Our Big Adventure

BELGIUM

We are to be in Belgium for just over two weeks, house sitting for a nice young couple with three cats, Blackie, Gamba and Sushi. Ingrid and Trevor have gone to Namibia and left us in charge of looking after the cats, watering the indoor plants and collecting the mail. As you might imagine this does not take a whole lot of time, so each day we are able to get out and have a look around this small country (30,500 sq kms) or to put that in perspective about a third the size of Tasmania. Belgium is bilingual country with 60% speaking Flemish or Dutch and 40% speaking French. So another language hurdle for us, although our French is getting better, the Flemish still baffles us, but luckily for us most of the people here speak a little English at least. Brussels is only a short 20 min drive from our home-base, but we decide to take the train from Zaventem, the closet station to us. We arrive at Centraal Station and walk to the Grand Place or Grote Market, a listed UNESCO World Heritage site, is a market square surrounded by beautiful ‘guild’ houses and the Town Hall, a remarkable work of gothic architecture. Just around the corner is another famous Brussels landmark, the ‘Manneken Pis’, a small bronze fountain statue of a boy peeing into the fountain’s basin. There are several legends about this statue; in the 11th century an infant lord was hung in a basket from a tree, and urinated on the invading troops, who then lost the battle, my favourite is about a young boy that urinated on the buring fuse of explosives set by attackers of the city, thereby saving it. The Manneken has a wardrobe of 200 outfits, although the day we visited him he was naked, and also at certain festivals they hook him up to a keg of beer, and you guessed it, he pee’s beer! And for all you food lover’s following along with the blog, Belgium is also the home of Chocolate and of course waffles. You can smell the sweet aroma of chocolate drifting from the many chocolate shops and curbside vans sell hot waffles instead of hot-dogs. For a true Belgium experience, you can combine the two, a hot waffle topped with smooth melted chocolate, yum! And just in case we have any beer drinkers out there apparently some of the best beers are brewed here, although I’m not the best person to be talking about the beer, never being a big fan. Brussels is also home to NATO and European Union (EU). Hopefully, we can visit the EU during the week and see how the largest parliament in the world representing nearly 500 million citizens works.

posted by Brian and Julie @ 7:16:00 AM