Brussels Day 11 & 12
I realized after being to so many, that I like small cities where the center is easy to get to and everything is walk-able. Brussels, like Florence, falls into that description. I didn't even have a map but it was hard to get lost when every couple of blocks, you wound up on the same street.This is an old picture of Stephane (obviously the guy in the picture) taken when he was in Manila for work and I, Melissa (far right) and Raina (far left) took him out.
He returned the favor and took me around Brussels (Day 10) and Bruges (Day 11) and, considering he's not Belgian but French, was surprisingly very knowledgeable about everything! Or he had a theory about what he didn't know. Or he was completely making it up and I couldn't tell. :) But it was so much fun - I'd missed having a real, smart, funny conversation, plus I got to ride in his new Audi (I was getting a literal pain in the ass after all those scooters).
I think I saw all the major sights of Brussels in about 3 hours, excluding a side trip to the office (ugh). I still don't get the attraction of the cheeky peeing boy (Mannekin-Pis) though he's cute and really funny to look at, especially in his black-and-white pool player get-up complete with cue stick, that made him look a bit like Efren Bata.
The next day, we drove to Bruges - it was a nice 40-minute ride passing by real cows (vs. the fake cardboard cut-outs we have here in Singapore!). The cows weren't the real attraction obviously; the small city hasn't changed much since the Middle Ages (at least that's what I was told :).
Bruges is called the "Venice of the North" because of the canal of water running through it. They have 2 nice churches, 1 with Michelangelo's 'Madonna and Child' statue and the other purportedly with the actual blood of Christ (!).
For a country that has 400 different types of beer, I only pitifully tried 1, ok maybe 2. I had a bit of Leffe but it was horrible. Cherry beer tastes well, like cherry juice, except I couldn't stand straight after 1 bottle.
Every night I slept like the dead because Stephane would order wine with dinner (which was always amazing). Last night's wine was something I couldn't pronounce, much less spell, but it tasted like lychees and I chugged it down till I was really really happy... so happy that I almost missed the train back to Paris where I caught the flight to Singapore.
I can't believe I'm back.
posted by moan @ 9:14 AM
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