Wow, two within two days . . .

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Brussels was definitely an interesting weekend, and I think it accelerated the desire to return to Chicago. More on that in a sec . . .

This was the first, and not the last, that I was all by myself (cue Eric Carmen). Alli & Andrew were off to a skiing trip in the Alps (about that, it’s the warmest there in 1,300 years), Katie booked herself a trip to Paris to see family friends, and Melissa decided to stick it out in Nantes. I wasn’t too worried about being alone, I’ve had enough time with maps and my trusty little compass to figure out where to go. And unlike previous excursions, I mapped out exactly where my hostel was. No wandering this time. The trip was quick, about 5 hours on the train (seriously, 4-hr airplane rides pale in comparison to the amount of time I’ve spent on transportation), with a transfer in Paris.

The hostel blew me away. Probably the nicest, cleanest, most modern aka funkiest hostel I’ve been to yet. Free hot chocolate, coffee, cappuccinos, etc in the morning, free wifi, free computer lab, multiple plasma tvs, bathrooms IN THE ROOMS (!!!), and hot water ALL DAY LONG! Wow. I had the good fortune to room with three girls from England, who were quite pleasant. I left them to unpack and set out for the Christmas market, which by this time would be ablaze with festivities.

And ablaze it was. Wow. The Grand Place is truly one of the most beautiful squares I’ve seen. The architecture alone was amazing, and added with the gargantuan Christmas tree in the center, I congratulated myself on choosing Fall semester to study abroad. I wandered a bit, sampling vin chaud, some gaufres liégeoises (a particularly tasty type of Belgian waffles), but sadly, no mussels or frites. I kept putting it off to find a really good place, and then I sorta forgot. My favorite place was Rue de Bouchers, where at least 15 restaurants/cafés lined each side of a veryveryvery narrow street, more like an alley, and every owner stood outside and welcomed, begged, and pleaded the hapless wanderers (aka me) to dine there. One even went so far as to stand in my path, shake my hand, inquire about my night, and tell me about how wonderful his food was . . .

Next morn, I wandered some more (there was a lot of wandering ), took in the sights of the Grand Place in daylight, Palais de Justice, and the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts. It’s a wonderful museum, but I was peeved to find out that the room housing David’s Death of Marat was closed (yes, M. Lewis, I still remember that painting from high school- I consoled myself by buying the postcard), and that the René Magritte museum wasn’t set to open until 2007. Now, I’m not too big on art, and some of you know that I like bizarre things, thus, Magritte could most definitely be considered my favorite painter. Thus, slightly more than crushed. At that point, I gave up on Brussels and decided to hop on a train to Bruges. Seriously, I went to the station, said I want a ticket for Bruges, paid 7 euro roundtrip, and hopped on, all within 5 minutes. European rails are just so efficient.

Now, everyone says, go to Bruges, go to Bruges. It’s the true Belgium. I’m slightly in disaccord with that, since after disembarking the train, I strolled toward town, only to find street after street of H&M (yes, again), celio, Jules, Etam, eram, écam (don’t ask, I have no idea what they mean), Zara, etc . . . basically all shops that we have in Nantes. But then I kept walking, and lo and behold, found another Christmas market. Some hot chocolate spiked with Bailey’s and a few minutes of viewing ice-skaters whirling around to the remix of that great old 90s hit, “Everybody Dance Now,” really put me in the spirit. In wandering some more, I found old Bruges. Absolutely beautiful, I wish I had had the good fortune to see it in daylight as well.

Sunday found me in the Musée de la Bande-Dessinée, cuz comics are HUGE in Belgium. After all, it’s the birthplace of the Smurfs (or les Schtroumpfs, depending on who you talk to). I think i had more fun in the giftshop, but it was quite the amusing museum nonetheless. I left with a new affinity for Tintin, the crime-solving reporter/globetrotter and Milou, his faithful talking dog (in American versions, it’s Snowy). A quick glance outside at the pouring rain told me that the EU wasn’t going to happen, so I hopped on the metro for Heysel, home of Mini-Europe and the Atomium, a massive atomic structure constructed for the 1958 World Exposition that no one ever took it down, and thus it is now a landmark. I recommend going just for kicks. And you can see lots of old Barbies and BMWs.

Also quite spiffy to see everything in French as well as Dutch . . .

So I survived a weekend by myself, and now I’m planning a new one for Stockholm.

