Belgium « Lasting Impressions From Around the World

Miniature-sized Europe by Kristinasaurus

November 4, 2009, 10:26 am
Filed under: Belgium

I spent a week in Belgium last June. I lived in Brussels, near the city centre. My little, but classy flat was located in a nice suburb. It was just a 10 minute ride on the bus to get to the colossal EU Parliament buildings, streets full of businessmen and women and the rich mix of immigrants, tourists and multicultural natives.

Brussels is a lovely city to live in. It’s not as huge as London but it’s bigger than Copenhagen. People aren’t as over-friendly as people in Paris, but not rude either. Of course, people may seem rude if you don’t speak fluent French, because native French speakers have a… quite odd English accent.

I’ve visited Brussels multiple times before, so I didn’t use my time touring the sights. I concentrated on feeling the city swarm around me. I was a little Finnish spot in the middle of miniature-sized Europe. I felt especially small when I was standing in front of Berlaymont, the headquarter of the Parliament of EU. The building seemed to reach up to the skies, forever and ever and ever… Inside, the building was nothing special. Just big.

Brussels is the Perfect City to enjoy without doing anything at all. The city centre is a fabulous mix of old and new, foreign and Belgian, modern and old-fashioned… and so on. When strolling around the main streets, you can easily spot Nokia stores, Turkish diners and Leonidas boutiques, that sell traditional Belgian chocolate.

Universality offers endless opportunities of shopping, and I totally used this chance. For me, these opportunities meant professional comic shops and French music. Belgium is the Promised Land of comic addicts, mostly because it’s long tradition in comic art. Tintin had gained a status of national epic, but there’s more to it. Unlike in Finland, French and Belgian comics can be found in every book store and most important of all – in reasonable prices.

Everyday when I had spent a nice day shopping, I took the metro to the nearest park from my flat. Oh, how the smell of green just cheers the air in the middle of a big city! The parks in Brussels are very tidy and in a good condition. It’s nice to sit down for a while and try to spot some parrots – they are quite common in Brussels and like to fly from tree to tree screaming. Spotting a parrot is easy when you follow the noise – Belgian parrots are not so colourful but they sure are very loud!

One of the most thrilling experiences in Brussels must be the food. Belgians love their food, but only Belgian food they seem to have around is french fries! It’s the best to take a chance and try out the ethnic cuisines that can be found everywhere. Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Spanish, Greek and Mexican – every meal is an adventure. The food was spicy and mild, sweet and sour, cheap and expensive and everything in between! Cooking at home is also different because you can find fresh mackerel and Brussels sprout in every grocery.

Now a brief lesson in geography. Belgium is a bilingual country, and the language barrier is really like the Berlin Wall. In the south people speak only French and in the north people speak only Flemish. This is a useful piece of information when you plan to travel outside Brussels, which is bilingual.

I travelled to Antwerp, the second biggest city in Belgium and the capitol of Flemish-speaking Belgium. My main interest was Antwerp Zoo, one of the oldest and biggest zoos in the world. Antwerp Zoo was crowded when I arrived, because everyone wanted to see the new attraction – Europe’s first baby elephant. I have to admit, it was cute. I spent eight hours in the zoo taking a look at over 950 different species of animals. Everywhere around I heard universal names of animals shouted by children – like ‘bambi’ or ‘pingu’ or ‘dumbo’.

It was already dark when I left the zoo and I decided to walk around the city now that I was there. A lovely city to visit, if you have a couple of millions to spare – Antwerp is the central of European jewelery market and you can really tell it by the shops: gold, diamonds, clocks, jewels… Another interesting detail: all the old buildings in the city centre had statues of saints in their corners. This really reminded that Belgium is a catholic country.

Catholicism really showed up in Brussels too. At the first day of my trip I made a critical mistake: I did my hair normally. Catholic Belgians are very conservative, and my red mohawk was too much. Mostly people just stared at me, some called names, and other tourists wanted to take pictures with me. I got thrown out of shops and called a shoplifter. This is one of the few negative things in Brussels.