Brussels

On 10.10.10, I started 'officially' dating the most incredible person I have ever met. He is still my boyfriend four years later, and we have gone through so much in that time - finishing high school, getting into university & moving to London, getting through university and finally finishing university! Some major life changes right there, and I feel so lucky to have had him by my side for every moment of it. Now we are living together, and I couldn't be happier.

To celebrate our 4 year anniversary, we went to the land of chocolate, beer and chips - Belgium! We caught the 2 hour Eurostar and spent three days eating our way around the beautiful country and suffering regular sugar highs and lows together. We were staying in Martin's Brussels EU hotel which was really lovely and great value for money - comfortable beds, in the center and with a spa/gym (which we obviously didn't use)!

Brussels is beautiful, with amazing architecture, statues and gardens everywhere you look. 

We spent a lot of time trying to soak everything up by walking around aimlessly, and getting lost! 

Ok - as pretty as Brussels may be, there was one reason we had come and that was simply chocolate. Although I would say I am a pretty die hard chocolate fan, even I got sick of chocolate after three days in Belgium. I consumed SO MUCH chocolate from morning to night - warm, thick hot chocolates, delicately perfected pralines, slathered on waffles or speculoos biscuits, ganache macaroons. Brussels has a lot of chocolate shops - they are literally on every street, I saw far more of them than Starbucks or Mcdonalds which is saying something! 

Magical waffles from Maison Dandoy 

We bought 5 bags of speculoos-chocolates from Laurent Gerbaud 

Waffle stuffed with belgian chocolate & speculoos from The Waffle House 

Above - magical chocolates from Pierre Marcolini, renowned chocolatier - the best hot chocolate and macaroons ever. 

We also had in Bruges (coming in the next post) probably the best chocolate of the trip from a shop called The Chocolate Line - with bizarre concoctions like absinthe, iced coffee, maize and bacon chocolate we didn't expect it to be as mindblowingly incredible as it was. 

I was shocked at how international Brussels is, although I guess I shouldn't have been. Dima rejoiced as he found a kebab that was apparently better than those we ate growing up in Cyprus (after long nights out), so of course he ate three of them. He also indulged in the beer opportunities Brussel held, but as I hate beer I wasn't as impressed. 

I'm not sure if we just didn't find the right place, but the chips in Brussels were a little overrated (but chips are chips, and I don't discriminate) 

We also went to visit the Atomium, which was pretty impressive although very random. Great views though, and a bit of random atomic history along the way. 

And of course visited the famous statute of 'Mannekin Pis' - a little boy peeing who owns 365 outfits which are changed daily. We found these outfits in the museum we visited after.. I wish I had that many clothes!

Overall Brussels is a really lovely place to spend a weekend, but I think two days is just about the right amount of time to spend there. It is beautiful, but quite expensive and city-like, with quite random attractions - but great food! However, the town of Bruges (coming soon) is beautiful and I wish that we had had more time to spend there. 

Honest Box

Revision = hours of procrastination on the internet reading random blogs. Every so often, you find something that is just like AFAHOKKLSAD how did this bit of the internet exist and I didn't know?!?

THIS 'webhouse' super lured me in with it's promise of 'Send me something cool' / adorably cute website/ concept of sending snacks to offices to fill in the 'awkward gaps' of the day. Their 'Snackorium' is filled with cute goodies from British producers which are for the most part, pretty healthy and all amazing.

My box came a few days after ordering (£10 including delivery - it was my revision treat) and fit nicely through my (tiny) letterbox whilst still being stuffed chock-full of goodies!

THE BOX WAS ALSO TOO CUTE. IT HAD EASTER GAMES ON IT. (apologies for background easter eggs sneaking in on the snack-fun). 

^ free game of the day xo 

The box also came with a nice quote of things that they are more British than - 'saying sorry even though we have done nothing wrong'. On to the FOOD. 

1. Super Seedy Sustain Squares - Whole Plus

These are basically the result of recipes all over the internet which require you to blend up dates and a variety of nuts etc, but in cute calorie controlled bite-size portions which taste really ridiculously good. I am proud to say that a couple are still there, I've been trying to eat them as an 11am snack.

2. Furniss Dark Chocolate Ginger Mini Biscuits 

These unfortunately didn't make it through the night because I ATE THEM ALL BECAUSE THEY WERE PRETTY AMAZING. I think they were healthy-ish so it's fine. They were fab and there was a lot of them. 

3. Giant Roasted Corn Nuts 

These are ridiculous. They taste like barbecued chicken put into crunchy bitesize corn snacks (although I am pretty sure that there is no meat at all in there!) They were really, really good even though I'm not generally into savoury-ish foods and prefer more of the... 

4. Perkier Gluten Free Rocky Road

This was my favourite thing in the box. It was literally ordained from the rocky road god - although I am probably biased because I am obsessed with anything chocolate. Marshmallows is an added bonus. Gluten Free is there to kid yourself that it is actually probably good for you and part of a healthy post-Easter diet. My 'legs bums and tums' teacher today used a nice phrase, 'carving out easter eggs from your waist'. Anyway - this was literally so so so good, but unfortunately quite moreish and depletes itself very quickly. But leaves you happy. 

5. Braw Gluten Free Apple and Pear Bar 

This made me happy because I felt like I was eating a cereal bar which tasted really good and was not packed with lies about how it's healthy when it is actually packed with more calories and sugar than a kitkat. Cereal bars, though fabulously delicious and decievingly-cute are actually generally quite high in sugar and fat. This bar is gluten free with no added sugar/wheat/dairy etc so I really hope it isn't lying :'( It also isn't too moreish so I have actually made it last for quite a few days by eating small bites at a time. 

6 - Cheeky Chunk Chocolate 

This chocolate was very good. I gobbled it up sraight away after opening the box, it was too cute and easter-appropriate to last for long! It is also organic so I hope sort of healthier than normal? (definitely cuter anyway!)

7. Uncle Joe's Mint Balls

There was about 10 of these in the box, and at first I thought they were a pretty random addition but I slowly realised the master-plan behind them. They are quite typical mints (pretty guurd) but they are there to be eaten after you eat for example, a bite of delicious Rocky Road, to take away the temptation to EAT EVERYTHING IN THE BOX. Quite a good idea. 

A very cute addition is this teensy leaflet telling you where all your snacks were made. 

On the other side a popularity leaflet, if you do decide to order a box - which I mainly decided to get because it was a one-off payment (Graze and the like's cancellation policies seem a lot of effort) - mention my name (Leanne Maskell! :) ) and you will get it for £5! SNACKS FOR £5 YAY!! I would definitely recommend this if you are:

1. gluten free - everything is gluten free whoo 

2. An Anglophile - they seem to really love Britain and all it has to offer in the way of tasty treats! 

3. A student revising for your exams - they are fab to break up the monotony 

4. Sad and need happiness - everything in this box exudes happiness. There is no negativity (except snacks potentially ending but then you can replace it with the games on your box)

5. Happy and would like to get even happier - I LOVE MAIL. and I love snacks. 

6. Like food - and especially snacks. 

Also they are generally geared towards offices so I suppose if you are a 'real adult' with a 'job' then you could get them and take them to work and be super popular that day in particular :)