Brussels

After Amsterdam, I headed south to Brussels. Although I had some issues getting there after I thought I had left my camera at my hostel in Amsterdam and spent some time being lost in Brussels, I did eventually get to my hostel.

My first full day in Brussels, I started by visiting the Atomium, a sculpture of nine spheres in the shape of an iron crystal originally built for the 1958 World’s Fair. While overpriced to visit, the Atomium is a really impressive structure. I was surprised by how huge it is in person, the view from the top viewing platform was impressive, and the setup of the structure with escalators connecting the spheres was interesting to see.

Unfortunately, while I was at the Atomium, which is about an hour away from the city center, the entire Brussels metro system shut down due to an accident in which a bystander attacked and killed a bus driver. While the accident was very unfortunate, neither the hour long walk back to my hostel nor the subsequent decision of the subway employees union to strike for the subsequent week, leading to me needing to walk everywhere in Brussels (my hostel was a half hour from the city center and an hour from the train station) were particularly enjoyable. I also subsequently read an article that talked about the tendency for the public transit employees to strike around holidays, so I think there were certainly suspicions that the attack was capitalized on to create a week long Easter vacation.

Speaking of Easter, I spent Easer morning going to my first Catholic mass at the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral. While less extravagant than many cathedrals, it was the most decorated churches I’ve attended a worship service in. The mass was bilingual in French and Dutch. To briefly digress, while Brussels is in the French speaking part of Belgium, the city is officially bilingual. Street signs are written in both French and Dutch and most people seemed to know both languages. Since I know English and German, throughout the service, I got more out of the Dutch than the French, although much of the content was lost to me. However, the service was more about the cultural experience than the religious experience. It was also my first Catholic service and the ritualistic aspects of the service were completely new to me. Although not a type of religious service I particularly connect with, seeing how much of Europe and America worships was a really great experience. 

I was a bit tired of going to museums, so I mostly wandered the city looking at a variety of sites such as the Botanical Gardens:

the Stock Exchange Building:

the Parliament Building:

the Royal Palace:

the Town Hall:

the Manneken Pis, the famous, yet tiny statue of a boy peeing:

 the European Parliament:

the Congress Column, which commemorates the founding of the Belgian state:

and Cinquantenaire park which has a triumphal arch. 

In addition to more typically ornate architecture, Brussels has a quirky side too. Due to the large number of comic authors and illustrators from Brussels, there are fun comic book inspired murals all over the city.

In typical touristy fashion, I also ate a waffle. Here’s a photo of my loaded tourist waffle, although I also ate a more subdued traditional waffle covered with powdered sugar later in the trip.

The whole experience ended with another interesting cultural experience.  Based on a map with suggestions from locals, I went to a small independent cinema house and saw a documentary about Japanese experimental music. While the part of the movie in which the musicians were discussing the experimental music scene in Japan in Japanese with French subtitles was lost to me, most of the movie was musicians performing their work which transcends language. Many of the musicians used everyday objects to create music, which was really cool.

While Brussels wasn’t my favorite city to visit, it’s certainly a pretty city with an important role in European politics as the capital of the European Union.