A Final Brussels Bout

A photo album that has some Luxembourg, a little Independence Day (a little on that later), and some images of this final border-skipping gallivant. In the next few posts it will all make sense.

I’m feeling nostalgic. I’ve been flipping through digital photo albums from last August, musing on how far I’ve wandered and how little I’ve gotten done. In less than two weeks I say goodbye to Deutschland…kind of. Carolyn is meeting me in Dublin at the beginning of August. We’ll wander for ten days then I fly back to Frankfurt. The next day I fly out again, bound for parts west. So technically, I say goodbye to Germany on the 14th of August, but my real goodbyes have been going on for a while. Here I say goodbye to Continental exploration:

Two weekends ago I took my last international weekend ramble with Marty who you may remember as the Aeronautical Engineer who accompanied me to Prague, Vienna, and Copenhagen. His stated goal in taking on this Fulbright thing was to visit every country that borders Germany. There are nine. Can you list them (hint, how well do you know your WWII trivia?). In case you missed one or two, here’s the rundown: Denmark, Poland, The Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and The Netherlands. He had knocked seven off the list leaving Luxembourg and Belgium as the only obstacles to his Circumnavigation of Germany Merit Badge.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to accomplish this goal. A jaunt to Krakow or Warsaw will have to wait until I take a trip to Eastern Europe to check out Russia, Estonia, Poland etc. at some distant, as yet determined time (I have determined it will be at a time when my wallet isn’t quite this lean). But I'll be damned if I was going to watch someone else get so close to this noble goal then stumble at the finish because no one wanted to see Brussels. So, I was going back to Belgium.

Marty met me in Bonn. Both of us had spent the previous week furiously working on our projects since our time is quickly winding down. Our preparation for the weekend basically consisted of Marty saying, “Hey, I’ll be in around 8. Oh, and we might be meeting a friend of mine in Luxembourg.” So, when he arrived, one would think we would sit down to do some itinerary work. Neh, we had Kölsch to sample.

We bar hopped and re-hashed the following conversation for about two hours:

Me/Marty: I can’t believe it’s almost over.
Me/Marty: I know, isn’t it crazy?
Me/Marty: Yeah. Yeah, it’s crazy.

When we decided to call it a night, we remembered to check our train times. We would go to Belgium first, getting there as early as possible, explore Brussels, then drop down to Luxembourg for the night. It was also established I should bring my tent. We didn’t bother to look up campgrounds, but figured we might as well have a place to sleep in case the airport was booked for the night.

We discovered there was only one way to get to Brussels before 1PM (I really don't understand how the city functions with so few connections to the wider world) and that was on a train that left at 8:30AM from Cologne. It would be an early morning, but we managed to drag ourselves out the door and caught the tram to the Bonn station. About 1.5 km from the station, we came to a screeching halt and sat…on…the…tracks for about ten minutes. Our connection to Cologne was long gone.

Desperately we tried to figure out a way to get to Cologne so could catch that 8:30. We had one shot. The our train pulled into Bonn at 8:08 and into Cologne at 8:28, leaving us about a minute-and-a-half to make the jump to our Brussels-bound train somewhere in the massive Cologne train station. We were pacing by the doors as we pulled into Cologne, throwing ourselves onto the platform as soon as the door rattled open. My lopsided, tent-filled pack threatened to take out septuagenarians and four-year-olds as we sprinted down the stairs, got held up by a woman really taking her time with those steps, and up to our Brussels-bound platform.

We hopped onto the train and slowed down to look at the platform’s sign. It declared half the train was headed for Amsterdam, the other half for Brussels. But which half were we on? An overheard conversation told us Amsterdam. We tried to jog through the aisle to make the Brussels section, but middle-aged women carefully arranging their overhead luggage, and giggling tweens clogged the flow. Then we reached a dead end. The aisle terminated into an engine. We hoped off and had the distinct pleasure of watching our ride to Brussels receding to the horizon after disconnecting from the engine we had just discovered. Damn.

We found an automated ticket machine and established that the next train to Brussels wouldn’t get us there until 1:20PM and would involve two half-hour layovers en route. This would be a long ride.

The up-shot was we had a half-hour to kill in Cologne, so Marty and I were able to scamper to the neighboring Cologne Cathedral. Marty was properly awed by the towering height of the Gothic structure and it's soaring windows and I provided a little of my commentary, but not too much. We had the first of three trains to catch.

It dumped us off in Aachen, a German town on the border of The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany (where they have the best deals in the Tri-Country area). We had a half-hour. Anyone up for another cathedral?

