More Rain in Brussels

Once we got over the smell of my wet shoes, we finally managed to get into bed and start to drift off to sleep.  We were just about in dreamland when we were abruptly woken up by shouts in the hallway.  At first we thought that there must be some sort of emergency or at least a big inter-familial fight going on, but when we looked out to investigate it turns out that it was just a happy get-together.  Apparently all the rest of the rooms on our floor had been reserved by one large family whose idea of expressing their love for one another is slamming doors and yelling until 2 a.m.  At least they were well coordinated; every time we would go out to try to ask them to be quiet, they were conveniently hidden inside a room and actually being quite noiseless.

Needless to say, by the time we finally did fall asleep, we were a bit sour on our neighbors.  It didn't help that they all got up around 6 a.m. to start the routine of banging and yelling all over again.  We tried to sleep through it, but finally just gave in and decided to head to breakfast.  Of course, guess who we found in the breakfast room!  Yes, our lovely neighbors!  Turns out they were so busy making lots of noise that none of them had time to shower--they all smelled horrible!  I guess this is what we get for staying at cheap hotels--it does seem to be a recurring theme, doesn't it?

Once the noisy family managed to organize themselves out the door (lots of screaming required for the task, of course), we realized how nice the hotel and breakfast were.  For the price, we really didn't expect much of the breakfast, but it was really diverse!  They even had an espresso machine, of which I took full advantage.  Of course, being in a culturally French area, there was plenty of bread and various spread to go on top.  Don't forget the Nutella!  We enjoyed the rest of our breakfast in silence, enjoying the nice sunny view out the window and hoping that today might be more pleasant on the weather front than yesterday.

The weather had other plans, however, because by the time we got out the door, it was gloomy and raining.  At least we remembered our umbrellas this time!  We didn't have much of a plan other than to explore the city, so we headed back towards the main square.  When we arrived we saw a large group all staring wide-mouthed at one of the buildings.  We closed in to investigate what was so interesting about this particular building, and discovered that these people were part of a free English-language tour of the city.  We were half an hour late to the start, but joined in anyway.

Because we missed the beginning of the tour, I missed the guide's name.  The group was so large (and seemed to grow progressively along the route), that I never even managed to get close enough to him to ask, either!  But he was a great guide!  He is originally from Scotland, but has already lived in eight different European countries, working as a tour guide in all of them.  He is really passionate about history and culture, and even studied law at University.  His education and enthusiasm really showed through on the tour, and I even dare say that it was the most entertaining (not to mention informative) tours I've ever been on!  He somehow managed to get a group of more than 40 people to follow him around in heavy rain for almost four hours--that is no mean feat!

Here are some highlights from the tour:

A typical Brussels street corner.  The top graffiti is encouraged and sponsored by the local government.  The second, the Space Invader, is created by an anonymous street artist who travels the world putting similar pieces on famous landmarks (Great Wall of China, anyone?).  No one knows anything about him, expect they suspect that his is from Paris based on the high concentration of Space Invaders there.  The white street sign is the "modern" name of the street, usually after famous people or events.  The blue sign is the "traditional" name of the street.  Because Brussels started as a market town, most of the streets are named after the goods that were sold there.  This is Brewers' Street.  All street signs are written in both French (top) and Dutch (bottom).

This bronze statue is the pride and joy of Brussels--"Manneken Pis."  Yes, that means "Little Pee Man" in Dutch. It was originally placed around 1618, but has been stolen repeatedly (eight times) since then.  The current statue is a reproduction created in 1965 after the most recent heist.  The city is so proud of this guy that they actually have on staff a full-time costume designer whose sole job is to create outfits for Manneken Pis to wear.  He has a new one every few days.  Apparently today is his "au naturale" day.  There is so much more history to this little guy than I can fit here, so go check out his Wiki for more fun facts!

This is the interior of the Église Notre Dame du Bon Secours in downtown Brussels.  The church itself isn't very grand as far as European churches go, but I liked the juxtaposition of the symbols of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all in the same place.  Wonder what would happen if we tried this in the States?

There are murals of cartoon characters all over the city; in fact, the government has sponsored most of them and you can even get special tourist maps that lead you to all of them.  This one is located at the entrance to the traditionally gay neighborhood of Brussels.  It was quite controversial when it was first painted in 1992.  The blond figure on the right is Broussaille, a character from a popular comic magazine, "Spirou."  The work was originally titled simple "Broussaille and his friend."  However, there was an outcry because it was unclear whether the black-haired person was male or female.  To combat this, the city had the mural redone, adding more feminine features to the bust and butt, and adding an earring.  To clear up any remaining confusion, the work was retitled "Broussaille and his girlfriend, Catherine."

