Bon Jour

On our third day in Belgium, Travis and I decided to visit the French-speaking city of Brussels. All of our guidebooks are still either in the mail, or on a boat somewhere between the Panama Canal and here, slated to arrive in mid-October, so we decided to just wing it.

Luckily, the company car we have been loaned has the most amazing navigation system! We found the Grote Markt on the menu of historic places, it calculated our route and gave us verbal directions all the way there.
“Next, you will turn right on Koningslplein,” She says, in a calm voice not unlike the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“In three hundred meters, turn right on Koningsplein.”
“Turn Right.”

It’s amazing, really. Without her, we would have probably ended up in France. So we squeezed the car into what looked like a no parking zone (“They did it first!” protested Travis, gesturing to the other cars) and set off to have an adventure in Brussels.

Obviously, we couldn’t park right IN the Grote Markt, but from where we left the car we had a very general idea of what direction to go. We walked up a block, and there on the corner, were three Japanese tourists taking pictures of a small fountain of a little boy peeing. We had happened upon one of the historical monuments I had most wanted to see, the Mannekin Pis, completely by accident. Call me serendipity, yes.

From there we followed several signs to the Grote Markt, considered one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. We did not get up at 1:30AM on Sunday, but it was still pretty early when we arrived, so the square was mostly empty. I had seen pictures of the buildings online, but the actual experience…well, stunning is the adjective that comes to mind. Travis took a 360 degree short film, which might give a little bit more of an idea of the scale than flat, 2 dimensional pictures.

The helpful city of Brussels has posted maps of the city on various street corners, leading us on a walk through the Parc de Bruxelles, and past a lot of beautiful buildings that reminded us how nice it would have been to have our guide book.

I was getting hungry, so we decided to sample the national dish, Moules et Frites, (mussels and chips) at a French café less than a block from the Grote Markt (aka de Grand Place in French). The café offered menus in French, Dutch, and English, but the waiter really only understood in French. Several confused exchanges later, we each sampled a beer while we waited for our meal. I tried the Rodenbach, and Travis had a triple-something while we tried to decipher our paper placemats, which were in French.

My best high-school-French guess is that the placemat advised us to eat our mussels informally, because it is difficult to eat them with your fork in your left hand, and a knife in your right hand in the manner that most Europeans use their cutlery. No problem! Americans are great at eating informally! We shared a huge bucket of steamed mussels, a plate of frites, and a bowl of French onion soup, and the entire bill came to a little less than 30€. Absolutely delicious! Travis and I practiced saying Merci and a few other French words to the waiter, who bore our accent with practiced despair.

By this point, the streets were thronged with tourists and vendors selling snacks from carts. On our way back to the car, we bought deux waffles avec chocolat, s’il vous plaît from a waffle cart, completing our calorie consumption for the next few days. I think the thing that surprised me the most was how much graffiti and trash we saw. Brussels was nice to visit, but I am glad we are going to be living in Gent.