Brussels is gorgeous but I missed the European Parliament tour. I could have waited three and a half hours for the other one but opted not to on account of the rain and the nothing-else-to-do-in-that-area. I also couldn't find NATO. Stupid hiding NATO. So basically, today, I went to the European Parliament, found out there was no tour for three and a half hours, looked around the lobby thinking to myself, So this is the European Parliament, walked back outside and snapped a picture. It was generally anticlimactic, unless you take into account the picture snap.
But yesterday in Brussels was pretty great. The town square is absolutely amazing, and I just sat there for a while looking around at it. I also went to a beer museum, a chocolate museum and an art museum, and seriously, is there anything else in the world that matters? (I'll hit the sex museum in Amsterdam)
The beer museum itself was pretty poorly planned. It's just this brewery you walk into and watch a video on a big screen. The catch is, whoever gets there first gets to pick the language, so I sat there and watched this half-hour video in French. Then after everyone walked away I decided to put it on in English, got bored and left. But at that point there was a whole crowd of French-speaking people whom I'd condemned to watch an entire video in English. I felt a little bad, but then I went to get my free sample of beer and all was well.
A jolly old chocolatemaker did a demonstration at the chocolate museum, and there were free samples there too, which is important. After that I got a Belgian waffle, which they eat here as snacks instead of breakfast.
The art museum was called the Musees Royauz des Beaux-Arts, which translates into Fine Arts Museum, I think. It was pretty small because they were renovating a whole wing, but some of it was cool. Louis Artan de Saint-Martin had some pretty amazing seascapes, where the movement of the water is kind of mystifying. In a painting by Prosper de Troyer of a seamstress, you could see all of the seamstresses movements through this series of geometrical shapes and color. I guess those were two of my favorites.
I'm noticing that in the modern art section of just about every museum they have a corner of neon lights, a sort of stack of brightly colored shelves mounted to a wall, and strings. I really don't get it. But the modern art section of the museum was the one being renovated, so most of it was closed off.
Last night I drank a lot of Belgian beer. It was 2 euros for a pint, which isn't bad at all, but my buzz went away pretty quickly when someone in the bar fell to the ground and started having a seizure. It was really strange.
On that note, I'm going to head to the train station and go to Brugges. Maybe it isn't raining so hard anymore...
3 comments:
Hey, so I was thinking about your previous post (because that's the kinda person I am) and Germany isn't the only place that has to remember it's emberrassing history. You can still visit Manzanar here in the states. Not that Manzanar is the same as Dachau, and I'm not sure there is much still standing, but anyway.
And I continue to be jealous of you.
And modern art is always strange.
The European Parliament tour is meant to be pretty boring according to my guidebook. I should have called up my mate who works in there, to give you a proper guided tour!
Enjoy Bruges, and if you can, try a beer called Kwak. It's about 8%, and worth ordering just for the novelty potion glass they serve it in.
Blast. 1) You should have told me about this mate who works there before I went there, and 2) I didn't read this post till after Bruges, so I never got the change to try Kwak. I did try a couple of pretty solid Belgian beers though, so I guess they're not all like the St. Patrick's Day one... Where are my pictures??
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