This is actually the oldest church in Brussels.  It was originally built in the twelfth century, and is called "St, Nicholas Church," after the patron saint of traders.  It has obviously been remodeled a few times since then, but some of the original features are still visible on the interior.  There is even a cannonball fired by the French in 1695 still lodged in one of the pillars!

This is the view at the end of the tour, overlooking the city of Brussels.  It's beautiful even in the rain!

Unfortunately, because we had just hopped on the tour without any planning (or going to the bank), by the time it finished we realized that we didn't have any cash on us.  I know, I know; I did said it was a free tour, but the guide was so awesome that we really thought he deserved some sort of tip!  While everyone else was paying and saying their good-byes, we looked around for an ATM, but to no avail.  Instead, we vowed that we would track him down again some time before the week was through to give him his tip.

The tour ended near another important square.  I can't remember the name, but it should probably have been called "Gourmet Square" based on all the different types of food offered by the various restaurants there.  It was after 3:00 by now and despite our large breakfast, we were hungry!  We decided to try some local fare, and headed into a Belgian cafe for a quick lunch and reprieve from the rain.  The main attraction of the cafe was its "authentic" Belgian waffles, so of course we had to try one of those (covered in Belgian chocolate, no less!).  As much as we would have loved to eat only desserts all day, we were good an also ordered a curry sandwich to share.  They were both super delicious, although after the night that we had I have to say my favorite part of the meal was the big mugs of espresso we had to complement it (complete with EU sugar packets, in case we forgot where we were).

We did our best to delay our departure from the cafe and back into the rain, but eventually we ran out of excuses to stay.  We decided it might be a good idea to try to find an indoor activity, at least until the rain slowed a bit.  We remembered passing by a museum yesterday, and although we weren't entirely clear on what was inside the museum, knew that it was nearby and that it was open late.  That seemed a good enough reason as any to go, so we did.

DaVinci's Tank.

Belgian Stock Market.
All of it.

It turns out that it wasn't actually a museum per se, but the Stock Market building.  Belgium used to have their own stock market, but it was bought out by the NYSE a few years ago.  Since then, most of the building has been unnecessary for market activities and has been used for cultural purpose instead.  Right now, most of the building houses an exhibit called "DaVinci: The Genius."  The great part about this exhibit is that it is mainly a display of actual models built based on DaVinci's ideas.  There is even an entire room full of contraptions that you can experiment with yourself!  Sadly, the tank was not among the "touchable" objects, but it was still neat to see all of DaVinci's ideas actually created.  Some of them had even been tested, like a giant, pyramid-shaped parachute.  Based on modern knowledge, it doesn't seem like it should work.  But a professional skydiver was brave enough to build it (using only materials and techniques available during DaVinci's time), and to test it by jumping out of a hot air balloon.  Luckily for the skydiver, DaVinci was a smart cookie and the parachute worked.

We wandered around the museum for over three hours, only managing to pry ourselves away when we began to get hungry again.  By now, the sky had cleared and it was actually dry outside.  We decided to take advantage of the relatively nice weather to have a meal outdoors.  Even so, we chose a restaurant that offered covered seating and outdoors heaters.  The restaurant was a bit pricey, but they had decent daily specials, so we ordered those.  I finally got to try some moules frites (something I'd seen with Mom in France but never got around to trying), and some Belgian beer.  Both were very good (despite the reputation of Belgian beers).  Scott had the less exotic spaghetti bolognese, but also got to try some Belgian beer.

We were still a little hungry after dinner, so we headed over to the chocolate shops to see if we could find a little treat to fill us up.  By the time we had checked out all the shops, we didn't need to buy a treat anymore--they had all given us so many samples we could hardly think about food anymore.  Nonetheless, we did buy a bag of assorted chocolates, just in case we got hungry later.

It started to downpour again on the way home, but we did fare better than yesterday with our umbrellas this time.  Until we stood too close to a corner and got splashed as a car turned the corner, that is.  At least by now I had discovered the versatility of our hair dryer!

Blow Drying Brussels

Once again, we have a week off from school--I love the British school system!  We get breaks just about every 6 weeks, and good ones, too!  None of this long weekend stuff; we always get at least a week, if not two, off!  I even did my best to be organized, and started to research and book a trip a full month before the actual break (last time I think we finally ended up choosing a destination about three days before departures).

