Day 34 - 36 Brussels

20 - 22 August 2014

Day 34
Getting there
The flight over was quite bumpy but I survived, stomach contents intact and all. I flew with Malmö Aviation who is a small airline and they are clearly still using older planes because my armrest had an ashtray in them.

Malmö Aviation, still rocking ashtrays

As we were coming in over Brussels, I noticed that there are a lot of solar panels. Not that I remember ever looking before but it's what stood out to me. Once in Brussels airport, I made my way through the enormous place and on the way, spotted a Playstation 4 demo stand but all the free spots had broken controllers :(

I caught the bus to near my hostel and it dropped me off into the pouring rain but luckily I only had to walk a few minutes to the hostel. Shortly after, the rain cleared up and to celebrate being in a country with cheap beer, I grabbed a Jupiter and went to the park.

Day 35
Walking tour
Today a Japanese friend from the hostel and I went on a free walking tour. We started in the Grote Markt where the tour guide pointed out the things wrong with the Town Hall building.

Panorama of Grote Markt

Town Hall Building
The Town Hall has...

An unaligned arch because apparently different builders did the arch and the windows above

...and because some of the people who had statues on the building turned out to be dicks, the people who lived there smashed the heads off the statues with rocks.

Headless statue

The building also has a different number arches on each side and the windows on the left are a different style to the right.

TinTin
The next stop on the tour was a street art mural of TinTin. The TinTin comic is from Belgium and TinTin means tuft of hair. The tour guide told us about an early issue of the comic called TinTin goes to the congo and how it was a horribly racist and dark comic that is nothing like what most of the comics ended up being. We also learned that Belgium has the highest density of comic book artists in somewhere. I can't remember where but it's probably Europe.

TinTin street art.

Manekin Pis

Manekis Pis was the next stop. I'd never heard of this statue before my Japanese friend told me about it. Apparently there's a movie by the same name and it's really popular in Japan with lots of copies around Japan.

Although he wasn't dressed up today, there's a tailor in town who is paid to make costumes Manekin Pis. He has quite a large wardrobe and he spends more days a year dressed up, than not.

My Japanese mate and I with Manekin Pis

The story we were told about Manekin Pis is that he marks the place where a urine market once was. People would sell urine to tanners because they needed the ammonia.

Waffles

Belgium is obviously famous for waffles but when in Brussels, you'll find two different types. The traditional type that isn't very sweet so it comes only with icing sugar on it. Then there's the tourist one that is higher than it is wide, complete with cream, chocolate, fruit, etc. After the tour, I grabbed a waffle but I went the tourist option this time because chocolate bananas sounded good.

Showing off my tourist waffle. It was good

The origin of the waffle though, is that they were easier to make than bread because they don't require yeast. Makes perfect sense.

Beer

We also learned the reason for the beer culture and it's because the water wasn't safe to drink back in the good ol' days. To fix this, they'd brew it into into a weak or small beer, of about 1.5% alcohol content, and drink it knowing it was safe. Even the kids would drink this beer. It doesn't directly explain the crazy strong beers but I guess when you grow up on beer, you build up a tolerance.

Gargoyle...or not

When most people see one of these guys on a gothic building, they say "it's a gargoyle". This one isn't. That's because it doesn't spew water out. In English, the water coming out makes a gargling sound and so there's a link to the word gargoyle. This guy is called a grotesque.

A grotesque

Other things from the tour

Space invaders street art. Because it invades the public space.

The first arcade in Europe. Built because the weather always sucks and then people can be undercover but still feel like they're outdoors.

Wooden mooses. No story here, they just look cool.

Fries

What else is Belgium famous for? (not French) fries, of course! So after the tour my Japanese friend and a New Yorker we met on the tour went to a recommended fries or frites store. They were good, but I've certainly had the same ones in Australia from local fish and chip stores. The different bit was the sauces you get with them. Here we had mustard and the special meat sauce but the guy behind the counter kept bringing us more so we tried a pineapple one (that was really good), a cheese one and a spicy one.

Frites or fries

Atomium

The New Yorker and I headed off, after filling up on fries, to Atomium. We were catching the metro to it and while we were trying to figure out the ticket machine, we met some Brazilians who were also trying to get there so as a group, we all headed there.

The Brazilians (outsides), the New Yorker (right centre) and me with a tiny bit of Atomium in the background

Atomium and I

Inside you learn the history of the structure and it seems to have a similar story to the Eiffel tower. It was built for a world fair and was going to be pulled down but then people liked it and it stayed up.

Inside you walk between a few of the balls to see a different exhibition in each one. The tunnels are all different and interesting.

You can see out at a few points too.

View from a middle ball

Atomium has this height chart in it.

Size-ist height chart

I learnt that I'm an uphappy height. I never realised :(

Then you have to join an hour long line to take the elevator up to the observation deck in the top ball.

Looking south from the top ball of Atomium

Looking north from the top ball of Atomium

There is only one Belgian thing left to tick off on the list for today, the beer. We found a tiny pub in town with a really nice lady who gave us some good suggestions for beers. We started with these two.

First two beers

And then tried a few others. I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth and drinkable the 11% beers were. I expected them to be overpowering or a bit rough but they were quite nice. The effects really sneak up on you though.

Day 36

I hadn't been in a hostel that provided breakfast for quite a while so it was good to finally be back in one that does.

Included breakfast!

Over breakfast I booked my hostels for the next few days and then headed off the to train station to travel to Bruges.

I like the feature of the metro that shows where trains are with lights.

Thoughts on Brussels

• It's strange flying into a place with bad weather because everything looks great above the clouds but then it turns to crap when you land.
• Everything Belgium is famous for is bad for you: waffles, fries and beer. It makes for a good night out though.
• I enjoyed Brussels and I think I'd stop there again if I were going past.

A cool looking bar I spotted. The sign is made from bottles.