After exploring Cantillon brewery and making my way back to Grand Place, I met some guys in my hostel who had just graduated college and were touring the EU to celebrate. We headed out for dinner to a place they had been previously, for me to realize it was the same place I had eaten as well! The restaurant was Fin De Siecle, and I was excited for round 2. The guys suggested the stoemp, which is a traditional Belgian dish that consists of mashed potatoes with vegetables mixed in, with whole sausages as the protein.
This meal was absolutely incredible. It was so simple, but was made with perfection.

 After eating, we all headed back to the hostel for a 30 minute recoup before heading out to a local pub where we heard an Irishman sing a Wagon Wheel and some U2.  The next morning we parted ways, I headed North a few miles to King Badouin stadium for the Belgium v Norway Friendly, while everyone else headed much farther North to Amsterdam.
the Atomium

Upon arriving in the northern part of Brussels, there is one thing that sticks out: the Atomium. This monstrous piece of architecture was much bigger than I expected, and towered over the surrounding park. While I was there, a “Dinner in the Sky” event was being held. Cranes lifted these large bars up about 40 meters in the air, where people were served dinner and drinks.

A local park I killed time at while waiting on the match to begin

After strolling through a nearby park, I found myself headed toward the stadium, where I found fans gathering around local pubs to eat and drink before the match.  A group of four lads wandered over and we struck up a conversation.  These four Dutchmen were Roy, Ron, Lars and Koen, and came to Belgium to go to King Badouin stadium. They are stadium tourists, who have been all over Europe to different football stadiums. They have a great blog called “Eindhoppen, Away Ends and Groundhopping” that has loads of pictures from an insane amount of stadiums.

Here is there blog, go check them out: http://eindhoppen.blogspot.be/?m=1
About 30 minutes until kick off, we head into the match. Due to the recent events in Brussels, the security was composed of police and solders with assault rifles, and I experienced the most intense pat-down of my whole life right after going through the gates.  If anything (as weird as this sounds), it made me feel more secure knowing how meticulous they were about every aspect of security.

Our first look at the pitch, where we parted ways to go to our respective seats

The match was truly unbelievable, and it started with one of my favorite players, Romelu Lukaku, a striker for my favorite club Everton, scoring in the third minute of the match.  The Norwegians put up a great fight, but Belgium won 3-2  after 2 late minute goals to tie and put the game away.

Loyal fans


This was only my second professional football/soccer match, and my first international match. That being said, it was a spectacular environment. The Belgian people produced an incredible atmosphere that is hard to find at a lot of American football games, and this was just an exhibition match.  It was the best way to end my weekend in Brussels, and I am hoping to make it to the Ireland V Italy match during the Euro Cup in Lille, France later this month.
 
In terms of my internship, all the beer has been brewed! There is a quadrupel, Belgian golden, and double IPA fermenting away at UGent, and will be ready to be implemented into chocolate within the coming weeks.  Our biggest goal is to condense the flavor of the beer so that it produces distinctive beer characteristics within the chocolate. After discussing with my professor, we have great ideas as to how we will do this. I will talk more on the subject once it begins to happen. Thanks for reading and keeping up!
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Read more from Ben at http://beninbelgium.tumblr.com/
Learn more about studying or interning abroad as a Bumpers college student at: http://bumperscollege.uark.edu/programs/international-programs/index.php