Back in November I visited Charlemagne’s Byzantine-inspired church and saw his golden casket, but I wouldn’t see it a second time. A couple hundred yards from the steeple we had to scramble back to the station for a ride to Liege, Belgium on a train that somehow timewarped from 1880s Wyoming. The red paint was photogenically peeling from the battered exterior as we slowly chugged across the border to the grungy, industrial city that is best known for its less grungy waffles.
A Liege waffle is an ovoid affair with caramelized sugar grilled right into the dough. We were able to track down this Belgian staple near the space-age station before finally boarding for Brussels.
With three and half hours of travel under our belts we rolled into capital of Europe, a third visit to a city I never expected to see once. Despite previous experiences, there was still confusion over where exactly to get off. Instead of building one massive station as a central hub for trans-Belgian travel, Brussels has three stations. Each sports a Flemish and French name giving a person six unfamiliar words to juggle as they try to plan an excursion. Of course, we really didn’t plan our excursion, compounding our confusion when we stepped off at “Midi” then decided to hop to “Centraal.”

At the station we found out we would need to leave in about three hours if we wanted to make it to Luxembourg to see Marty’s friend who was being frustratingly coy about when/if he would even be able to meet us. After following a winding route that might have doubled as a rat-maze experiment, we dropped our bags and scrambled for food. We managed to take out two-birds with one stone by getting a Frikadeller (fried, meat-ball like sausage) sandwich with fresh Belgian French fries between the bun. I don’t recall the Flemish word for this entree, but I think roughly translated it meant “Heart attack on a bun.” It as also delicious.

As we strolled through the streets of Brussels in search of the Mannequin Pis, Marty managed to find an internet connection outside a bar. He checked his e-mail and found out his friend wouldn’t be able to meet us that night and would shoot for a rendezvous the next day. Through the wonders of technology we discovered we had the rest of the afternoon and evening to spend savoring Brussels rather than sprinting off for a 6th city in one day. This newly discovered time was crucial because Marty had one Belgian goal: sample as many varieties of their legendary beers as possible before moving on to wine-guzzling Luxembourg the next day. With that goal in mind I had a new appreciation for the Mannequin Pis as a symbol of the city.

I led a now practiced tour through the winding Medieval streets of Brussels. I will freely admit I never planned to have the capital so perfectly mapped in my head when I touched down last August, but I can now describe the most efficient path from St. Michael’s Cathedral to the Grand Place. Just in case you need it at some point.
As we swung through the tangled mess that is the seafood café district I pointed out Delirium Cafe, an establishment that holds the record for most available varieties of beer in one establishment. Erin and I checked it out back in February. Marty wanted to check it out today. It was time to start checking brews off the list.
Because it was early in the afternoon, the place had a subdued local vibe with people sitting around massive barrels discussing their beer selections and circuitous routes to Brussels (it’s never direct unless you’re Eurocrat). Marty drank a sweet thing called a “Pink Killer” and I had a Trappist triple. We had no idea where we were spending the night, but we knew we would feel good once we got there.

For a shift from the shadowy subterranean to the roaring ‘20s, I lead the way to Mort Subite, the bar Mike, Tim, and I discovered two weeks earlier, and I would happily revisit any chance I get. The waiters are appropriately brusque and home brewed beer appropriately delicious. The clientele ranged from families of exhausted tourists to elderly, Belgian couples out for some Saturday shopping (who managed to look much peppier than the Italian ten-year-olds).
It was time to sort out where we would rest our heads for the night. While the airport sounded appealing, I was short on digestive biscuits and had hauled my tent along, so I miraculously remembered where the youth tourism office was and inquired if there was a campground within an easy bus ride of the city center. They said they could do me one better and circled a campground within walking distance that called the European Parliament its next-door neighbor. This we had to see, so we went back to the station, saddled up with our gear and started the familiar walk uphill towards the Old England and the Royal Palace.

The U.S. really needs to import some better street performers. I would pay good money to watch something like this parade by my window on a daily basis. To pay up I would put it on my bill.

After a stroll through more suburban Brussels we arrived at the designated address. We saw a small neighborhood church and a cracking asphalt driveway leading into an unseen parking lot. Things weren’t looking too promising. We ascended a short flight of crumbling concrete steps and discovered a storage facility and parking lot that would have worked for a West Side Story set.
I briefly scanned the ground for a tent-sized patch of gravel and pavement without obvious shards of glass. As I tracked the parking lot, Marty noticed a promising sign for “Camping” pointing to an enclosed lot next to the storage yard. We stepped through a chain-link gate and a wild garden spread before us, punctuated by neon rain-flies. This would be a good place to call home…assuming it didn’t rain. We paid our 9 Euro, probably the most expensive camp site I’ve ever stayed in. To be fair, I would be sleeping on the most expensive ground I’ve ever pitched a tent on, so it all worked out.
Following a Lonely Planet tip, we found a tiny pasta café along one of the fashionable shopping boulevards just outside the Old Town. There were three items on the menu: spaghetti carbonara, Pasta Bolognese, and Pasta Marinera. There were three drinks: soda, beer, and wine. Nine combinations yet the waitress brought along her notepad in case things got complicated.

