More of Belgium with Tim - Brugge, the beach and bad kareoke

Tim and I

Tim is yet another french-speaking Belgian student from the 2009-2010 AFS Wellington group, like Arthur he lives in Brussels with his family, but in a more suburban area, it was cool to see the difference. A strike had paralysed the subway on Tuesday so he picked me up from the train station and we had a quick lunch at his before heading off to the beach with his mum, Joelle. I had met her briefly in NZ a year ago.

Knokke

We drove for about an hour and a half (Belgium is a small country!) to reach Knokke, a small city on the Flemish coast just next to the border with The Netherlands. Its a beachside resort really, like the Belgian version of Saint Tropez but of course we were there in the middle of winter so it was deserted. I kind of prefer it that way, I can't think of the right word but its almost romantic or something, to see all of the huge apartments, bars and beachside abandoned and grey. We stayed in the apartment of Joelle's friend, it was pretty fancy with one of those touchscreens that controls all of the lights and heating! After we arrived we went for a walk, looking for somewhere to hire bikes so that we could ride along the coast past the estuary and into the Netherlands, but it being winter they were all closed, and the weather was pretty grey so we walked along the beach a bit and then returned. We went out for dinner, so I tried Belgian croquettes, I love them! I think Belgian food suits me, heaps of beer and fried stuff! After dinner we watched a movie I probably wouldn't recommend, 'Remember Me'. It wasn't terrible, just that I don't really get what the point of it was beyond a really simple love story!

walking along the beach

We were up early the next morning, I don't know if I mentioned before but as well as the Speculoos Belgians have many more amazing things to put on your toast, like chocolate sprinkles. One day I have to try chocolate sprinkles on top of speculoos! The sun was out so we tried again to find a bike hire place but to no avail, so we walked along the coast for a bit anyway, its a really nice walk and along the way we saw a sign saying Kia Ora, I get so excited when I see things that seem to be from NZ here! They had bulldozers all over the beach levelling the sand, I find this quite strange, and also that they are beginning to build windmills in the sea (they are also all through the countryside). I think the public in NZ would go crazy if someone tried to build windmills in a popular beach in NZ.

ATM in the church

We drove to Brugge along some smaller roads, it was really beautiful as the roads were lined with tall trees and canals, and we went through a small town that we had seen photos of the night before. There is an old church there with a door in the front side that houses an ATM machine, very strange! And an old man came along and started talking to me in Flemish, I guess they don't get many tourists there so he wanted to tell us the story of the statue I was photographing Tim in front of, he speaks some Flemish but I don't think he really got the story.

Brugge

Brugge is amazing, if Knokke is the Saint Tropez of Brussels then Brugge is its Venice. It used to be a really powerful trading town, one of the most powerful in the world, but then the canal silted up and it became really poor and people left it. This was my favourite city in Belgium I think, its really pretty. We went up the Belfry like in the movie 'In Brugge', I loved the view and the climb wasn't as bad as Cologne. I don't understand how they managed to get movie cameras up there though, the stairway is still tiny! The bells rang while we were up there and it was deafening.

Brugge canal boats

We had belgian fries for lunch, and something I don't remember the name of but its like deep-fried sausage, it was pretty awesome, and then continued our walk past a couple of squares, town buildings and the fish market. We took a tour on a canal boat, that really was an experience, its just so beautiful, although I am told that the guide was changing his story in the french and english versions! Afterwards we visited the Church of Our Fair Lady, which now that I've visited a million European churchs only really stands out because it has a Michelangelo staute, 'Madonna and Child', the only one that left Italy during his lifetime, and also the old Saint John's Hospital, which I am pretty sure is the oldest hospital in the world, founded in the 13thC and now a museum. We also went to the Béguinage, a place kind of like a convent, like all of these little houses surrounded by a wall that single women who wanted to be safe and serve God without taking nun vows used to live in (they were called Beguines), and I tried speculoos icecream (awesome!). Finally, we did some shopping before heading home. Photos of Knokke and Brugge on facebook are here.

