Brussles

We wake up at 3:40 in the morning to catch our 7:30 am flight. It was our first experience with Ryanair, the infamous, cheap European airline. While waiting a school group of teenie-bopper tweens arrive at the gate. They all are speaking French and wearing designer clothes. How was the flight? I am sure you can make assumptions. 
  It was then that I realized I knew ZERO French. Paz knew how to say the most important phrase, "Do you speak English?"
   We arrive in Brussels at a small airport in the boons (thanks Ryanair). We catch a bus (45 minute ride) into the city. We planned to couchsurf in Brussels, and our couch surfer had given us directions to his place...but they were coming from the main airport only 20 minutes from town, not from the airport we had flown into.
    However, we were dropped off at a main train station and figured we could get to his place from there. We wonder around and try to find out if a train is going to our stop. There are no maps, no automated ticket vendors (we had to stand in a long line to buy a ticket from a person), and no sign that told when the next train was coming. We buy our tickets and ask the lady where we wanted to go. Thankfully she spoke English. She told us a time and platform. We get there just as the train is leaving. Since there is no sign regarding the next train, we had to wait in line and ask the lady again. It's a different platform this time; we go and wait. An announcement is made over the intercom, of course we didnt understand it. But then everyone around us groans and leaves the platform. Maybe the train had been canceled?
Stand in line again, ask lady
go to platform, we missed the train again
get fed up, ask for the next 3 coming trains (time and platform), that way if we missed it we knew where to go next
An hour later we finally get into the train and head to the city center...and bitch the whole time about Brussels shitty public transit.
  The train ride gave us an opportunity to see the city. I'll describe Brussels as the most beautifully ugly city I have ever seen. I will explain the beautiful part later. Buildings were original but not maintained; they were decaying. Paint was chipping, much graffiti, there were holes and missing chunks from the buildings. We arrive at our stop, which happened to be where the European Union Parliament was. I thought the EU building would have been glorious and fancy, but it was just another building with some expensive restauarants around, very anti-climatic.

One section of the EU

We catch a bus and finally get to our couch surfers place. He was not home but left a key under the doormat. We walk in a meet one his roomamtes (she was playing the accordian, fuck yes). She showed us to our room. It was nice having our own room, although the sheets on our bed probably had not been washed in weeks. We later find out that this was actually our couch surfer's daughter's room.There were 7 people living in the flat. It was suprisingly nice and clean for what seemed like a house full of hippies.  We had finally made it...at 3:30pm. (when our flight had landed at 9:40am).  

   Exhausted, hungry, dirty, and whatever other problem you could list we had. Not sure when our couch surfer was going to be home, we decide to head into the city and grab some food. We go to a pizza place and the guy did not speak much English. We thought we successfully ordered 2 personal pizzas, but then he comes out with 7 pizzas and mini salads. WTF?? Huge miscommunication. We pay only for our 2 pizzas and leave with our head in shame. Exhausted but ready to explore, we check out the map that Pierre (our couch sufer) had left us. We take a bus into the city and that's when my perception on Brussels completely changed.

Royal Palace

The bus turns on this bumpy cobble stone road and we enter a plaza. We see the huge Royal Palace, surrounded with beautiful museums. The royal family does not reside there anymore, so I am not sure what the building is used for. We explore the plaza and decide to check out the museums later. The Grand Place was our next stop, Brussels most beautiful landmark. Turning the corner, we see an overview of Brussels.
   The city was stunning but I did not feel like I was in Europe. I noticed buildings that  looked Islamic or more eastern. The view reminded me of pictures I

Brussels, Belgium

Grand Place

have seen of Istanbul or Budapest.
We walk into the city and find our way to the Grand Place. The place was a plaza with old yet beautiful buildings. Most had been restored to a hotel or restaurant. In the center of the plaza there is usually street shows and night performances.
  We make our way to the infamous Manneken Pis statue. It is a small fountain of a boy peeing.There are several legends to Pis, my favorite being that he put out a fire by urinating on it, thus saving the king's castle. Usual traditions are dressing the boy in costumes, or hooking him up to a keg so passers by can fill up their cup.