It was delicious and relatively cheap for a mountain of noodles. With a solid base, it was time to pub crawl. As we dove into the winding alleys of Brussels, we heard thudding bass echoing off the baroque façades. We followed the music to the Grand Place where a massive stage had been erected to support a twenty piece band, a half-acre of LCD screens, and a lead singer belting in Spanish. You will understand our confusion when we learned this was in celebration of Flemish Pride.

Belgium is a divided country. The Northern half is Flanders and when they look south to Wallonia, the southern French speaking half of Belgium, they see nothing they like. Okay, it’s not that rabid a rivalry, but there is a political party in Flanders that agitates for secession from the French. This concert wasn’t really a demonstrative political act, it was just an event on a day that celebrates Flemish pride, but I did wonder what the Wallonian perspective would be on the whole undertaking. I guess it’s like going to a Civil War reenactment, or Alaskan Secession meeting, and wondering what people in the North or the lower 48 think. In all probability, no one really cares. They just want spectacle.
And spectacle we got as digital fireworks exploded behind the troop of artists who had performed and now joined voices in what Marty and I assumed was a Flemish standard. The crowd didn’t seem to know the words. Everyone lingered on stage after their bows hoping for a call for encore. None came. The square, filled with mostly subdued gawkers to begin with, quickly drained to the bars. Marty and I followed.

We settled on the pub Marty had used to check his e-mail earlier so he could digitally touch base again. After leeching their wi-fi, it was the least we could do to buy a drink. That is, if they wanted to sell us one. We sat in the Biergarten for fifteen minutes, then a half-hour, then forty-five minutes, praying a waitress would arrive. People around us had beverages, maybe we should go in? I checked after waiting twenty and was shooed out the door by an overwhelmed waitress who had a bachelor party on her hands.

So we sat and waited. There’s nothing as sobering as sitting in a bar without a beer. Another pair was also waiting. We would make disbelieving eye contact then look hopefully towards the door. After a certain amount of time elapses it becomes an investment. You continue to wait because leaving would prove the preceeding minutes were wasted. When our drinks finally arrived we could say we were drinking 3.50 Euros and 45 minutes of sitting worth of Belgian beer. After one we were done with Kwak Café.

Marty enjoys his Kwak, a type of lambic beer named for the sound the liquid makes when it sloshes through the neck.

We were getting tired and ready to collapse into the tent, but decided we needed at least one more authentic Belgian brew in our systems before calling it a night, and Marty had a hankering for some superlatives. Back to Delirium.
This time it was late on a Saturday night. Two floor of bars were operating and the local dive bar had evaporated, leaving a fraternity residue. The place was packed with young tourists from roughly 20 different countries. Indians carried two liter boots of beer, and Canadians drained a dozen varieties before shouldering their way back to the bar for another round. Marty was a little disappointed that the atmosphere had lost a little local flavor. The laughing and people-watching at least re-energized me (along with my honey beer) for the long walk back to the campsite where we could bask in the glow of European Unity and broken fluorescent street lights before drifting into a well-earned dreams of sampling each of Delirium’s 2,200 offerings.

The photo album of random excursions from the final weeks.

Breaking with Britain

As my train rolled back towards London I realized I didn’t really know much about English art (Feel free to gasp in horror). I can rattle off the names of famous Spaniards, Italians, Germans, and Dutchmen (I really am the coolest kid at every party), but I was at a loss when it came to my direct cultural ancestors. It was time to remedy the situation, so I pointed myself towards the Thames and the Tate Britain, the home to British art preceding the 20th century.

The imposing facade of the Tate Britain. You know you're in London because they're are more columns than they have in Greece.

One of the advantages here was I could briefly drop my bag. They suggested a two pound donation at the bag check. Someday I will come back with many more pounds in my pockets. But today I was running low and the bag check man got merely a sheepish smile of thanks.

The exhibit moved chronologically through art history, demonstrating how trends on the Continent affected the British Isles. The staples of British art are the portrait and the landscape. Britain had a wealthy middle to upper class and it cherished a good family portrait over the mantle.

The landscapes reveal the deep British love of the natural world. Parks today are maybe cynically seen as a kind of human domination over nature. I think the English garden gets at a deeper British desire not to dominate nature but to interact with it. There’s a reason wealthy gentlemen occupied their lazy days by playing naturalist. Catching butterflies and identifying mosses allowed a gentleman to get outside to explore the countryside. As Americans, lovers of open spaces and natural beauty, I think we own our British cultural ancestors our thanks. Even if it means looking at a lot of landscapes in oil paint.

