Ben's visit

Kelly and I did have some difficulties meeting Ben yesterday. His first flight was delayed, so he missed his connection, had to be rerouted to Madrid and then take a smaller flight in the evening to Brussels. Which meant he had about an extra 12 hours of airports than he was bargaining for, and then on top of that didn't find our meeting place for over an hour.
Of course, trooper that he is, Ben was still game for going out in the city with Kelly and I. We took him on the peeing tour of Brussels which includes a drink at the pub catty-cornered from Mannaquin Pis (the little peeing boy fountain...how did that get to be famous?!?) a drink at Delrium which is a great touristy bar with 2004 different beers in their fridge, it is across from Jenneka Pis (Mannequin Pis' female counterpart) and then a trip over to one of my favorite Bruxelloise bars- MONK, next to St. Catherine's square (if you've been reading my blog, you probably recall why this was on the tour)
One of the most amusing parts of MONK is that it is absolutely sans frills, they have beer and liquor. If you want to mix the liquor they have a few bottles of sparkling water and juices, you can mix it yourself. Don't forget to ask for ice if this is important to you. The only food in the place is a long string of sausages that hangs from a nail on the wall behind the bar. They'll cut one off for you (with what I believe is something like a box cutter) and hand it to you wrapped in a napkin with a little container of mustard. Only choice is mustard or not.
Well Ben decided he wanted to try the sausage (which I have only grimaced at all year) but dared me to take a bite too. I said it was a deal on one condition- I'll take a bite after he has two. I wanted to make sure he would take one bite and still have the stomach to come back for another one before I was going anywhere near it. Well he did, so I did...it was gross. There was a snap, then a squish and then I had little bits of gristle stuck in my teeth for the next half hour. An adventure, to be sure, but not one I'll be coming back for more of.
Gudrun came and picked us up in the city, she was supposed to join us but she got lost in the city (no big wonder) so it was late by the time she found her way back. We went back to Leuven and had one more beer in the living room before calling it a night.
Ben met his friends in Brugge today at 2. We took the train up from Leuven which arrived around noon, so we had 2 hours to wander around the city and grab a tasty take away sandwich from a little restaurant near the center before I left him back at the hotel with the other folks who were on the trip with him.
Nice visit with my cousin. Though I was looking forward to showing him around Bruxelles all day, we still managed to get in the really key parts- revelry and beer!