  Manneken Pis was surrounded by a tourist trap: souvenirs and chocolate galore. We decide to grab us a Belgian waffle, a belgian beer, and chill. Pierre calls us and asks if we wanted to check out the "indigenous movement".  We agree, not knowing what we were getting ourselves into, and meet up with him. He was a spunky character, had the attention span of a fish. But he was very carefree and was not afraid to express himself. He explained to us more about the movement. As seen on Wall street (and we also saw in Ireland), it was people fed up with the economic crisis and wanted to make a change. The meeting was held in a university. Most of it was in French so we did not understand, even though Pierre tried to translate. It was then I noticed that I could not identify a "Belgian" person. Belgium has been owned by everybody: France, Spain, Holland, England..ect. And each country brought its African colonies. Not to mention Brussels is an international city because it is home to the EU parliament. One point during our time there I heard 7 languages being spoken: French, Dutch, (the 2 national languages) English, Spanish, German, Italian, and Farsi!

  In the meeting people talked about what could be done to save the Euro. We met some of Pierre's friends and discuss our perspective as Americans. I am thankful I had the chance to step outside of the tourist world and come into a locals viewpoint. We realize we had been up since 340 am, finally come home and crash. 

   The next morning Pierre was already gone. He had told us you could see most of Brussels in one day, which seemed true since we had seen much sights the prior day. But we decide to explore the Magritte Museum. It was actually a fascinating museum that held most of the 2000 artpieces he finished and also gave background on Magritte's life. We have coffee afterwards in the museum cafe, very artistic and enchanting.

Not familiar with Magritte? One of his most famous works

It was also nice to visit an art museum instead of a history museum. (Berlin has me worn out.) We then head to the northern end of Brussels (again public transit was a bitch and we search for a certain bus for over an hour), home to MiniEurope (an obnoxious theme park that replicates all of Europe) and the Atomium. The Atomium is ( a quote I stole online): 

"the main pavilion and icon of the World Fair of Brussels (1958), commonly called Expo 58. It symbolised the democratic will to maintain peace among all the nations, faith in progress, both technical and scientific and, finally, an optimistic vision of the future of a modern, new, super-technological world for a better life for mankind. The peaceful use of atomic energy for scientific purposes embodied these themes particularly welll and, so, that is what determined the shape of the edifice. At 102 meters high, with its nine interconnected spheres, it represents and elementary iron crystal enlarged at 165 billion times."

 The top is open to the public for a pricey cost. We stopped for lunch and got the infamous Belgian fries. They are just regular fries, but they have many different sauces to put on. The most famous is the ketchup and mayo combo. But they had sauces that ranged from curry ketchup to dill pickle. On the way back into southern Brussels we notice the different graffiti within the city. Berlin has much graffiti, but in Brussels the graffiti was more like comic strips and murals. There were huge pictures that would cover an entire brick wall. Artsy. 

Realizing we had run out of activities, we whip out the tourist guide that Pierre had given us.

As the guide suggested, we go to the top of a parking structure to get a good view of the city. Within 5 minutes a security guard came over and started spewing French at us. We then decided to go to the comic book museum, which could have been really cool, but was totally lame.  Deciding groceries is better then eating out, we grab some food at a place close to Pierre's. So cheap in Brussels: grapes, chocolate, yogurt, an apple, and 2 beers for 2 Euro! (nutritious too if I might add). Then we head back to Pierre's place to hang out with him.

  We head to a bar and get to know him better. He is incredibly artistic and has a passion for helping the minority. He hates the government and wealthy (when we were walking home with him, he took a parking ticket on an old car and replaced it on a Mercedes). But he also has a great sense of humor and addmitted to his childish thinking. I enjoyed the Belgian beer and getting immersed into a different perspective of life. We head back to his place and I meet 2 of his other roommates (and their kitty! :))

  Pierre showed us some of his artwork; he enjoys media and video. He made a video regarding the ruins of Yugoslavia becoming another tourist center. There was also a video he made of a man dancing in his underwear, but it was all short clips piled together which made his movements forced and jerky.  After the video he revealed that the man was him. Paz and I could not recognize him and asked for him to rewind and pause on a clip. He does so and accidently stops at a clip where he is in the air and pulling his underwear down! We had not seen this during the video because it was too fast. Paz and I burst into laughter and he just smiles and says, "Do you recognize me know?" 

   Phase 2 completed, last stop of the trip: Cologne, Germany.