Brussels: You never know when you'll get hit.

Originally posted February 23, 2004

The third foray of the semester was a success. Destination: Brussels, Belgium, with a day trip to Bruges on Saturday. I had surprising interest from other members of the cohort, but I guess when its the chocolate capital of the world and the round trip is 40€, it’s not hard to get people to come. So we headed off on Friday morning, 5 of us, on a Eurolines bus going direct to Brussels. We arrived in Brussels around 1pm and went to our hostel which turned out to be a really cool communal hang out spot. We met a lot of people there, including a Canadian guy and his two friends from Holland who happened to be taking a weekend in Brussels. They were in our dorm room and we struck up a conversation while we were getting settled. Once again, the hostel atmosphere delivers.

We went off sightseeing in downtown Brussels. We walked through the streets finding a juxtaposition of modern, glass surfaced high rise office buildings, ancient churches and gigantic palaces. We got to the heart of the old city and were charmed. I had a non-negotiable eating list, consisting of waffles (gaufres in French), moules frites (a Belgian specialty consisting of steamed mussels, French fries which were invented in Brussels, topped with your choice of over 20 different sauces), and chocolate. We started off with some fries from a famous “friterie” downtown exclusively devoted to the fried potato sticks. They had an entire wall of different sauces to choose from and before we decided on one, we pulled the “oh can we taste a few first?” trick. It reminded me of the time in seventh grade that my friend Carissa and I were bored one summer day and walked up to Baskin Robbins and asked to try all 31 flavors, and they let us. It was really fun and in the end we decided on the “Brésilienne” and good ol’ fashioned ketchup. The guy at the store was very amused and happy to indulge our testing binge. The fries were delicious, thick-sliced, really crispy on the outside, hot, and perfectly textured on the inside. It didn’t take us long to finish off the two cones we bought to share between us.

After our fries we walked around the city some more and found the Grand Place which held gothic churches and gilded town halls that give on to a large cobblestone square in the center. It was mostly gray but livened up with fire-engine red door and window frames and generous gold embellishments over every façade. We walked through the shopping districts and in front of the monstrous Palais de Justice where they have court proceedings. Its 75 foot high dome overshadows the small square before it, and the stone darkened with age and pollution gives a foreboding, but also impressive feeling, quite appropriate to strike fear into the hearts of Brussels’ criminals.

Grand Place, Brussels

Then we walked through the town past the most famous chocolatier in Brussels: Wittamer. We had to stop in. They had little bits of their dark chocolate out to taste and behind 12 feet of glass display cases, every sort of chocolate treat you can think of. Then they had some more in the back of the store. They had everything from champagne truffles to raspberry-dark chocolate pyramids, to coffee ganache and beyond. We all bought stuff one or two for our friends and host families…and for ourselves. We walked in and the whole places smelled like warm melted butter and chocolate which is the smell of the cocoa butter which they use to make the chocolates on premise. Closest thing to heaven on earth I’ve encountered in a while. After we all walked out with our beautifully bundled up chocolates in pretty bags and boxes with ribbons, we walked to the statue/fountain of the little boy peeing which is one of the most famous landmarks in Brussels. Entitled “Mannekin Pis”, the story goes that a little boy, Julien, got separated from his father upon their arrival to Brussels and was lost for three days. When his father finally found him, he was literally caught with his pants down in the middle of the street. His father erected this statue to commemorate their joyful reunion and to teach his son a lesson about lewd behavior.

With our Wittamer Chocolates

Mannekin Pis

After we saw the statue we walked back to the hostel to take a break before going out to dinner. We met up with our Dutch and Canadian friends and asked them if they wanted to come out with us. They agreed and we all met in the bar of the hostel to grab a drink and get better acquainted before heading out into the cold night. We walked again to the center of Brussels, this time there were nine of us, and we found a good Thai restaurant that was the only place that had room for us all. The food was great and so was the wine we ordered. We just sat around and talked and traded traveling stories and cultural differences. After dinner we went to a bar across the street to hang out a little more. It was crowded and really lively. They were playing great music and we all got taught how to salsa by our new friends. It was a fantastic night and we got home around 2am exhausted and looking forward to our trip to Bruges the next day. We got up the next day not as early as we had planned and managed to catch the free breakfast at the hostel. I had gone running in the Parc de Bruxelles that morning and through the botanical garden and was ready to go. We finally got out the door around 10:30, walked to the train station and caught the train out west of Brussels to Bruges near the northern coast, a medieval city and reportedly one of the most romantic and most visited in all of Europe. It is known as the “Venice of the north” because it features many canals and small walkways. While not as colorful, it remains just as charming, if not more so than Venice.

