In Bruges

It has been a long time since I have written one of these scintillating worldwide-interweb articles, but we are all chilling in the logement for the afternoon with nothing better to do. I suppose you (and I) should be excited about my lack of posting, because it's a strong indication that I was busy actually doing fun things.

And such fun things have indeed been brought to fruition! After our interminable classes on Friday (the last of which was actually quite interesting and entertaining*) we went out on the town to explore and enjoy more of the local culture. Most of the time we hang out in Ixelles and Elsene--two neighborhoods near the south of the city, and at least 6 metro stops from the real heart of the city. We finally took the metro to Gare Centrale/Centraalstation and got out near one of Belgium's most beautiful churches. I was overwhelmed, since most of the stuff around the campuses don't exceed 2 or 3 stories. It was some kind of basilica or cathedral built from white stone (most of the others are brick), and when contrasted with the low-slung kind of Dutch-style row houses all over the city, the thing really blew my mind. Anyway, we proceeded to walk around for quite a while until we found a restaurant right by the Grande Place/Grote Markt. I had Stoemp Bruxellois which is a specialty of Belgium: a kind of mashed potato-vegetable-bacon casserole, with black and white sausage. Upon further inspection, and much to my chagrin, I came to realize the "black" sausage was... Dieu me bénissez!... a blood sausage. I tried it cautiously, remembering the rillettes and blood sausages i was persuaded into choking down in France. This was not only the best blood sausage I have ever had, it rivaled kramarczuk's brats in my book! Such a pleasant surprise, especially when combined with the hoegaarden blanche. My epicurean adventures would not end there, but let's leave it at that for the moment. We went out later to a place in Ixelles and did the laid-back European kind of nightlife thing... It was lovely.

*Interesting and Entertaining: The afternoon speaker was from the EP's communications division. He spoke 13 languages fluently, and had some knowledge of 5 more. He was Czech, and related to us some extremely salient personal history about how his perception was altered by the Prague Spring 1968 and the fall of the Iron Curtain. He was by far the most genuine speaker of the bunch, and the rationale for his support of the EU has resonated with me much more than the other, more bureaucratic, characters. To see his office's amazing lip sync video, which was produced as an advertisement for the Sakharov prize, check out the link.

Anyway, let' s continue. The next morning we woke up bright and early (using the term "awake" as loosely as possible) at 7 in the morning (1:00am my time) and proceeded to hop 2 metros and a train to fabulous Bruges. NB: In French it is spelled Brugges but the dominant language there is Dutch so in the interest of fairness I will respect their dactylic method. The train ride was exactly an hour, so it was a pleasant experience if not for the fact that I was still about 98% asleep. The next thing I remember, I had my face in one of the most delicious cappuccinos of my life. It made everything else infinitely more enjoyable. And dang, we did a lot of stuff! Shopping on the little side streets, lunch in a cafe outside the big belltower that the guy falls from in the movie... (Did you know? If you actually see the thing you'll realize it is impossible for him to have fallen on the ground because of the tower's construction... look at the pics below. He would have been skewered on a parapet.) Where was I? A chocolate museum with chocolatier demonstrations, a brewery tour, (best tour I've ever been on!) a canal boat ride... the list goes on. And of course what else could we do? We had to have waffles and real Frites Belgiques with a huge dollop of fresh mayonnaise on top! These aren't so much Belgian specialties as they are Flemish specialties. In Brussels it's not as emphatically advertised. Anyway, the pictures I'll post will give you a much better idea of the experience. Yes, I have pictures! Ooh la la.

Today we went to a kind of flea/junk market for a while, but as is customary in the low countries, it rained intermittently all morning and prevented us from doing much. We did manage to walk around and finally got a good view of some of Brussels' most beautiful structures. Tomorrow is the Belgian National Holiday. Hopefully I'll get some sweet pictures of military demonstrations and perhaps a couple shots of the King of Belgium (descended from King Boudewijn I, it is apparent that this dude doesn't mess around.)

I'm really getting more settled, and it was beyond exciting to get to travel to another destination within the trip I'm already on! It helped make Brussels seem more like our place of residence and not just a kind of extended hotel stay. Bruges is unfortunately quite touristy, but aside from the Grote Markt and the Mannekin Pis, Brussels is quite formal and doesn't lend itself well to busloads of Germans, Japanese, and Americans. You will see the occasional fat guy in a Yankees hat, but they just don't conglomerate like they will in other cities. Plenty of people visit here, but it seems to me that the infrastructure is not suited to tour-on madness. Brussels seems almost like a secret, only a couple hours from both Amsterdam and Paris, and yet not nearly as exciting to the average traveler. When you see the pictures you may get a better idea of why I think I may like it better than the others.

Anyway, happy birthday to my brother Graham! He is 17 today, and only 365 days away from being a college-bound 18-year-old rapscallion. I hope you like your gift, Graham! I'm looking around for a late present too... hopefully I'll figure it out before I leave. The Czech guy explained to us that in Czech, as a result of Radio Free Europe and USO productions, all say "Ahoi" when greeting each other or when departing. So, to conclude the written portion of this super-epic marathon post, Ahoi!