating these.  This was a perfect dinner to our incredibly long day that started the morning before with me working a half day on Saturday and then seemed to never end.

We then walked over to the Grand Place, a city square founded centuries before.  All of the various guilds (kind of like trademan unions) are represented.  This square is unique because all the buildings, which are so fabulous, are of the same architecture, rare in Europe.  This is because after a great fire, all of the guilds became very competitive to finish first.  The result was a very beautiful square with amazing architecture and feel:

There was a local festival going on while we were there, so the Place was packed!

I just couldn't get over being here.  After a long flight and being a little tired, it felt incredibly surreal.

After going back to our hotel, which was just steps away from the Grand Place, we crashed and got one of the best nights sleep!  We woke up early the next morning and set out to explore a little more before we headed to Brugges.  We happened on the statue of this little man:

 Mannekin Pis

A close-up of the truly little statue

This is one of Brussel's biggest tourist attractions.  It's supposed to be an homage to a little boy who put out a fire that could have destroyed the city by peeing on it.  And yes, the statue's name is actually Mannekin Pis.  Awesome, I know.

I had read so much about it that I was incredibly surprised when we found him because it felt like we just stumbled on him.  We walked past a few shops with apparently life-sized technicolored chocolate versions but I thought there would be a bigger lead-up.  Possibly it's because we were there so "early" in the morning (like 9am) but there weren't hoards of people.  As with many of the cultural landmarks that we just "had to see" on our trips, the buildup led to a disappointment rather than a highlight.

One of the ideas that I went into this trip with was to have as few expectations as possible in order to let each site amaze me, rather than have expectations be dashed and miss the amazing aspects due to my disappointment.  I didn't do this perfectly (more on this later), but it did help me to appreciate the little things and just enjoy the moment.

More on our trip later!