Eight: Waffles and Hats; Redux

Kim and I went back to Brussels to pick up my Christophe Coppens hat. Little did we know it was some weird European holiday where everyone closes up shop to go put flowers on graves. When we got there Christophe Coppens was closed. But we found an open cafe/bakery where we had a fantastic lunch and bought some take home treats (including waffles). That makes five excellent meals in Brussels, if you count the two times we ate street vendor waffles and the one time we ate street vendor frites (during our last visit). Conclusion: the food in Brussels is great.

On our way back to the car we swung by the hat shop again and somehow managed to catch the woman who had helped us on our previous visit. She was just picking something up on her way to the movies! She gave us the hat and told us about the holiday (All Saints Day). She added that she preferred to give flowers to the living.

We had planned to spend the rest of the day shopping in Antwerp, but of course the shops were closed. Oh well. We didn't need to spend a bunch of euros on fabulous Antwerp Six designer-wear anyhow.

Instead we visited the Cathedral of Our Lady, viewed the Rubens there, and went to the Martin Margiela exhibit at the Fashion Museum (honestly, this was a little confusing). We ate a "traditional" Belgian meal at a place called Princess of Spoons. I never knew how good pea soup could be.