We decided that we should be far enough into spring by the end of May that it would be safe to venture to one of the more "northern" countries without turning into human icicles.  We debated between France, Holland, Belgium and Germany for our trip.  Belgium turned out to be the winner, mostly because the train tickets to there were much cheaper than anywhere else.  We knew absolutely nothing about Belgium, but we figured we could learn about it as we went.

By the time break rolled around, the forecast for the week (both in England and Belgium) was rain.  The whole week.  While I appreciated this in England (I was worried my garden would die while we were gone), I wasn't too excited about the prospect of an entire rainy vacation.  But what can you do?  We crossed our fingers, hoped for the best, and began our journey.

The Eurostar train wasn't scheduled to leave until almost 11:00 a.m., but we still had to catch the bus and the Capital Connect train just to get to St. Pancras in London.  To be on the safe side, we caught the 7:30 bus from just outside our house.  It was only a few minutes late (ok, it didn't arrive until almost 8:00, but that's pretty good for the buses around here).  Luckily, the traffic must have been good or the driver must have really been gunning it because we still made it to the train station in time to catch the express train into London.  We arrived at Kings Cross right around 9:30 a.m.

Luckily, St. Pancras is just across the street, so we didn't have to navigate the city too much.  There was a bit of a line at check-in, but we found that no one was particularly interested in using the automated machines, so we took advantage and grabbed our tickets from one in less than five minutes.  With nothing else to do but wait, we headed through security (so much easier than going through at the airport), and into the waiting lounge.

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It was still earlier than the time I normally wake up, so the first thing we did was make a beeline straight for the coffeeshop.  I ordered the largest, sugary-est drink I could find.  It was delicious.  The lounge was crowded with families with young children.  We wondered what was in Belgium that attracted so many families, but then we heard the announcement for boarding of the train to EuroDisney.  The lounge was clear of children in about 5 minutes.  We enjoyed watching the way different children rode the escalator--you can tell so much about their personality based solely on their methods!  Some kids cling to their parents or older siblings, while others try to weave their way through the crowd to get to the top first.  One kid was even trying to ride up by sitting on the moving handrail!

Only a few minutes after the departure of the Disney train, we were called to board ours.  I don't know if there is some secret to booking the tickets, but so far every time I've booked online we end up at a four-seater table.  Since there are only ever two of us, we always end up sharing with other people.  So far it hasn't been too bad, and we even met a really interesting guy on the way back from France.  This time, we sat across from another young couple.

They were content to ignore us, and that suited us just fine since we were mostly just interested in sleeping.  It's probably a good thing we didn't end up talking, because we probably would have ended up in a fight. They were discussing their next career moves, and the girl explained that she wanted to go back to school to become a teacher.  "Yea," she said, "I'll probably get bored of it really soon, and I don't really like children all that much, but the holidays are awesome!  I don't really have to like it, because I'll get 16 paid weeks off per year."  Yep, those are definitely the kind of people who should go into teaching.

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We managed to successfully ignore the rest of our table-partners' conversation and had a pretty uneventful ride through the Chunnel and across the French countryside (all of which Scott missed because he was sleeping like a rock).  We arrived in Belgium right on time, around 2:30.  We were happily surprised to see that not only was it not raining, it was actually fairly sunny and warm!  After a longer-than-expected trek to our hotel, we got settled in and decided to head out an explore a bit in the nice weather.  Of course we didn't think of bringing umbrellas!

The hotel was just about two miles from the city center, and we enjoyed strolling through some interesting neighborhoods on the way.  Unlike other cities that have segregated cultural areas, in Brussels it seems that all the cultures thrive right next to each other.  In the same block we passed by a Pakistani tea house, a Spanish grocery, a Brazilian clothing store, a Moroccan bakery, and a Filipino dry goods store.  And of course all the signs were in French and Dutch.

By around 4:00 we could tell that we were getting into the "touristy" part of town, as evidenced by the throngs of confused people huddled around the windows of the chocolate shops.  It was just about this time that the weather decided that it was about time to fulfill the forecast and start raining.  It wasn't too bad at first, so we continued our walk, enjoying the ornate architecture in the downtown area.  We even found the main square, the Grand Place.  Our timing couldn't have been more perfect, because just as we walked out to the center of the square, it started to downpour.  We looked for an escape, and ran into the first restaurant we could find.

