A couple quick warnings before I start this too-long post: as I'm sure I've already mentioned, my camera sucks at night, and at least half of my photos were taken in the evening, so excuse the blurriness. And I'm also really really tired, so excuse the typos/sentences that make no sense. This morning we woke up, walked to the train station, sat on a bus for an hour, waited in an airport for three hours, sat in an airplane for an hour and a half, then waited in another airport for an hour, sat on a bus and then a tram for almost another hour...you get the point, it was tiring. Anyways...
The trip to Belgium was great for a few reasons: I was with great people (which I've found is basically what makes or breaks a trip, there was a lot of laughing), it was the first time I was able to go somewhere without having to bring some sort of homework to do (as if I ever really did it anyways), and Christmas: Brussels has one of the more well-known Christmas markets in Europe, and they also played a lot of typical American Christmas songs which I've been missing out on these last few weeks. And there were waffles and more chocolate shops than you can imagine. And I also got a cool hat. AND it was SO much warmer than I had expected. After Strasbourg I was ready to freeze my butt off and I came prepared: gloves, thick socks, long sleeved shirts, etc. Turns out I didn't really need all of that, it felt like fall.
Our plane got in after dark Saturday night, and like many Ryan Air flights, we landed in the middle of nowhere, so we had to bus for an hour to get to Brussels. We got there, ate, walked a half hour to our hostel, got settled, and headed out to the Christmas market.
In all honesty, initially I wasn't very impressed with Brussels. At first glance it looked like Seattle without the Space Needle (it actually made me really homesick that first night). But it was to be expected; I was in a capital city, of course it was going to be very globalized. Last summer when I was in Poland I visited Warsaw for the first time for a day on our way back home, and I remember feeling like I had left the country and arrived back in the US. Brussels? Similar feeling.
The Christmas market was nice though. From what I've observed Europeans don't go nuts decorating their houses for Christmas like Americans do, so it hasn't really felt like Christmas for me at all.
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The advertisement for our shuttle to Brussels. I was going to wait to explain this, but I should do it now, lest you get the impression that this is a city of pedophilia. One of the most famous things to see in Brussels is the Manneken Pis, a small statue of a little boy peeing. There are several legends, here are the two I heard, copy-pasted from Wikipedia because I'm just that classy.
"Legend states that in the 14th century, Brussels was under siege by a foreign power. The city had held its ground for some time, so the attackers conceived of a plan to place explosive charges at the city walls. A little boy named Julianske happened to be spying on them as they were preparing. He urinated on the burning fuse and thus saved the city. There was at the time (middle of the 15th century, perhaps as early as 1388) a similar statue made of stone. The statue was stolen several times.
Another story (told often to tourists) tells of a wealthy merchant who, during a visit to the city with his family, had his beloved young son go missing. The merchant hastily formed a search party that scoured all corners of the city until the boy was found happily urinating in a small garden. The merchant, as a gift of gratitude to the locals who helped out during the search, had the fountain built."
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Christmas Market:
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| "I give myself 2 hours of vacation per day." Truth. NOTHING describes the French more than this little hand-made ornament. |
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| Adam and Marina, my awesome travel buddies. Lots of laughing with these two. |
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| Grand Place, the central tourist area, is essentially a square lined with old buildings. Here's a better photo I found on Google, I suggest YouTube-ing it, my photos didn't turn out too hot: |
There was this light show that was played over and over again each night. At first it was pretty cool. Then it became less cool. And by the third night we were doing everything in our power to stay as far away from it as possible:
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| I have nothing to say except that I love you, aaaaaw...., thanks window, I love you too |
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| On the window of a hookah bar... very nice, very nice |
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| Hostel, it was a nice one...despite the guy next to me who chose to sleep in his briefs and no covers. I woke up and the first thing I saw: a butt. |
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| Hostel common area |
After that we wandered away from the center a bit. I like to wander and it was nice to be with people willing to do the same. At one point we ran into a movie theater and took a look at what was playing, after a few moments we realized it was an erotic theater...okay, walking away now. After that I'm not sure where we went exactly, but eventually we ended up going back to the market where it was so crowded we all got separated from each other and spent the next hour or so attempting to find one other. In the meantime I got chestnuts, which were fantastic. I found Adam, then by some miracle we found Marina on the way back to the hostel. And then we slept.
The next day we went to Bruges (where French was replaced by Flemish), a city an hour away by train. The city itself was nice, especially around the canal which was surrounded by colorful little houses, it reminded me a little of Strasbourg. Beyond that, it was very....shop-ey. It felt like an outdoor mall, equipped with all the name brands you know and love, along with a lot of chocolate shops. We basically walked around all day, at one point we stepped into a cafe and I got a soup, the others got a coffee, and we sat there for quite a while and chatted. Oh, and I got a cool hat.
This was still in Brussels:
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| Thanks Santa, can't say the feeling in mutual though |
And welcome to Bruges...
