Antibiotics Me Up

Well it's been a pretty quiet week for me. Sickness took over me and I was forced to just chill out for a bit. Zeno and I decided to go to Brussels on Monday just cause. Didn't really know what to expect with Brussels, haven't really heard much about it and we weren't sure if it was touristy sort of place or if it was more just business, we knew it was big though after driving past it a number of times. When we got off the train it was all just high rise buildings and people in suits so first impressions were it's just a business place but we wandered on in to the center and it got a bit more touristy looking. The place reminded me of London a bit with the tall buildings and they had sight seeing double deckers driving around. Lots of small streets and alley ways packed with people so we just went with the flow and ended up in some big cool square with old buildings covered in gold statues and random gold stuff. The square was packed with tourists which was quite surprising cause I didn't think tourists came to Belgium. When I've been to Ghent and Brugge I never really saw that many tourists. The center of Brussels was like being back home in Howick... Full of Asians. So many Asians lying on the ground trying to get the perfect angle to take a picture.
We carried on walking and came out on some massive walkway where everyone in Brussels seemed to be walking. Was chocker full of people. Black, white, yellow, brown, so many different people, it's a very ethnic city. A lot of bums though. A lot of beggars on the street asking for money and a lot of them were Muslim woman with kids. The walkway was all just phone and clothes stores so we U bolted and walked back towards the square cause there were quite a few restaurants and we were getting hungis as. We had walked down this one small lane that was packed with pizza restaurants so we headed back towards that direction to get some good kai. Sat down at the busy restaurant and you could hear so many different languages, Frenchys, Spanish, American, Pom. Took ages to get served cause the fat as waiter kept flirting with a bunch of French birds but he eventually gave us some menus and we just flicked straight over to the pizza page, no salad for us. It's all in a different language so we didn't really have any idea what was in it but we both decided on a pizza with our rough translation skills. Fat man waiter came back and started talking to us in French and we were like 'ahhh English' and he just goes 'no no no French'. Ok cool douche bag, I'll just have this pizza as I point at the menu. Surely you would know English in a touristy city like this one. Grumpy French fat man. But yea we got our pizzas and they were massive but pretty damn average. It was just basically cheese on a base with a bit of blue cheese blobbed in some places. Was pretty disappointed cause when we walked in we saw some girl with heaps of bacon on her pizza and I wanted that one.
After lunch we walked around a bit more but go bored so we went home. It's a big place so there might have been more to do further away but I thought Brussels was average as. Place was crowded as, heaps of bums, smelt like piss and someone/something dropped a massive turd in the middle of the street and didn't bother to pick it up. I give, what we saw of Brussels, a 3.5/10. That square was pretty cool but on one of the buildings they were doing renovations on the outside and just hung a massive picture of the building over the scaffolding. It was sort of weird cause inside that building was a starbucks and a few cafes so the building mustn't of been too important in history if they put a bloody starbucks in it. Ah well, it was better than sitting inside the house all day bored out of our brains. Can tick Brussels off the list now, only Antwerp to go. I did go to Antwerp early last year but it was covered in snow and places always look different in the snow so I want to go back.
First half of the week was pretty average as I would still always wake up with a killer sore throat, headache, blocked nose and ears but then near the afternoon my throat would become a bit more better. Throat is all good now though but now the snotty nose has kicked in with bright green snot which normally means infection and I still get a headache every now and then. Still destroying the lemon and honey tea.
Was starting to feel a bit better over the last couple days so I decided I would race on Sunday. Wasn't quite feeling it in the race, just had no real oomph in my legs. Managed to pick up 10th which isn't too bad but I think I should have maybe waited and fully recovered from my cold cause I am feeling really average today. Woke up a bit drowsy today and I just felt meh. Have had small headaches throughout the day and am blowing my nose constantly. I was planing on racing again today cause there's no more racing until Friday but I just felt average so I've just had a real easy day today. Really need to shake off this cold asap so I've been whacking back vitamin C like no tomorrow, apples, lemons, vitamin C tablets, everything.
So yea goal of this week is to get rid of this cold, I'm getting real sick of it.
Was looking at news back home and I saw that Auckland had a bit of snow like hail which was pretty choice. Everything was blanketed in white. Heard it was a pretty typical Auckland day with it starting off as a clear blue sky today and then it just turned. Good old Auckland.
Gonna make some ciabatta bread pizzas for dinner tonight so I'm quite looking forward to that. Only 49 cents for a foot long of raw ciabatta bread (you just chuck it in the oven and you're away). Zeno came up with the idea last week and I told him I was gonna one up him and make my pizza even more awesome so I've bought some ham and pineapple to make one Hawaiian pizza and I've bought bacon bits, chorizo sausages and BBQ sauce to make a meat lovers one. I just remembered I forgot mushrooms... Damn. Ah well it's still gonna be heaps better than Zenos.

Yea I'll leave you some pictures of Brussels

Chur

Thanks for reading

Nick

These are all pictures of the buildings in the square