In regards to the desire to go home, I’ve started thinking about the people and things I miss (Well of course I miss you all, otherwise you wouldn’t be on this email list. ) :

1. Crosswords
2. The el running at all hours of the night
3. Chicago Canine Rescue
4. Conan O’Brien
5. Johnny’s Grill #6 Special

top the list. To be fair, I’ve thought of a few things that I’ll most likely miss here :

1. Havana Club and all related affiliates
2. Being able to hop on a train for next to nothing
3. . . .

All right, I’m working on it . . .

Another thing that came to mind was that I feel I have only one identity here, that being a “student.” In Chicago I can walk around and not feel that label; I can be a student, or a shopper, or an employee, or just a simple 21 yr-old. I don’t know, it’s a bit difficult to explain (girls, when I said that today, I don’t think you guys knew exactly what I meant either). It seems that here, the society is run by the State, thus education is mere pennies, so everyone (in the right age range) is a student, because, why not? And I am constantly made aware of what’s available to students. When I travel, when I go to museums, when I shop, I ask, Est-ce qu'il y a une réduction pour des étudiants ?, and rarely is the answer no. Okay . . .

3. Student discounts

But really, I don’t feel anything more than being a student here. It might have something to do with how young everyone dresses, women in their fifties shop right alongside girls in their teens. There’s no stratification of age here. Everyone is equably fashionable (for the most part), and to me, it seems as though those of the ages between 21 - 29 have disappeared. I can’t discern them. That’s not cool! That’s where I’m supposed to be, and really now, if this trip was supposed to give me insight about myself and help me discover who I am, then it’s a little hard to do when theoretically I ain’t even here!

So on a more enlightened note, I neglected to mention this is my last entry (aka yesterday) - Les Tortues Ninjas won the Best Halloween Group Costume. Grand prize = highly coveted jar of peanut butter. I believe we demolished it in Rome.

14 days till re-entry . . . that’s the term they use for rockets returning from space, right?

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Photos

Grand Place at Night
There was even a bit of a light/music show, absolutely best thing to turn a corner to . . .

Grand Place again
The architecture alone was amazing.

A little taste of Window Shopping
As was commented, it's like Narnia.

Manneken Pis
Freakin' statue, it's their pride & joy. He's got over 700 costumes, 100 on display at a time.

Bridge of Bruges/Brugge
Man, I couldn't even come up with these colors on my own, just too beautiful . ..

Me & Some Random Cartoon
There's a lot of comic strip stuff randomly situated in Brussels . . . and by this point, I've become quite the awesome self-portraiter.

Metro
They've got some pretty cool metro stations, each one's different.

Atomium
I could only shake my head, but then I thought of Chicago's Bean.

Comments

[Mr. Lewis]

À bientôt, Aimée!!
Salut!! J'écris ce commentaire en français parce que tu le mérites, Aimée!! Tu finis déjà ton séjour en France...C'est incroyable!! Tu vas trouver que quand tu reviendras aux E.U., tu verras que tu auras changé...Quand on étudie à l'étranger, on commence, comme tu as fait dans ce blog, à apprécier ce que tu as ici. Oui, je pense que "tu t'es trouvée" là-bas car tes messages me donnent l'impression que tu t'es transformée de la petite élève que j'avais en classe à une jeune femme qui est prête à vivre sa vie comme adulte. Je suis super fier de toi, Aimée. Maintenant tu comprends de quoi je parlais quand on étudiait 'la culture' (répétez la culture!) en classe. Je suis sûr que tu auras beaucoup de succès dans la vie. Courage et à bientôt!!

[Rosalia]

Loved the review and the photos
I loved reading your review of Brussels and Brugge and seeing the photos of the Grand Place all lit up. I'm going to Brussels myself next week - can't wait! I might even make a detour to the Musée de la Bande-Dessinée, the gift shop alone sounds excellent! What's the name of the hostel you stayed at?

[amy m anderson]

Hostel info
Hey, it's 2GO4 Quality Hostel, on Emile Jacqmainlaan 99 . . . so easy to get to, and it's right in the middle of town, you'll have an awesome time there

[ms.p.]

Lace
Did you see the lace makers in Brugge? The real ones??? Ahhh... The absolute best little town to visit!

[cynthia]

Tear ...
I miss you soooo much. So you lied to call you its 011 not 001, well yea took me some while to figure out. But I left you a message. Hey I went to Johnny's grill w my mama and ate in memory of you. FYI i CANT WAIT TO SEE U!!!!!!!!