Bruges

It was bitterly cold and windy, no sun, but it fit the city well, even if it did make walking around uncomfortable. I loved the picturesque bridges and flower boxes, the medieval churches, the windmill lined road on the outskirts of town, the small houses in the Dutch style, and almost everything that had to do with the city. Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child managed to find its way into the Notre Dame cathedral there. After finishing the Agony and the Ecstasy, seeing it held much greater import. I could place it in the context of Michelangelo’s life and why he sculpted it. I almost want to redo the Italy trip so I can have the same context for the works I saw there. I would also like to know how the sculpture ended up in Bruges.

We took our time walking through the streets, we took a boat tour that gave a historical background of Bruges. Then we ducked into a little café on the corner near where we got off the boat to warm up. We stumbled upon the most famous waffle house in Belgium and, not wanting to pass up the opportunity, ordered waffles. When they arrived we were totally speechless. They were works of art: perfect steaming golden bricks piled high with chocolate or strawberries (or both) with whipped cream and all with a snowy layer of powdered sugar. We almost didn’t want to eat them they were so perfect, but who am I kidding. We ate them with gusto. They were just like the fries: cooked to crispy perfection on the outside and light, soft and bready on the inside. We were sent into orbit. Some of us got hot chocolate to go with them and it was like having a dark chocolate bar melted in your cup. Not ever wanting to leave the café, we started discussing plans to move to Belgium.

After the café it was getting to be around 4pm so we walked to a celebrated brewery in town and waited to take a tour. It is the home of Straffe Hendrick beer which is only sold in Bruges and London. It is guarded with pride by the locals and they don’t like to share. As we learned on the tour of the old factory, it actually contains extract of cannabis plant, one of the only legal drugs in Belgium and was used in the middle ages to alleviate depression and pain. No wonder Belgian people are so much nicer than Parisians. We got to see all the brewing tanks and taken through the process of making the beer step by step. We also got led up to the top of the factory where we got a great view of the whole town. Our tour guide spoke English with interesting and quirky translations that always drew a laugh. We went down to the bar after the tour and all got our free half-pints of the beer. It was pretty strong with 6% alcohol content but it had a natural, crisp flavor that was enjoyably bitter. After the brewery, it was getting dark so we decided to go back to the train station and catch a train back to Brussels. We boarded at 7:30pm and began the short ride home. It felt wonderful to sit after a long day of walking back and forth all over the town.

Things took a turn for the worse about 20 minutes into the ride though. Three of us had seats together in one little section and the rest were seated in the one right before us. We were chatting and recounting the events of the day when I see a teenage guy walking back through the car rather quickly, but erratically then suddenly he projectile vomits all over Emily right behind us and also manages to hit Catherine’s shoulder sitting in front of her and a few other seats in the immediate area. Emily has a reaction not unlike that of Carrie when the blood gets dumped on her, and starts freaking out. The kid mumbles “sorry” and keeps walking like nothing happened. Meanwhile, there is a huge pool of upchuck on the floor right by our seats and one of our companions is losing it. Emily and Catherine high tail it to the lavatory to do what they can to get it off them. Rachel and I gather up all our stuff and theirs and seriously run out of the car because the smell was so bad I was starting to gag. We moved to the car behind us, put the stuff down, and Rachel went to go see how our friends were doing while I stayed with the stuff. Emily’s jacket was ruined and she was thoroughly disgusted. It didn’t get all over her, but it did get in her hair and on her face. Rachel and I did the best we could to calm them down. We left them to their scrubbing and went to go sit down. The train conductors did not help them at all, did not say sorry, DID NOT EVEN CLEAN UP THE MESS for the duration of the train ride. It just stayed there. One French gentleman was completely incensed and he hunted down the culprit and chewed him out. The older man came back into the car cursing and yelling “Dégolasse! Incroyable! Ce n’est pas possible, ça!” We didn’t see the teenage guy for a long time but then he comes into the car we were in and sits down with his friend in the seat behind us. He chuckles a bit, covers his face embarrassedly and goes to sleep. His friend commiserated with him and meanwhile Rachel and I are getting up to move further away for fear of a repeat incident. Catherine and Emily come back with disgusted and disheveled looks on their faces. We all want to be off the train as soon as possible. They were also thoroughly angry the train conductors did nothing to the guy, didn’t clean it up, and were not sympathetic in the least to Emily or Catherine. The guy himself didn’t even bother to say sorry. I regret now not going and yelling at him. He was right there and I never said a word. We got off the train and “Pukey” as we named him, got off at our station. It had started to become comical to Catherine, who had reacted with disgusted laughter and disbelief when she got hit, but she hadn’t gotten it near as bad as poor Emily. We got Emily back as soon as possible and offered to take her out to dinner but at that point she just wanted to go to bed. So Catherine changed, we all sat down, looked at each other, and started to laugh about what had happened. It was so outrageous. We laughed about it all the way into town for dinner.

