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Published: June 20th 2012
Boy doing a piss
Attracting a large crowd. The statue is very small, and very popular. We arrived late on Tuesday feeling pretty tired and run down. Thankfully our host was waiting to meet us and whisked us onto a tram back to her house where her husband was making a delicious meal to welcome us (lemon juice cooked fish, cous cous, tagine cooked vegetables and some salad). We were shown up to our room on the third floor and made to feel very comfortable and welcome.
On Wednesday we caught the tram to the main station (Gare du midi) and then went for a walk into the centre passing through the middle eastern area which consisted of a lot of men (and men only) sitting at cafes drinking coffees or mint teas, smoking and chatting.
Near the Grand Place (Brussels central square), there is a small statue of a boy pissing called the Mannedkan Pis Fountain. This draws vast numbers of tourists for reasons I'm not sure of, but not wanting to be the odd ones out we wandered down that way too. He's a bit of a national symbol, so images of other things pissing are popular aswell. The statue has many legends around it. Something about pissing on the soldiers of the
other side during a war. Another about a little lost boy found pissing. More about pissing on an explosive fuse. We got told it was something to do with a boy pissing on fires during a war to put them out. Musta had a pretty decent bladder!
While on that topic, we are discovering is that Europeans love charging you to use toilets. Even in a shopping centre where you would think the income from rent would cover it, they will charge you 0.50 euro (around 0.70 AUD) to have a turn. Very frustrating when all you want to do is take a leak (and there are no buildings on fire to put out). We've been told that Spain doesn't charge, which must be why their economy is failing...
Most of the day was spent admiring more old things, admiring cool street art, eating a waffle (had to be done), eating delicious and expensive chocolate pralines ($100/kg!), and cooking up some dinner for our hosts.
The following day we went to Bruges to hang out for the day. The weather gods were feeling kind and we had a beautiful day of sunshine. Highlights for the day include
Old Buildings
Love all the individual statues. A bunch of them point at each other. chocolate breasts, various landmarks from the movie In Bruges (which everyone should see), and more admiring of old things.
Friday morning we leapt out of bed (yeah right) and caught a slow train to Amsterdam where we then caught a tram to our couch surfing host's place, had a feed and a chat before going back in to the city to eat some cheese and wander in a vaguely lost touristy way (we're pretty good at it). Many things were sampled, some suspicious cookies were bought (don't worry concerned ones - they weren't the real ones - devoid of THC). Ah Amsterdam, where cafe means pub and coffee shop means marijuana shop. Hard to find somewhere to actually buy coffee!
The following day we cruised into the city again to do a free tour run by the same mob that did the free tour in Edinburgh. It really is a good system - the tour is free, but the guide survives on tips, so basically you pay what you feel it was worth which encourages them to be good guides. It was three hours like the last one and included lots of fascinating stories about the history of
Amsterdam. for example, the East India Company was the first company in the world to offer "shares", The Netherlands was the first
modern Western country to become a republic (not sure on this one), the idea of "Fair Trade" originated in The Netherlands, and the population of Amsterdam went on strike during the German occupation to protest the treatment of the Jewish people.
During the walk Nena realised that her shoes were not only failing in wet weather, but they also had major issues with excessive walking. They have very thin soles and no heel and Nena's achilles were starting to protest. Chris has had Achilles tendonitis before and knew if nothing is done then the healing process can take a month or more, so we grabbed a few supplies (turmeric capsules as an antiinflammatory, and an Arnica cream) and vowed to get some new shoes asap.
Sunday we had arranged to ride share in a car with a couple of German girls across to Dusseldorf. Before we all met up Nena bit the bullet and bought some new Ecco shoes which were a LOT more comfortable.
Cruising in the back of an Audi A3 seemed more
Waffles
A large version of the boy, complete with added waffles. At one stage Chris bumped him, and as he started to fall Chris reached out to grab him to stop him falling and grabbed an...inappropriate spot. oops. interesting (and cheaper than the bus or train). The fun started when we hit the German border. Nothing like going 150km/h on the highway and then having a Porsche scream past as if you are standing still and your car wobbles as the wind hits your car. But we made it, and were dropped off at our hosts for tonight. Awesome!
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Camille
non-member comment
enjoying the trip
Thank you for your blogs and lotsa pics. Good to see that you are both well and having fun. Love and hugs