In the 18th century British nobles, especially young men, started taking jaunts across the European continent. This gave them a taste for Classical and Renaissance art. Over the last couple of years I’ve become a happy advocate for the Grand Tour. It’s been a blast and listen to learn to ramble about art and culture.

A 19th century sculpture outside the Tate Britain that was...

Clearly inspired by this massive sculpture of Dirce on display in Naples. The Brits know how to take notes.

The Brits started fusing all these influences, creating compelling sculpture and luminous Pre-Raphaelite images that sought to throw out Renaissance and Mannerist ideals, creating “true” images that captured Nature as it is. They also started illustrating British mythological and legendary figures, seeking a rich ancient English culture that was as fascinating, but distinct from, the mythology of the Continent. J.R.R. Tolkien might have been influenced by such thinking when he wrote The Lord of the Rings, his version of English pre-history.

Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse. This is Pre-Raphaelite painting at its pre-est Raphaelite-est. Anne of Green Gables was a fan.

Then I wandered into the William Blake room. My first encounter with Blake came at the Cincinnati Zoo where they have his poem “The Tyger” on display in the Cat House. In seventh grade we belted an arrangement of this poem. Somehow I missed this man’s biography. I just thought he liked “Tygers.”

He was a painter, poet, and printer who is probably best known for this iconic image of God (or Urizen) as the divine clockmaker:

He was a proto-Romantic in the mid 1700s who held an intense, spiritually infused perspective on the world. He saw contemporary figures like Nelson, Pitt, and Newton as Biblical warriors in combat with chaos and evil, so he illustrated them as such. In a dim room above his print shop he exhibited a series of 17 paintings depicting Biblical scenes, historical scenes, and images from his own rabid imagination. Each image was accompanied by a poem or extended, rambling essay. At the time he was basically considered a nut. Now he’s a genius.

Nelson taking on the Biblican Leviathan (and Napoleon) while whereing his briefs.

The Tate exhibits many of these 17 pictures with better lighting and excerpts from his original descriptions. Wandering through that room was a chance to immerse myself in the mind of a creative personality who I hope to get to know a little better when I get closer to an English language bookstore or library.
My final goal for my day was a trip to the National Portrait Gallery. In my previous trips to the city I heard the name and ran the other way. Who wants to spend their afternoon looking at a bunch of blank faces? Well, either I’ve gotten wiser or just more boring (you don't need to weigh in on that). Now this sounds like a great way to while away some time in London and maybe brush up on my English history.

The walk from the Tate Modern leads along the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament and through Trafalgar Square. I passed monuments and hoards of tourists on my walk.

A memorial to the women of world war two who hung up their hats and gave the Nazis the old one, two.

I felt exhilaratingly independent following my feet. Please note that I enjoy the company of a travel partner, but there’s something to be said for an unanalyzed reaction to a new place. There was no effort to discuss where I was going or how I would get there. I could simply act without justification.

Nelson holding court over the double-decker busses and wandering tourists.

Unfortunately my glowing sense of independence was quashed when I got to the Gallery. They would only be open for another half-hour and they didn’t want new ogglers clogging the guards careful removal of patrons from each gallery. Oh well, there was walking to be done. Unfortunately storm clouds were gathering ominously as I walked through the theater district one more time.

Bent over a map I heard an American family debating the merits of a cheap theater ticket kiosk.

Dad: It says ‘official seller’ over the door, Honey.
Mom: Yes, but this place has too much…glitz. It’s supposed to be less…glitzy.
Me: Are you looking for the half-priced ticket booth?
Mom: (A little confused about this American-accented loner suddenly imposing himself on a domestic dispute) Yes we are.
Me: Well if you go back to that big square (waving towards Leicester Square) that’s a big, wood-paneled…kiosk. It’s called TKTS and I think they’ll have what your looking for.
Mom: Well, we walked by that, but the guidebook says there’s a clock tower, and we didn’t see a clock (subtext: You’re holding a damn map and all your luggage. You clearly have no idea where you are let alone where we are.)
Me: Oh, well, I know you’ll find half-priced tickets there. Good luck!

If they didn’t want my advice, let them wander through the storm. I toyed with asking what show they were going to see. Probably Grease or We Will Rock You. Yes, I judge people for such things. Let them get soggy. I had a train to catch. Oh, and there was a clock on the roof of the kiosk in the square. It even had a half-crazy homeless man staring up at it trying to get his watch to match the second hand.

One last ride through the underground and into St. Pancras where I blew my final pounds on a meat pie because Sweeney Todd is never far from my mind when I’m thinking about his city. I also made the key decision to grab a pre-packaged sandwich and a package of digestive biscuits (in classic British fashion, these mealy cookies taste better than they sound).

