July 2-4, 2005

A weekend trip to Brussels

Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 18:12:47 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A good day-trip, but I'm CHOCOLATTED OUT -- at least today!

Bonjour, guten tag, hallo from Brussels,

(oh and by the way, I'm in Brussels, and I'm flying back in 4 hours).

The flight on Saturday was from San Francisco to New York, and New York to
here. The second leg of the journey was delayed by 1.5 hours at the gate, and
another 1/2 hour while taxiing to the runway. The flight arrived at Brussels at
9:05 AM -- 1 hour 10 minutes behind schedule. So my time in the city got
reduced from 23 hours to 22 hours.

No problem!

I took the regional train from the airport to Gare du Noord, expecting to
transfer to the metro system. No such luck. Went back on the train and got off
at Centraal station, and over there I could take a direct metro train to a
station near where I had booked my motel. Reached the motel at 11 and they said
to come back at 2pm -- room is not ready. I was expecting that, so fine... I
checked in my bag and set off on foot to see the city.

During my research I had read that the national languages are French and
Flemish, but if you know Dutch or German you should be able to get by okay.
Then the next line was "everybody is also taught English from early school
years". Great! So, no language barrier at all, and I know bonjour, guten tag,
etc. So all day today, whenever I needed to say anything I started with bonjour
and then straight away into English! And unlike in France, nobody gave me any
dirty looks for not speaking their language! Belgians are great people!

Anyway, first stop of the day was the highlight of the city -- Grand Place, aka
Grote Markt. A quaint little square in the middle of the city, basically a
patch of cobblestones surrounded by old guildhouses, dating from 1600's and up.
The architecture of the buildings is the attraction here. I'll let the pictures
speak for themselves. (Yes, the pictures will be online in the next 24 hours).
Of course there are very touristy cafe's all around the square, and of course I
was tempted by Belgium's two most famous foods -- waffles and chocolate. I
bought a "chocolate waffle" not knowing what I would actually get, and it
turned out to be a waffle (baked on the spot) submerged in a very hot and rich
chocolate syrup.

And no napkin.

Well, it was sticky and messy (to say the least), but very very delicious! This
wouldn't be the last one today either.... my lunch today consisted of this
twice, and a many stopovers at various chocolate shops where they gave out free
samples of pralines and trouffles. I love this city -- there are so many
chocolate shops on every street corner, and you can walk from one chocolate
shop to another eating all the free samples and not buying a thing! Makes me
wonder why I didn't come here earlier!

Near the Grote Markt is another symbol of Brussels -- a water fountain of a
small child, his face looking as if he doesn't have a care in the world -- and
he's peeing (that's the water fountain). "Mannekin-Pis". Apparantly the people
of Brussels have embraced this statue as a symbol of their city. Right next to
this is another fantastic chocolate shop where they give free samples of
anything you ask, with no obligation to buy! But I was starting to feel a
little guilty of eating all the free samples in every shop, so I actually
bought a few boxes in this one.

By now it was about 1:30 so I made my way back to the motel, thinking my room
would be available. In the morning they had said "it would be done by 2pm". I
was there at 1:50 pm, and according to the guy behind the desk, not a single
room was ready yet. So I parked myself right there in the lobby, went back to
the desk at 2pm, and at that time, I got my room!

Took a long nap, shower, etc.... and headed out again around 7pm.... my
backpack much lighter this time... not carrying any boxes of chocolates!

I hadn't had an actual meal all day today (not counting the breakfast on the
plane), so I started wandering back to the Grote Markt area, strolling through
all the tiny streets looking at cafe menus posted outside... nothing interested
me... I somehow wound up at the "Cathedrale des Saints Michel et Gudule" -- a
large gothic cathedral very similar to the Notre Dame in Paris. Hung out over
there taking a few pictures and looking for an open door to go inside, but
couldn't find any. Apparantly this is also supposed to be very nice from the
inside, but I got there too late in the day... oh well!

In one of the roadside tourist traps (i.e. shop), I had seen some postcards and
from one of those got the idea to go to the "Cinquantenaire" -- a BIG gate that
looks almost identical to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. There's a nice park
next to it so that was a good place to rest the legs a bit. Lot of walking
today all over the city on cobblestone streets. I still hadn't eaten anything
substantial, and it struck me that I had not eaten a single ICE CREAM all day!
Lots of chocolates and a couple of waffles (so far), but not a single ice
cream! So I went back to Grote Markt -- everything is there.

Well, before ice cream was dinner -- "Sunnyvale Dish Dash style" -- [inside
joke] -- at a relatively cheap and quick restaurant. Then dessert at another
shop that had caught my eye earlier in the morning. It's actually called
"Australian Homemade Ice cream" --- but I didn't care, Australian or Belgian, I
was going to have some! How dare I come to Europe and not have ice cream!!!!

This one was a little unique. A waffle, sliced in half like a sandwich, and in
between between the top and bottom halves is a layer of hot chocolate syrup,
and on top, a scoop of ice cream. But by now -- and even I'm surprised at this
-- I was getting a little tired of eating chocolate. (Like the subject line
says, I'm actually CHOCOLATTED OUT -- at least today.) So I went for a
completely different flavor ice cream -- mango. And it was wonderful! Mango ice
cream/chocolate waffle combination...

At the Grote Markt they had the lights on all the buildings by now (the sunset
as 10pm, "by now" was 11pm). This is so common in every European city - to
turn on floodlights on all monuments in major tourist areas. So I hung out some
more over there while eating that "mango-chocolate-waffle-thing". After that,
strolled back to the motel, along the way catching a short glimpse of an
"American independence day" concert in one of the squares.

It's now 3 AM and I have a flight to catch at 7am, which means I have to leave
here at 4:30 AM - unfortunately by taxi -- no metro operating at this time. All
the pictures are already uploaded to my website, including two digitally
altered panaromic shots.... they're just not accessible right now. By monday
evening North American time/Tuesday afternoon Australia time, they should be up
with all links...

Until then,

bonsoir, auf wiedersehen, tot ziens,
-je, ich, ik.

(P.S. There is also a Royal Museum of Fine Art in the city, but I never went
there. The tourbooks list it as one of the top attractions in the city. Maybe
another day.... Also, a strawberry dipped in a hardened white chocolate cream
shell is very nice!)

Brussels:

In and around the Grote Markt (and Mannekin-Pis):