Brussels, Belgium

Before I came to Europe, I had these grandiose plans to visit the European microstates (like Lichtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, etc.). That is, until I realized they're really just tax-free shopping malls and estates for rich Europeans. So, the ideal compromise in my mind is Belgium. To get there, we took a cheap express train to Brussels, via Cologne and Liege. Apparently trains are some kind of Sean anesthetic...they make me so sleepy (unlike any other transportation system). The ride was very nice (when I was conscious)...Belgium is somehow much prettier than Germany. We spent an hour walking to our hotel in the center of the old city, when it should've taken about 15 minutes. This is my first formal, official complaint to Lonely Planet: your Brussels maps suck balls. In fact, I've noticed that the map quality in that series dramatically improves if you get the "Best of" books, rather than the more detailed full-country tomes. That's retarded.

Anyway, we eventually found our nice (and cheap!) hotel right next to the Grand Place, a nice courtyard/plaza ringed by a series of 17th century guild halls (like the brewers, archers, etc.). It was so picturesque that a disproportionate fraction of my Belgium pictures were taken here, at a variety of light levels. To be fair, we didn't come to Brussels to see the sights...we came to eat (mussels, frites, chocolates, waffles) and drink beer. So, for lunch we ate a kilo of steamed mussels each, some pommes frites (enh), and pilsner. Hooray for Belgium! We spent the afternoon wandering around in the old part of town, checking out the Grand Place, the royal palace and Bruxolles Park, and various statues, etc. Most important was Mannekin Pis, a little boy peeing. This is a pretty famous fountain, and what surprised me most was how incredibly small it was. While I appreciate the artist keeping it life-size, I was a bit confused why the little boy was totally ripped. This is a 4-year-old with giant abs, quads, etc. What the hell? Most people don't know it, but there's a little girl version too, squatting in the wall in some back-alley across the way from the Delerium Tremens cafe (mmm....pink elephant beer). Oddly enough, she's also ripped.

Anyway, we stopped off in the afternoon at the "Mort Subite", a beer bar near our hotel. This place really intrigued me: it looked and felt like your typical European cafe. Bright, airy, happy service. The only difference: everyone's drinking beer...only beer. Heaven? I had a couple of trappist beers, and Jackie enjoyed the lambics (I'll have a beer post explaining this all later). We grabbed a light-ish dinner, picked up some Belgian chocolates (that were so good your knees kinda buckle), and walked around for a while before ducking into this little hole-in-the-wall (literally) bar for some more beer. The next day we spent checking out some churches, the national art gallery (nice surrealist stuff in the basement: that is, the -8th floor....I felt like I should've been dropping bread crumbs to find my way out again), and the "museum" inside the Royal Palace. This latter adventure was very strange. The tour starts off like you'd expect...you know, a royal palace-y place. Gold trim, crystal chandeliers, beautiful art, woodworking, etc. Then, all of a sudden there's this room touting this Antarctic science project run by Belgian scientists...complete with animatronic people, fake snow, etc. What the hell? The exhibits become progressively more art gallery (shitty stuff), until we finally get to the room we came for in the first place. This palace is only open in the summer, and it has a room where the ceiling is a giant mural made up solely of iridiscent beetle wings from Thailand. It was a pretty spectacular blue or green (depending on the angle you looked at it), and was creepily large (it had to be 75 feet long and 25+ feet wide). That's a lot of dead beetles. Even stranger, the room was filled with physics demos. Why? I don't know. Belgium is fucking weird.

Anyway, now time for a little story about lunch that day. We beat the rush and sat down around 12:30 at this little restaurant on this cobbled lane lined with seafood places. There was another full table next to us. As usual, we ordered big pots of mussels and pommes frites and beer. Our waiter goes up a winding iron staircase in the back to deliver our order. A few minutes later he comes bolting down the stairs with another guy after him, lunging at him. At the bottom of the stairwell he gets jump-kicked (like Double Dragon-style) and tries to run through the bar. The attacker chases after him - throws a vicious uppercut right into his butt - and continues to punch and kick through the bar (I'm now watching this via the mirrored walls). The waiter is tossed through a bunch of glasses that fall and break and finally turns to defend himself from the blows in the doorway leading to the bathroom. He still eats a few punches and kicks (these guys fight like 8-year-olds), and convinces the attacker not to break a bottle and stab him. Eventually, someone drags the attacker away. It was fascinating, and pretty funny in retrospect. After he staunched the bleeding from his hand, the waiter smoothed out his shirt and continued to invite new guests in. I'm assuming they were brothers. Again, Belgium is fucking weird.

We had dinner at a Congolese place (remember? Belgium was a colonial power in Africa too!) and more beers at the Mort Subite. Before leaving the next day, we walked around a bit more, had the best mussels of the trip for lunch (and snails...mmm), and then walked down to the Cantillon brewery near the train station. For a few euros, you get this incredible tour of one of the last breweries anywhere to make authentic lambic-style beer, and a couple free sample glasses. It was really way more interesting than I thought it would be, and I promise to explain more in an all-encompassing beer post sometime soon.

To summarize, Belgium was a rather odd place. But, it was gastronomically excellent, and the beer is better than anywhere else on Earth....there, I said it. If I had to live in Europe, it might be in Brussels.