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We already knew that the food was probably going to be overpriced based on the fact that we were in the main square.  But we were seated on the third floor with a great view of the entire square, and the waiter spoke English fairly well.  There was a slight mixup when Scott tried to order sausages and somehow ended up with some roast meat, but whatever it was that he got was delicious so it didn't really matter.  I got some salmon, which was a little overcooked, but the vegetables were excellent so that (kind of) made up for it.  We were mostly just glad to get out of the rain!  The large pitcher of wine also made us appreciate the food probably more than it deserved.

Of course, being in Belgium, we were also served french fries in a cone.  Yep, they should actually be called "Belgian fries," because they weren't invented in France after all!  They got their name from American GIs who just assumed that they were in France because everyone around them was speaking French.  Silly assumption, right?  I must say, the Belgians really do know how to do fries! Apparently they use a special technique whereby they slow fry the potatoes in warm oil before flash-frying them in hot oil to finish them off.  Definitely worth a try!

We did our best to eat slowly and wait for the rain to pass, but by 5:30 we were starting to get tired.  We ventured outside but soon realized that there was no way we were going to make it the two miles to the hotel without getting soaking wet.  We bought a really beautiful souvenir umbrella from one of the shops, with scenes of Brussels on it.  Unfortunately, the umbrella is no longer with us, as Scott left it behind at customs on the way home.  Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted!  Kind of.  We still ended up being pretty soaked by the time we got to our destination, especially my shoes.

Expecting to do a lot of walking, I'd only packed my tennis shoes.  They're great for tennis and other athletic activities, because they're built to "breathe" really well.  Unfortunately, the hundreds of little holes and the mesh do not make them very good for the rain.  They were probably five pounds heavier each when we got back up to the hotel room!  I knew I didn't really have any options other than to wear them wet or figure out a creative way to dry them, so I set about searching for a method.  My first instinct was to just place them on the heaters, but unfortunately, the hotel had already turned the heat off for the season.  I couldn't very well let them sit outside, because it was still raining.

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I ended up finding the in-room hairdryer and drying the shoes with that.  It took a good half hour or more before they started to dry up.  I was glad I'd found a way to have dry feet the next day, but let me tell you, if you're ever wondering what might make it on the list of "ten worst smells in the world," hot, blow-dried shoes will probably make it to the top of the list!

Wedding Ring!

I'm very excited today--we went to London to pick up the wedding ring that we had custom-made by artist/ jeweler H. deCohen at Covent Garden!  I really want to start wearing it now, but I'm going to do my best (which is probably still quite a bit below average) to be patient and wait for the wedding.  It is now safely stashed away until the wedding, and I'm not going to post any pictures until then--guess we'll all learn to be patient together!  I'll give you a few teasers, just to keep you interested--It's made of 18 carat white gold, and round diamonds.  The artist described the pattern as a "flowing river," and I agree with assessment.  I think it's perfect, and I can't wait to wear it permanently!

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Now, it's time to find a ring for Scott.  We're going to have a bit of a challenge there--his ring finger is the one he injured doing karate a couple years ago.  He now has a large screw embedded forever right into his knuckle.  This means that any ring that fits around the knuckle has to be about three sizes larger than the actual size that would fit his finger.  We'd welcome any suggestions as to how to get around this slight problem!

Good Intentions

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I never thought that I would quote Ke$ha in, well, anything, but her words are actually quite appropriate for this moment: "It can bum you out when your intentions aren't, like, translated properly." In her case, Ke$ha is lamenting the fact that she has been portrayed as "pop's party girl" instead of being recognized for her artistic talents.  I can't say I would know any of her music were I to hear it, so I have no comment on her musical abilities, but I definitely feel her pain about intentions gone bad.

For example, my intention to blog about all of my travels, and even just day-to-day life in my new home.  In my head, it sounds like a great idea, and not even that difficult to carry out!  What could be easier than relaying events that happened to you just a few days before (with a few embellishments, perhaps)?  I mean, isn't that what office gossip is all about?  Should be easy as pie.  Unfortunately, I am neither a great fan of pie (except Grandma's) nor office gossip. Oh, but did you hear what Mr. Smith did last weekend?!

Just kidding.  I'm almost 99% sure that there isn't even a Mr. Smith at the school.  Although I'm really horrible with names, so I could be mistaken about that, too!  Anyways, I guess the point of this post is to let you know that I'm still here and I really do intend to write about my travels.  But please bear with me if my intentions aren't "like, translated properly."