 Did you know that French fries should really be called ‘Belgian fries'? They were actually invented in Belgium. I used to refer to Brussels as ‘the most boring capital city in Europe', but some years later I was based there for work and ended up eating my words...and their delicious fries!! They are usually eaten with mayonnaise, but come with a variety of yummy sauces. I was delighted to hear I'd have to overnight in Brussels last week and was already planning to include a trip to ‘Fritland' in my visit, where I have many blurry but happy memories of a good oul' feed of chips out of a big paper cone on my way home from the bars! I would wake up the next day with traces of whichever sauce I'd chosen in my hair, on my clothes, on my face....good thing I lived alone!!
My apartment was fabulous, even if I do say so myself, an attic in an old building right on the Grande Place, the main square of mediaeval buildings which is the heart of Brussels. I felt like a princess each morning as I stepped onto the cobblestones, avoiding the inevitable Japanese tourists feverishly snapping away. In Summer there are open air cinema festivals and concerts there, and in Winter the beer festival and delightful Christmas market, and every other possible event in between!
Brussels has great restaurants (a whole street of them just off the Grande Place on Rue des Bouchers) and fab bars - I dragged my colleagues along with me to ‘Le Cerceuil', which means ‘The Coffin'! Situated on a dark side-street near the Grande Place, the tables are coffins and beer is served in skull-shaped jugs, and the music is a mix of Georgian chants and funeral marches - it's really eerie but great fun. Another fun bar with a completely different atmosphere is the Caribbean rum bar nearby, with really kitsch décor. They serve a selection of rum shots on a small tray, with tropical music in the background - not a place to go to drown your sorrows as you'll be limbo-ing under a bamboo stick before you know it!
Most bars in the centre of Brussels are frequented by a mix of Belgians and ‘Eurocrats' i.e. people working in the EU headquarters. I loved meeting Germans, Finnish, Italians, Greeks, etc., and being single at the time definitely helped! I remember meeting a cute Italian one night, going back to my place (because it was so central) and he told me that I was lucky because he ‘normally only likes skinny people'. I should have slapped his face and sent him on his way but he ended up staying over, which is how I discovered that he wore ‘days-of-the-week' underpants! Tragic! I'm a great believer in Karma and when I bumped into him again a couple of months later I discovered that he'd lost part of a finger in a woodcutting accident at his parents' house in the Italian Alps - the man was obviously as good with an axe as he was with his chat-up lines!
This time I was in a hotel, of course, which was within walking distance of everything, including the Royal Palace and gardens. I went for a stroll and discovered that it was a local holiday and there were all sorts of shenanigans in the park. I was strangely drawn to a demonstration being given by the Army (cute guys in uniform -what can I say?!?). My fave was a wire-slide where a crane took you up in a metal cage, then you put your hands into a rope on either side of the wire and slid down at high speed to where a pair of burly Belgian military types were waiting to grab you. Unfortunately it was proving very popular and there was a long queue - equally unfortunate was the fact that I had to work that afternoon and was going to have to leave very shortly or risk being late for work. It reached the deadline and I was soooo close to the top of the queue but was going to have to run to the airport, when I got a lucky break - a Belgian TV crew had shown up and wanted to film from the platform that the crane lifted you to. There were some Japanese girls ahead of me in the queue and were about to go up with the TV crew (I was green with envy!) when the TV people announced that they needed French-speakers in the metal cage in order to get reactions for their French-language channel. The confused Japanese were promptly ushered out of the lift with squeaks and ‘ooooh's and I leapt in to take their place! Before I knew it I was 60feet up, babbling at the camera in French as I got a helmet strapped on and with a squeal I was flying through the air, sliding along the wire! I was so intent on keeping my legs up that I hit the hunk at the bottom with my bottom, so I quickly untangled myself and hurried off to work. Turns out they managed to get it on the evening news, including a very Bridget Jones-esque shot of me arriving bum-first in a pair of shorts at high speed down the wire!! Good thing I hadn't lied about the reason for me being late for work - my boss had just seen the whole thing in widescreen technicolour - but at least at that stage I was winging my way home, so at least 1 pair of pink cheeks were left unexposed.
Love,
Judy x
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