We went to a place that the owner of the hostel had recommended called Fin de Siècle. Down a small sidestreet, the restaurant was narrow but very long and high-ceilinged. It was really busy and we had to wait for a table but it was WELL worth the wait. Catherine got a chicken tandoori that was grilled with amazing spices like paprika and curry and was moist and tender, Meredith got lamb and pasta with a tomato sauce of cheese and vegetables, I got smoked salmon and Rachel got sausages with spinach and garlic mashed potatoes which were the most incredible mashed potatoes I’ve ever tasted. So dinner itself was a success then we all got desert to reward ourselves for getting through that disaster of a train ride. I got coffee ice- cream with caramel sauce, whipped cream, cinnamon and hazelnut shavings which blew me away, Catherine got chocolate ice cream with melted dark-chocolate, chocolate shavings and whipped cream, Meredith got mousse au chocolate and Rachel got tarte-tatin which is baked apples with vanilla ice cream in a pie shell with lots of cinnamon in a sauce that is like crème anglaise. The others decided mine won the prize for best dessert. I couldn’t decide between that and the tarte-tatin. It was a good way to finish off a day of ups and downs. The owner was really nice too and when I told him our story he gave us all a free glass of wine. We went back to the hostel exhausted but totally satisfied and with a good taste in our mouths to combat the remnants of the odors from the train ride. The next morning we got up, ate breakfast and headed out to the art museum. It had a gigantic collection, over 12 levels of galleries in a spread out complex. Among its more famous works are a few Seurats, Courbets, and most notably, Death of Marat by David. We also ventured into the contemporary art section to see some of the artists we had been learning about and it was vindication to go through and not be totally turned off to the canvases of broken violins, or pictures of dead people that were only assembled, not taken, by the artist, or stripes on a wall that are supposed to be art. I walked through being able to tell myself why this is displayed in a museum and citing the different ideologies. Normally if I even go into the wing its just because its on the way to the exit, and what I see I react to with anger because it seems to wrong to call a blue square of plastic on a wall, or a simple date on a canvas art. The class is helping me combat this, even though most of it I won’t ever really like.

After the art museum we took one last walk through town and then went back to get our bags and go to the train station. We boarded the bus no problems and sat back to relax on the ride back to Paris. We couldn’t help but bring up the misadventures of Pukey and Bruges. We will all miss the waffles, but we have enough chocolate to last us for a while.

Belgium was a win. The people were, in general, more kind and more helpful than Parisians (excluding our train conductor). The cities were smaller and totally accessible on foot. The architecture was different, older, and the centers had a certain charm to them. It was an enjoyable mix of modern commerce and old- world Europe. It’s hard to believe from the Grand Place in Brussels that its also the capital of the EU. Had it not been so cold I think we would have had an even better time. It’d be nice to be able to put off all travel until warmer weather but there is NO TIME! I have been in communication with a friend from William and Mary in London this semester and have the opportunity to go to Prague with him next weekend. It goes into the booking stages tomorrow and I’m hoping it all works out.

I have two weeks left of classes. Finals are next week, then there’s Greece which is still in planning stages. Looks like I’ll be taking my first solo trip. I’m kind of looking forward to it, even though it's difficult seeing all the amazing stuff and not having anyone to share it with. I’ll just write extra long journal entries and pretend it’s my dialogue with you all, my cyber traveling companions. In closing, special shout out to my little bro who has his first real gig with his band this Friday night. Good luck lil’ guy! Love, Big sis. Until next time!