The best part of my return via the Chunnel was the security check before boarding that got me a French passport stamp. One of the tragedies of modern Europe is open borders have largely obliterated passport-stamp collecting. Any excuse to get more ink in my book is welcome.

Three hours and one time zone later, I was back in Brussels and hustling towards the long distance train tracks, hoping I wouldn’t have long to wait before going East towards Cologne. Turns out I did have some time.

Normally I’m on top of my train schedules, but I guess when I scheduled my return from Britain I just assumed there would be German-bound engine waiting for me. While I can’t praise German rail enough, their personal door-to-door service has a ways to go. Apparently the last train to head for Germany left at 7:20. I was somewhere under the English Channel when that thing took off for home. There had to be a way to escape Belgium via night train or regional rail, right? It wasn’t that late.

Maybe Belgians just see Brussels as a place you would never want to leave. The next train leaving for anywhere else in Europe wouldn’t depart until 6AM the next morning. I was stuck in Belgium, information that was presented on a confusing French and Dutch chart in a dark corner of the station. I weighed my options. I could stay in the station. I had friends who had done as much in Munich and Bern and had lived to tell the tale. Then I saw two thugs start to tussle and frantic security guards sprint down the terminal. Hmmm.

Then a gentlemen who hadn’t bathed in three months sat down next to me and hungrily eyed the laptop I had opened to double check train times. Yeah, not staying. It was also a Saturday night. Hostels would likely be booked. I only had a few cents on my cell phone anyway and only a few cents in my pocket. So I made a last-minute decision to get out of the train terminal. I would head for the airport terminal and never tell my mother until I safely survived a potentially stupid decision.

The final express train for the airport was leaving in a minute. Hobble-running up the stairs, I dove onto the last car as the tired ticket-checker gave the engineer the “all clear” whistle. For fifteen minutes we chugged through Brussels and finally pulled under the International Airport. I checked my morning schedule and rode the escalator into the departures terminal with bored business travelers who were catching the Red Eye for parts distant. I was just looking for a bench.

Behind the elevators I found a secluded ring of lightly padded seats for weary fliers. One row was already taken by a young couple who appeared to be backpacking Europe. She was lying across several seats with a sheet pulled up to her neck. He was on the floor in a sleeping bag, already snoring. Perfect.

I found a vacant spot, ate a few necessary digestive biscuits and lashed all my luggage to the bench. My original plan was to be secure in my bed in Bonn by this point but I had to break the oath I had made to myself that morning. I set my alarm for 6AM. I had a train to catch…

Stay tuned for the epic struggle to break across the Belgian/German border and finally return to my much-neglected fossils!

Blazing through Bruges and Brussels

A photo album with a lot of images of Epcot-like Bruges and a few of the more of business-like Brussels.

Our day began in a queue at the base of the city bell tower, staring down a surly ticket-taker who took great pleasure in telling us we had to wait then took his break from annoyed staring into the ether to yell at a tourist for standing in front of the postcards. I think he took even greater pleasure in that.

The stairs were a typical winding exercise in delicate, winded passing as perky school children trooped down the stairs and out-of-shape Canadians went up. After three false summits we emerged at the roof of Belgium. This part of the world has little to no topography to speak of, so you can be pretty confident you’re as high as you can go on top of such a tower. Carved into the sills of the enclosed observation windows were the directions and distances to surrounding cities and towns. One arrow pointed towards Bern, Switzerland, showing how far we had come. Another pointed towards Assebroek, showing how much we have yet to mature.

We took in the view while families and exhausted tour groups appeared at the top of the spiral staircase, discussed if the climb was worth it, then disappeared back through the floor. Satisfied we had seen enough of the curvature of the Earth we dropped a floor to examine the intricate mechanism that plays Danny Boy and Beethoven’s 9th on the tower’s bells.

Massive turning cogs and player-piano spools the size of oil drums reminded us there was a time when technology was muscular and intuitive instead of bogged down in half-way decipherable code.

After waiting in the courtyard of the bell tower to hear an out-of-tune rendition of the European Hymn from Beethoven’s 9th, we moved on to the Chapel of the Holy Blood. A Crusader from Bruges came back from the Holy Land with a vial containing a few precious drops of Christ’s blood. The authenticity of the relic may be debatable, but the devotion to the relic is genuine. Every day the blood is taken from its shrine for a short devotional prayer service. The faithful are then invited (in about 9 languages) to approach the alter and place their hands on a glass cover and look closely at the relic.

We attended the service and prayed over it. As soon as my fingertips left the glass shield the deacon wiped the smudges away for the next pilgrim. As we sat back down I noticed a series of stained glass windows that depicted the crusader excavating near the site of the crucifixion where he found the delicate relic. The other windows showed him presenting it to his lord in Bruges and the city getting out its Sunday best to parade it through the streets, still an annual tradition.

