MUSSELS in BRUSSELS...

Having nothing to do for this weekend we decided to go away somewhere (before we get stuck down with jobs). We checked out lastminute.com and booked a cheap two night getaway to Brussels, Belgium. We left early Friday morning taking the Eurostar train. It took just over 2 hours for us to leave London behind and cut through France to arrive in the capital of Belgium, the EU, and Art Nouveau - Brussels.

From the Brussels Midi station we caught a tram towards the city centre (as per instructions on our hotel's website to get there) and after almost getting lost right off the bat, we managed to locate the main street and our hotel, realising that it would have been easier just to walk to the hotel directly from the hotel (which we did when we left this morning). That's one of the good things about the Eurostar. It's not like catching a plane where they have to have airports on the outskirts of the city and you gotta bus it or train it into the city, with the Eurostar it takes you right in the middle of the city. We checked into our hotel (the Eurostars Grand Place Hotel) which was conveniently located on one of the main strips in Lower Town in the heart of the city, dropped off our stuff and then headed out for some sightseeing and lunch.

Our first "sight" was the famous Mannekin Pis. Its a fountain set atop a street corner and is a statue of a little boy having a pee.

The folk story is that this quick-thinking young whipper snapper used his brains and a full bladder to put out a fire threatening to burn the city down. Some locals dress him up each day in different outfits. Its one of those things like the start of each Simpsons episode that keep you coming back. There are also related statues (although not as popular) of a little girl who is apparently the boy's sister Jeanneke, and a dog, Zinneke, scattered around the city centre. Among other things, these statues are said to symbolise the national spirit of the country.




I always used to think of Jean Claude Van-Damme when I thought of Brussels. He's the "Muscles from Brussels". I always thought it was something they called him because it rhymed and was catchy. I really should have known better. Moules et frites (Mussels and chips) are the national food and our guide book informed us that you should only eat mussels in months with the letter "R". Being September, our first meal was an order of moules et frites each from the Lonely Planet recommended Chez Leon. The mussels were juicy and delicious. Needless to say, we both emptied our pots and had had enough mussels to last for the whole Brussels experience. Time to move on to other things. Other things Belgium is famous for are Belgian waffles, Belgian Chocolates, and Belgian beer. Well, been there, done that, bought the shirt.

The waffles were fantastic. We got our first two from a shop called Papillon, where the queue was long and the waffles were fresh, hot and sweet.


We didn't eat many chocolates there, but we did buy half a kilo to bring back to London to eat. We got a 250g mixed selection from the upmarket Neuhaus, and later on, another 250g mixed selection from the less expensive, but popular Leonidas ("just to compare" argued Tam).

I've never been much of a sweets person, but the waffles and chocolates in Brussels were mind-altering. The delicious Speculoos biscuits are also to die for.

As Tam mentioned in our last blog entry, having drank too much beer one night with our housemates a week and a bit ago, I had been avoiding alcohol.


But, being in a country where they literally have hundreds of varieties of beer, I couldn't resist. Its hard to say "no" in a country that when faced with a choice between drinking buttermilk or beer as a substitute for the tainted water to avoid the plague, they went with and stuck with beer. God bless St Arnold. Between us, we compiled a list of the different beers that we sampled:
1. Maes Pils (a local cheapie)
2. Mort Subite Framboise (Mort Subite translates as "instant death". These are kind of "girly" beers, easy to drink and sweet. Framboise being raspberries-flavoured)
3. Mort Subite Peche (peach-flavoured)
4. Mort Subite Kriek (cherry-flavoured)
5. Grimbergen Brune
6. Belle-Vue Framboise (similar to Mort Subite but stronger and not as sweet)
7. Belle-Vue Kriek
8. Vieux Temps
9. Floris Apple (extremely sweet apple cider)
10. Tremens Delirium (the one with the pink elephants!)
11. Orval (not one of my faves. very hard to drink Trappist beer)
12. Jupiler
13. Westmalle Dubble
14. Chimay (blue)
Nowhere near as extensive as our gelato feat, but still quite impressive for a non-beer drinker and me recovering from a self-induced aversion to beer. You also have to consider that Belgian beers are typically much stronger than the ones we're used to back home. A 5% alcohol beer would be considered "light". Belgian beers normally range from between 7-12%. We managed to visit four pubs: 'A la Mort Subite' (which they named the drink after), 'A la Bonne Vieux Temps', 'Le Cirio', and the Nouveau Art decked 'Falstaff'. A few pubs also sell a "Half and half" drink which is very nice. It's half champagne and half white wine.


It was after a while that we realised we had come to Brussels at a really good time, just when they were celebrating the 175th anniversary of when the state of Belgium was founded. There was a festive air and the 15th century market square the Grand Place had food and beer stalls and was packed out with tourists and locals.



There was music, gaily dressed dancing men, gigantic puppet dolls, and allsorts. The thing I got most excited about was not the food or beer or the fact that Belgians appreciate comic strips as art (they invented Smurfs, Tintin, and Lucky Luke!). No, it was the Horse Parade (see photos). I don't know why, but it was just one of the most fantastic things which we stumbled upon.



The only bad thing that happened on our getaway was last night when I got pickpocketed. We were walking back to our hotel when these three guys came up to us and tried to "have a chat". They said hello to us in Chinese and then when we told them to go away in English one of the guys came right up to us and started dancing close up to me. Practically dancing on my leg and singing something. Then he left us alone and joined his mates. I patted myself down and realised I didn't have my mobile anymore. I couldn't feel him take it because I had my passport in a hidden pouch under that pocket. So I turned and ran after them. They saw me and gave my phone back to me without arguing or trouble. That's when I cracked dancing boy upside the head and roundhouse kicked his friends into the oncoming traffic. It's funny how you only think of what you should have done in situations like that after they've happened and you sit and stew on them for a bit. I took my phone back on one of his friends and walked back with Tam to the hotel. Guess I learnt a lesson there. Next time something like that happens, I'll be ready. Keeping a mental repertoire of how to act in certain situations. We were lucky that time. We didn't take many photos after that as we left our phones and Tam's camera and everything back in the hotel.


Another cool thing that we stumbled upon, was on our second visit to the Mannekin Pis. In line with the festivities, the Belle-Vue beer company had rigged up the fountain in such a way that Mannekin was peeing out Belle-Vue Framboise, which they were catching with cups and passing out to the crowd. I don't think there's many that can say that they've drunk cherry-flavored beer pissed out by a national icon, but Tam and I have.