Houses in the Béguinage

After dinner we took the dog for a walk. Her name is West, in Belgium you can only register your dog under a name beginning with a certain letter, each year its the subsequent letter of the alphabet, and they year they got her it was W. I don't really understand how having all the dogs named with the same letter makes it easier for the council to manage, but oh well. She is like a little white scottie-dog, but quite fat instead of little and very lazy! I've never met a dog before that trots along behind and has to be cajoled along instead of running in front the whole time! But she's very cute. We walked through the suburbs, it was weird not to be in a very urban area, and we saw the 'suburb houses', or state houses we would call them. They were all built in like the 1930s or 40s or thereabouts and are all identical, except sometimes they changed the colour of the windowframes or doors. I guess its possible to built houses like this in a city that's so flat, houses in Wellington all have to be different because they are all built onto the side of hills, it must be much more challenging for architects! Tim says they film a lot of old movies in that area, as the houses look the same as they did decades ago. We were both shattered, so we had an early night.

Brussels

Thursday is a bit murky, I got up early to have breakfast with Tim before he went to uni but I messed around all morning just doing things like re-sorting my bag. I took the subway into the city, Joelle had made me a map the night before with a list of things to do, but her map was missing several roads and had no street names, so it was certainly an adventure! I managed to find the flea market, I love visiting these everywhere and this one was full of vintage stuff that would sell for quite a bit in NZ. I am really into glass at the moment, like different glass ornanments and vessels, but I restrained myself knowing that glass and international postage isn't a great combination!

Grand Place

I walked back past a old church that has a urinal built along the side of it, probably the only church in the world that encourages people to pee on it, and went up the Music Museum to have a look at the view. The music museum is in a really old and beautiful building, and I would love to go through the museum itself if I go back to Brussels and have more time, but the view from there terrace at the top is quite good - probably a lot better when it isn't all grey and cloudy though! Finally, I walked back to the grand square where Arthur took me on my first night here, I got really distracted by some shops and then met Joelle.

Comic museum

I had a Belgian kebab for lunch, they make them in a kind of sandwidge bread, like a baguette but not quite, and as well as the normal kebab fillings and meat they chuck in fries as well, its an epic meal. Joelle has been quite supportive of my speculoos addiction, so she took me to a really old shop that makes massive pieces of speculoos, like metre long biscuits, that you can order by the 100s of grams and they break off for you. We spent all afternoon eating a massive piece! We walked around for awhile, checking out some buildings and streets that she wanted to show me, and we went to the comic museum, it was pretty cool to see the really old original drawings. Finally, we collected the car from home and went to see the exterior and gardens of the Museum of Africa, built a couple of hundred years ago. The gardens are amazing, and the building looks like it should have been designed as a palace, not a museum!

buying beer

Tim had invited friends around for drinks that night, so after I returned we went to the supermarket for beer. They have a good system here where you buy beer by the crate, save all of the bottles and return them to like a reverse vending machine, and get money back (also works for bottled water). We returned eight crates (Tim has two older brothers and Belgians drink beer like water) and got about 36euros, or 70dollars, back for them. Then we brought more beer, it was between 3 and 4 euro for a crate of 24, so 6-8 NZdollars, ridiculously cheap. We got a lot of different kinds so I could try them, I really love the fruit beers that they make here, like cherry, peach, strawberry flavoured. It tastes more like soda than beer.

So, we spent the next rest of the evening drinking with Tim's friends. I think most of them spoke some english, some had done six month exchanges in England, but apart from a couple they were all too shy to speak to me in front of the others! The guys that were game to give english a go were really cool though, and eventually a few of us headed out to a local kareoke bar where we joined Tim's brother and his girlfriend. Turns out I don't sing better in French than in English, although there was still some entertainment value in my performances - turns out I am very good at falling flat on my face while climbing onto the stage!

I was supposed to get up earlyish the next morning and go to the European Parliament, but the 8am alarm was ignored by both of us, and we only got up in time for lunch and for Tim to get to class. Time for me to pack again, and I was off to Paris! Photos of Brussels (Part 1 and Part 2) on facebook are here.