From the Holy Blood to Michelangelo. At the Church of Our Lady sits a small statue carved by Michelangelo. It was intended for the city of Sienna, but a Belgian merchant bought the piece out from under the combative Italian city in 1506 and gave it to his Bruges parish. The plaque near the alcove with the gentle Mary and naked two-year-old Christ declares, “The expressive work never fails to move and impress the beholder.” It was impressive, but I wish we could have gotten a little closer to really stare into Mary’s face. Regardless of how impressed we were, it was exciting to see one of the few Michelangelo’s that the Italians ever let leave their peninsula.

The rest of the church was crammed with art and sculpture, including another Madonna and Child that reminded us why Mich was just so damn good.

After a pretty holy morning, it was time to give in to more Earthly pleasures and learn about the real reason Belgium is on every college student’s itinerary through Europe: Beer.

After grabbing a snack of Pommes Frites (French Fries) with mayo – an authentic Belgian experience – we headed towards Bruges Zot Brewery. Our tour went through every step of the process. We admired massive fermentation tanks and wondered at the huge cooling trays. It was difficult to tell how much our guide enjoyed her job. She seemed like a stern woman, but she would crack a well-rehearsed joke every now and then and wait in reflective pride for us to get it. She was also master of the pregnant pause. “As we enter the next room you must be careful of…” Of what? A secret, trap door? The village ogre? Someone with too much enthusiasm? “the ceiling.” Got it.

In a room that probably displayed every Belgian beer glass (each brew has a unique receptacle) and hundreds of world beers (I looked for Hudepohl, Cincinnati’s old favorite) she explained the Belgian penchant for foam. In Germany, beer is served with minimal head, but in Belgium it’s not a good pour unless you need to plane the top with a knife.

She explained the foam is an opportunity. “As you wait, you look at your beer. He looks at you, or she looks at you. You will anticipate your first taste. You will think about how this will be. You will form a relationship. When it is ready for you and you are ready for it, then you may drink.” Leave it to the Belgians to seduce their beer. Suddenly all the Barry White in the bars made a lot more sense.

We got to hike up to the roof and take a look over the city from a lower angle than before. It was an opportunity to say goodbye to the “dead city.” We had to catch a train bound for Brussels (after enjoying our free glass of Bruges Zot with foam as served by our tour guide, of course).

If you had asked me to name the most bewildering, bustling cities on this planet before this trip, I might have ticked off Tokyo, New York, and Sao Paulo. The capital of Belgium wouldn’t have entered my mind, let alone come out of my mouth. But that’s because I didn’t think about where I would be coming from before being bewildered and bustled in this hypothetical interview.

For the record, Brussels is a massive, angry termite mound compared to the retiring Bruges. We stepped off the train at the Central Train Station (there are four major train stations in Brussels, making your entry point to the city a gamble unless you studied your map dutifully before arrival. I napped.) and I started us in the wrong direction. Eventually Tim got us oriented and we wound our way through the streets of Brussels in search of our hostel.

Brussels is not an easy city to navigate. Like most cities in Europe, it has a tangled web of an old town, but the aversion to right angles and street names that last more than a block continue well beyond the medieval center. Couple the rat maze gone urban with steep topography and you have a recipe for frustrated, inefficient wandering with heavy luggage before you finally arrive at your destination. Our wandering involved a detour through St. Michael’s Cathedral. St. Mike is the patron saint of the city and appears on manhole covers and lampposts all over town, so Michael got to feel especially honored. I have yet to find a city that plasters St. Matthew on their garbage cans. Maybe I can figure out a way to be sanctified and get a small Midwestern town to help me out here.

Eventually we found our beds. Of course our dorm room was occupied by three snoozing travelers. We were all getting a little tired of always whispering when we got near our bunks and I was half-tempted to throw the other dudes into the street with a mandate to root up a memorable Brussels experience that didn’t involve a 20 Euro hostel.

Since I had visited Brussels back in February with Erin, I was able to suggest a wander through the more important sites. Any visitor needs to see the Baroque Grand Place with its gilt facades and Gothic city hall. We also swung by the Mannequin Pis, the Cabbage Patch Doll-sized statue of a little kid doing exactly what his name suggests. I don’t know when this fountain became the symbol of the city, but it will always quirk-up my impression of Brussels.

With a tip from our hip student traveler map, we discovered a small restaurant that served Trappist beer and affordable gourmet takes on Belgian staples. The place was clearly a local haunt and we tried to keep our voices at a chilled, urban level, and tried to keep our guidebooks, maps, and cameras hidden. It was hard for me maintain my composure after discovering they had a Bosch print in the bathroom, but we managed to order a few rounds of the Trappists best brews without getting kicked into the street like the lowly tourists we were.