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| T'was covered in caramelized sugar and yummy. Could have used some coffee to go with it though |
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| On the right, that's pealed apple slices, I thought it was amazing |
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| Draaaaaaank |
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| We found this hilarious, a bunch of little kids with alcohol. I don't know... I don't think the one on the left is going to make it. |
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| It's not a trip in Europe unless you see at least two churches per day |
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| I got a hat. That is all. |
And then we got back to Brussels and got some food. We ended up sitting, talking, just relaxing for what felt like hours. "We should get up" "yeah, we should," and then none of us would move. But eventually we got up, and we went once more to the Christmas market!
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| More peeing child, lovely. |
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| You're welcome |
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| This was an odd little contraption we ran into. It was supposed to represent the life cycle of an iceberg. As you walk under, each arc makes a different tone, apparently icebergs resonate and make different tones as water gets inside their cracks. I'm not sure exactly how it works, the explanation was a little hard to understand. |
Next day was reserved for seeing Brussels. We had bought a map at the office of tourism the day we got there, and there were three walking routes marked on it, each corresponding to a theme. We followed two and we ended up walking ALL OVER, we were wandering around for something like 12 hours.
The first "tour" was the Europe Walk. Brussels is essentially the capital of the EU, all the big shiny important buildings are there, so we saw all of that:
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| Church that I forgot the name of. I actually really liked this one; Brussels is apparently a very international city, and all around the church various cultural groups had each made their own nativity. We spent quite a bit of time looking around |
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| Belgium is the home of many of the oldest and most well-known comics, so I suppose if there's going to be a comic in a church, it should be in Brussels |
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| Even found Poland |
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| Palais Royal |
EU Parliament buildings:
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| EU Parliament |
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| No idea what building this is, but it looked cool |
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| "Welcome to the euro area Latvia!" Aw, look at the European hospitality |
Then we decided to go to the "Parlementarium," a museum, I guess I would call it, all about the history of the EU, and exactly how it functions today. In conclusion I left there being certain I don't want to go into politics. We had actually only really gone in there to find a bathroom, but once we went through the metal detectors (yeah, they made us do that) and realized that it was free, we decided we might as well stay, and I'm glad we did, it was interesting. They gave us our little audio guides (which were offered in basically every language, Adam got French, Marina got English, and I got Polish, it was quite the mix) and we got started.
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| showing the direction and distance to all the major cities |
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| The wall was lined with photos of significant events and movements that had defined each decade |
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This was a neat idea. On the ground was a map of Europe and you would roll these little machines around until you were on top of one of the designated major cities, there were several per country, and a video would play, you would learn something about the current events/developments of that city.
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| I don't think it's in this photo, but off in the distance is the famous Atomium (basically the Space Needle of Brussels). It's a half hour away by public transportation so we decided it wasn't worth the trip. There were quite a few neat-looking things a little ways out of the city, if I ever come but I'll try to tackle those. |
(thanks Google images)
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| Palais de Justice |
That concluded walk number one, then we did the Bande Dessineé walk (comic strip walk). This was really awesome. Remember what I said about this being the birthplace of many famous comics? All around the city there are murals, comic-strip style. It was nice because it took us ALL around the city and forced us to see more than just the touristy center. There were a ton, we didn't see all of them, and I'm only posting a few.
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| This got mixed in here somehow, here is the actual Manneken Pis, tiny little thing in a corner |
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| FINALLY found my name somewhere |
We finally stopped to get something to eat which was absolutely heavenly. I had been living off of bread and bananas the whole day, and I needed real food. Bad. We wandered for a bit and finally found an Asian restaurant. It's been so long!!! I had some stir fry chicken stuff. When our food came out none of us said a word, total silence besides the clicking of our forks. It was exactly what we needed. Then we acted all French and sat around in the restaurant for a long time and talked; we were all pretty exhausted.
After that we saw some more bandes dessinnées, swung by the Christmas market for more chestnuts, and headed back to the hostel.
And then came today, which, like I said, was exhausting. I do have one rather interesting story: we were standing outside of our shuttle bus, a 17 euro trip, and some guy came up to us and tried to get us to go with him, saying he would get us there for 13. We were tempted, but he was very...pushy. We had gone so far as to cross the street toward his van, but then decided against it. The man proceeded to cross the street to us, and asked us if we're American. Yes...?
"That is why you do not trust us. Well I do not trust you too, because you are burning down the world." He pointed at Adam, "YOU, you are burning down the world."
It was the first anti-Americanism I had encountered here. I didn't take it personally, though, especially after I saw him and his friend do the exact same thing to everyone who rejected their odd attempts at offering their services. They were practically pulling people out of the line for the shuttle.
But we made it here safely. Brussels may not have been my favorite city, but it was definitely one of my favorite trips, it was a good one to end on.
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| Classy |
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| Chestnuts |
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| Ahhhh... tourist fart. The best kind. |
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| EVERYWHERE! |
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| Landing in Montpellier for the last time! :( |
