Brussels, Beer, Belgium... Bad.

Greetings, all. I'm back from a long weekend in Brussels, and I am so so glad to be home. I'm sure that Brussels has a lot to offer, but I found it to be kind of depressing. It was expensive, dirty, rude, overpriced, pushy, and extremely complicated. My bitter taste probably comes from having one of my rings stolen out of my room by the cleaning staff, and I realize that isn't really Belgium's fault, but it didn't make my time any better. But let's start from the beginning.

I left on Friday afternoon from Kassel, and took five trains to arrive in Brussels at 9:30 PM on Friday night. While on the last of the trains, I met a lovely American family who are living in Germany. They were really interesting to talk to, and they helped me find the taxi stand. I took a cab from the train station to my hotel, and I'm glad that I did because a) Brussels is not a user-friendly city, and b) my hotel was in a disgusting alley that I never would have seen or voluntarily walked down. On Saturday morning I made my way up to the Sheraton to meet Heidi, a dear friend from DC who was in Brussels for work. I will say that the Metro system in Brussels is fairly well laid out and easy to understand, although from the street level the stations are rarely well marked. Heidi and I spent the day wandering around the city, taking pictures of old buildings, and eating. On Sunday we did more of the same, and even though we stayed in the same general vicinity, I frequently found myself turned around and my sense of direction was totally out of whack. The problem is a combination of windy streets, similar looking buildings at every turn, and the Belgian distaste for marking any street names. It was ridiculous.

On Monday I took a hop on/hop off sightseeing tour which was fairly interesting. They promised to tell us all the interesting and important facts about Belgium. Let's just say there was a lot of silence. I'm sure there is fascinating history, but I didn't hear much of it on this tour. I got off the bus at the Atomium, the centerpiece of the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair. Much like the Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Worlds Fair and intended to be demolished afterward, the Atomium was also set to be dismantled. But like the Eiffel Tower, it too is still here. It's a neat structure, and the view from the top was fairly OK. The exhibits inside about the 1958 Worlds Fair were the most interesting part, so I didn't mind paying the 6 Euro ticket price, but the 2 Euro audio tour was a waste of time and money.

Another spot near the Atomium that I visited was "Mini Europe", an area filled with 1/25 size replicas of historic and important buildings from across the European Union. It was a steep ticket price, but I really enjoyed wandering through Europe. The brochure gave a history of all the areas and buildings, and I was floored by the impeccable detail. I had been to a few of the sights in person, and seeing it all in miniature was a delight. For example, I had been to the Grand Place in Brussels the day before, and then I visited the replica. Can you see the difference?
















In the afternoon on Monday I had lunch with a favorite former professor and his wife. They are both retired, but Drew University needed someone to run the Brussels semester this year, so he came out of retirement for one last (maybe?) hurrah. They had just returned from 10 days in London and were very busy, so I'm glad they were able to set some time aside for me. It was nice to see them, and Heidi, and I'm quite sure that my time in Brussels would have been exponentially less fun had I not had that company.

I had changed hotels on Saturday, and I was now closer to civilization at the "Royal Rent-a-Room". It was kind of a dump, but good enough and cheap enough for me. I returned on Monday evening to find that a ring that I had inherited was no longer on the desk in my room. My other ring was there, but its' little opal partner was gone. I went down to the desk to speak to someone, and even though his English had been great earlier, as soon as I said that something had been stolen the clerk no longer spoke any English at all. I did eventually get the ring back, but only after 2 hours of literally tearing my room apart with the clerk, emptying every bag so he could look through them, calling the managers, and calling the cleaning woman. The clerk told me that I was crazy and wrong, and "this is Belgium, it's cool here". When the cleaning woman arrived, I was told to stay in my room until they called me. I was asked to come down 15 minutes later to see them standing with a bag of laundry, holding my ring. "Looks like it got put in with the sheets," they told me. "See? You were wrong." Aside from the fact that nothing in my room was laundered, I'm sure that's what happened. My ring migrated off the desk over to the other side of the room and hopped into the laundry bag. I didn't care, I was just glad to have the ring back. I know it's just a possession, it's not like it was my passport or something vital, but I felt violated and insulted.

I was exhausted, but Heidi and I still needed dinner, so we went off in search of a light meal for a good price. We should have forgotten about that, because light meals and fair prices do not exist in Brussels. When you are there, you have to assume that you will overpay for everything. We wandered through some narrow streets lined with Italian restaurants which, during the day were quaint and sweet. After dark however, waiters will stand outside and harass you as you walk by, holding up their menu and following you down the street trying to get you to come inside. If you ignore them, they will just make crude comments about your rear end. I suppose the restaurants have to do something to get customers to come in, since there are seemingly hundreds of restaurants that all serve the same delicacies: Mussels and pomme-frites. These are the foods that Brussels is known for, and I have to say that they are terrible. The pomme-frites are steak fries. Exactly the same as you would get from a frozen bag of Ore-Ida fries. I am allergic to mussels so I didn't eat any, but Heidi did and she seemed totally unimpressed. I had a steak while she ate mussels, and it was disgusting. I have never sent food back before, but I had to say something about this so-called "steak". It was overcooked and chewy at the center, and cold and rare at the edges. None of it was edible. I'm sure there are high quality restaurants in Brussels that serve incredible dishes, but we couldn't afford to go into any of those places. We ate sub-par meals the entire time, and only once did we have a waiter who wasn't extremely rude.

I was glad to finally leave on Tuesday, but my train wasn't until 12:30, and I had to be out of my hotel at 10. It was raining, so I hoped to find a cafe or restaurant to sit in for a bit. That's also a pipe dream because nothing in Brussels is open before noon. I ended up sitting in the train station on the floor because none of the train station cafes would let me sit at their tables for more than 15 minutes.

I took my five trains back to Kassel, and I was never so glad to be back in a place that seemed friendly and organized. I could finally understand (mostly) what people were saying, and I didn't feel out of place anymore. I'm sure that Belgium has a lot of wonderful attributes, but in the few times I have visited I have never been impressed. I am glad that I went though, because now I know. I have the same approach to travel that I have to cooking. I will take a chance and give it a try, and if it turns out to be a disaster, at least now I know. So now I know that Belgium and I don't get along, and in the future I think we'll just leave each other alone.