Since we had arrived in the evening, we couldn’t visit any museums (including the new Magritte Museum. You know how I love a good bowler.) but there was plenty to see on the street. Setting out across the royal gardens, past the massive royal palace, we eventually overcame monarchical tyranny and arrived at the EU’s expansive glass and concrete campus.

We occupied ourselves by trying to name all the member countries of the European Union based on their flags. I have a lot of work to do with the former Soviet states. The actual parliament building looked more like an airplane hanger than a place of governance. You look at the British Houses of Parliament or the U.S. Capital and you know big things happen in those walls. Hell, the Hungarian Houses of Parliament reek of big ideas and empire. But the EU is more utilitarian. It reminds me of a bank’s national headquarters. This is a place where the lives of 400 million people can be directly impacted. Shouldn’t the building aspire to embody some of that noble spirit? I know the designers were probably going for “openness” and avoiding “imperial” imagery, but did Europe need more characterless glass?

But I digress. Our walk took us even further, to the heart of Belgian Imperial glory at the Triumphal Arch. It was built with money from the Belgian Congo which is not the most honestly made cash the world has produced, but the monument is pretty. People frolicked in the garden in front of the arch and the flanking military and automobile museums. I considered frolicking along, but decided my ankle wasn’t up for hopping around quite yet.

After reaching the arch we rested our weary soles and decided on the bar that needed our patronage. A La Mort Subite won out. The place has been around since 1928 and is still decorated with all the class of the roaring ‘20s. Their house Gueuze makes them particularly noteworthy (Gueuze, the internet tells me, is a blending of 1 year old lambic, or top fermented beer, with 2-3 year old lambic. This combination is then fermented a second time.). It was bitter stuff. Fortunately Mike and Tim are also firm believers in ordering different food/drink than your neighbor so we could sample as many of Belgium’s wonderful alcoholic treasures as possible before calling it a night.

As the gruff waiters stacked chairs on tables, a pair of American joined our conversation. The architecture grad students hailed from Penn state and we got a tentative O-H out of them. The Buckeyes continue to bring people together, even in Brussels. We said goodbye to our inebriated new acquaintances and got some tips on making the most of a quick trip to our final destination in Mike and Tim’s Europe 2009 experience. We needed all the advice we could get. We were about to ride to London, and let me tell you, there’s no place like London!

The photos again. You know you want to linger over the shot of Bruges at night just a little longer.

P.S. If you haven't had enough of Bruges, this trailer for the movie In Bruges has some shots of the city along with a few shots at the city.

As a side comment, it's actually an excellent film. The trailer makes it look like a Guy Richie knock-off, but it's written and directed by Martin McDonagh who's actually a playwright with Tony nominated, Olivier winning stuff like The Pillowman and Lieutenant of Inishmore to his name. It's funny, but also has a dark, tragic edge...good stuff.

Bound for Belgium

The Netherland's photo album. Stay tuned for the Belgian album in my next edition!

Fortunately there were no vengeful bike-slicers on the streets of Amsterdam that night. The next morning they were still chained to the bike rack and we knew MacBikes wouldn’t get any more cash from us. Before we returned our hot, red rides we had a few more Amsterdam icons to check out.

First we headed towards Anne Frank’s house, the site of “The Secret Annex” where she lived with her family and a few family friends. In order to get there we cycled along the canals that drape necklace-like around the Amsterdam train station. Despite the abundant water, it’s not Venice. It has a more industrial edge that speaks to buzzing, purposeful activity. Basically Amsterdam isn’t Venice because it’s Dutch.

As we rode I caught a potent whiff of pot. It was 9:30 in the morning so I thought it might be a coffee shop airing out before opening. As we continued on, I caught another whiff. Then I noticed a thirty-something woman riding ahead of Tim with a cigarette hanging limply from her fingers. As she neared an intersection she adjusted a document tube across her back and took a puff. Wow. I was getting a little stoned from riding behind her, and this on her morning commute! It seemed like such a perfect distillation of Amsterdam with the canals, the bikes, the cobblestones, and the legal, visible drugs, but it didn’t quite summarize our collective experience so far. That would require more open cow pastures.

When we arrived at the Anne Frank House and Museum we found a line leading down the street. We hadn’t planned on going inside, but the line put any thoughts of just slipping in to see the annex out of my mind. I guess you can only tramp so many people through a cramped attic to see a swinging bookshelf.

Because of the time-crunch and the experience at Dachau, I really didn’t feel much of the weight of history hanging over the house that has come to symbolize both the irrational hatred of oppressors and the hope that the oppressed can overcome. Maybe next time I will actually be able to explore the exhibits and rooms and place myself in the innocent shoes of Anne and her family.

We took off again, weaving past street-sweepers and other bicycles in search of a site particularly dear to Tim’s heart: the Heineken brewery. Again, we could only admire the massive building from a distance, this time perched on an arched canal bridge. The tour sounded interesting, but the brewery had been closed the previous day and we didn’t think a 10AM tour of the facility would really be worth the investment. We would tour a Belgian brewery to get the free sample experience.

With Heineken on our minds it was time to leave Amsterdam. We spun our bikes around and dropped that back with Mac. Too late we discovered an oversized chess set in the courtyard of Hard Rock Café Amsterdam (of all places). We staged some epic pictures of the battle of wits we might have had if we didn’t need to catch a train.

On our way back to the hostel to collect our equipment we passed an American and British Food Import store where we could have bought frosting and peanut butter.

In a few short weeks I will be enjoying the widely available comforts of these staples. Good bye Amsterdam, but not goodbye to the Netherlands quite yet.

The night before we had hatched a plan to jump into the North Sea. So, around noon we stepped off the train in The Haage. Whenever I hear the city referred to it’s usually by an NPR newscaster telling me about weighty international crime. I don’t usually think of it as a place to hit the beach, but after loading up on sandwiches and figuring out the tram system with the help of a very friendly attendant, we were chugging across town to work on our tans.

The beach wasn’t a public affair. Cafés and bars offered lounge chairs and none-too-private patios for evening out your tan lines. (The people most interested in this opportunity seemed to range from 55 to 70 years old.) We set up on the sand with our bags and picnic, but weren’t able to find a public shower or changing area. We forked over a couple Euro at a private restroom to prepare for a frigid dive into the sea. In Europe, it’s a privilege to pee (or put on a bathing suit).

We mentally prepared ourselves for a nippy dip as a cool wind blew over us despite the clear blue sky. The seagulls edged in, waiting for us to take the plunge so they could move in on the lunch crumbs we had dropped for them. Tim decided to watch our stuff first while Mike and I hopped into a new body of water. I waded in, sucking air between my teeth and whooping to try to dull the pain. It was cold. Quickly my body reacted, dilating my blood vessels and flooding my skin with warming blood. I was bright pink, but I was comfortable. I dove under the churned, opaque waves and tried to get Mike to do likewise.

He decided he would survive without an immersion experience, and we trooped back out. Tim came down next. This time I was already wet and prepared for the experience. I had to force myself to slow down a little as Tim gingerly moved into the surf. We dove under then beat a hypothermic retreat back to our bags. We took triumphant pictures and packed up. An afternoon at the beach was welcome, but we had a third and final city to discover before we slept.

Someday I may go back to the Haage, seat of Dutch governmental power (but not the capital, that’s in Amsterdam. Don’t ask me how that’s possible) to see the international offices and Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earing. But I was satisfied with my sunburn, so we turned south for Belgium (our 4th country of the trip) and quaint Bruges.

Bruges was the most powerful city in Belgium circa 1400. Eventually the harbor silted up and commerce moved elsewhere, leaving Bruges a kind of medieval ghost town. I was mostly familiar with the city through this movie trailer:

Beyond that, I only had what the guide books told me as we rolled south. I was expecting a tiny train station populated by horse-drawn carriages and cab drivers praying on excited tourists. What we discovered was a large and expanding station on the fringes of a buzzing city. Bruges may have lost its position as the most powerful city in Belgium, but apparently everyone didn’t get the message to move out of town.

We rode a bus (my favorite form of transportation) past an expansive park with lounging students and tourists, and hung a right into the oldest part of town. City hall and it’s iconic bell tower swung into view and we crossed a canal or two before stepping off at our hostel, the cheapest, roomiest place we would pay for the entire trip. We couldn’t lounge around our bunks for too long, though, we needed dinner and a jump start on our exploration of Belgian beer varieties.

The central market square of Bruges is lined with cafés and all offer a beautiful view of gothic city hall and the guild halls that funded the expansion and power of the city. It was beautiful. We ate relatively cheap pasta and enjoyed the Trappists’ best brews (some Trappist fruitcake might have paired well with the Triple Tim had).

After basking in our accomplishment – sightseeing in three cities in three days – we moved on to explore the gothic and baroque town at night.

Lone lanterns cast a yellow, fiery light over the quite canals. Central squares and church facades were lit by the glow of quiet cafés.

We searched for a bar to continue our beer exploration. Foiled by a bar recommended by Lonely Planet and Mr. Steves (they were closed for vacation) we found a low ceilinged, wood paneled pub with the extensive selection we were hoping for.

With glasses raised we toasted Belgium and called it a night. We would explore Bruges more in the morning. Little did we know there were hundreds of tour busses motoring towards us with the same idea…
One more chance to click through this album.