Brussels is...confused

I spent the first day and a half of my stay in Brussels trying to pin down a nice, fixed identity for it. Most of the other capitals I’ve been to have pretty well represented the stereotypes of the rest of the country. London was rainy, proper, and dignified. It also had lots of tea. Paris was full of couples, wine, food, and pastries. Rome was full of pizza, gelato, crazy people trying to steal purses, and Vespas.

Brussels did have the food it was supposed to have: waffles, chocolate, and fries (it’s possible they also had sprouts, but I have to say I didn’t look very hard for those). Beyond that, though, I could not figure out what image it was giving me of Belgium. Finally I figured it out—it’s giving me a conflicting message, because Belgium is a country with a lot of conflict right now. The northern, Flemish part of the country and the southern, French part of the country are not getting along so well, to put it lightly.

I finally decided that Brussels is the most comparable to Montréal. Random mix of old and new buildings? Check. Language confusion? Check. One part of the country wanting to be separate from the other part? Big check.

I took the train to Brussels and arrived in the early afternoon. I was couchsurfing for the first time—through a website, people can search for people who are willing to let them crash on a couch while they travel. I had been a bit wary of this when I heard about it (lots of friends have had great experiences, but I was pretty convinced I’d end up staying with a serial killer), but Amelia had been to Brussels just a few weeks before me, and she had stayed with the same woman. If Amelia said she was cool, I’d trust her on it, and it ended up being a great experience. Brigitte is in her 50s, and she first got interested in couchsurfing when she was looking to take a trip to Barcelona. She ended up not going, but she now hosts lots of couchsurfers who go to Brussels. She’s really interested in the environmental movement and in trying to eat organic, and she was absolutely wonderful to me while I was there.

I didn’t do much my first day there. I hadn’t been sleeping well the past few days, so I really did not have the motivation to go and explore. Instead, I helped Brigitte run some errands and I played with her grandson for a bit. Went to sleep quite early so that I could profiter from Day 2 in Brussels.

I set off the next morning for the Royal Africa Museum, which Lauren had recommended to me. One of my favorite things about traveling is getting the chance to peer a little more deeply into past (or current) interests. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always learning about some new subject, getting fascinated with it, reading everything I can find about it, bringing it up in every conversation, and then letting it fall aside because I’ve found another new subject. My time here has already allowed me to revisit my love for impressionism (Musée d’Orsay, May 2008), ballet (Pacquita, October 2010), and several dozen places that I read about in books and always wanted to visit (I’ll do a separate post on that later). This time around, colonialism. Yay! I went through a short phase in high school and a longer phase in college where I loved reading everything I could grab about colonialism and post-colonialism. The initial interest into this stuff came from Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible which, fittingly enough, takes place in the Belgian Congo. Full circle!

Anyway, the museum was really interesting. I don’t think I’d recommend it if you don’t know French, since there were quite a few things that were in Flemish and French, but not English. That said, the newer pieces of the museum did have English translations. I liked all the anthropological sections, skipped over most of the animal stuff, had lots of fun with the colonialism stuff, and then got mad because they didn’t have any fun linguistics sections (despite mentioning throughout the museum how many linguistic studies had been done in the DRC). It was a lovely day out, and the park in front of the museum was gorgeous.

Post-museum, I headed off on a park mission. My first stop was Parc de Cinquantenaire, which was built in order to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Belgium’s independence. There’s a huge central monument at the park—supposedly the king at the time said his goal was to make Brussels a new Paris, so naturally, huge monuments were necessary. I bought myself a sandwich for lunch and since it was gorgeous out, I ate it while sitting on the lawn and admiring the monument.

Once I’d exhausted that park, I moved on to Leopold Park, which is located right next to the EU Parliament building. This park was smaller, but had a little pond, and I was sure to admire that, as well. The EU Parliament building was fun to see. It’s one of the examples of extremely modern architecture that doesn’t quite seem to match up with the rest of the city. Walked from there to the Royal Palace, which was quite impressive. There were even some handy Belgian guards in front of it to protect Belgium from…well, probably from itself. The palace was right next to the Parc de Bruxelles. I wandered that for a bit, but it was my third park of the day, so I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I should’ve. Stopped at Cathedral after that, and ended up just staring at it for fifteen minutes. I absolutely love the contrast of white stone with a bright blue sky, and lucky for me, that was what I had. Did some more wandering, stopped at the Grand Place, which was very cool, ate some food, and then met Caitlin when she got in.

Day 3, Caitlin and I met up near the Grand Place and then walked back to the train station to pick up Lauren, who was getting in that morning. Upon fetching Lauren, we walked to a brewery that Caitlin had heard about. They make beer the very, very old fashioned way, so it was interesting to see. I was much more interested in the process than in the tasting that came with the tour (I’m not exactly a fan of beer, and no, I still don’t know why I was allowed to live in Wisconsin for four years without liking beer). We tried two types of beer—the first was a gueze lambic, and it was not what I would call pleasing to the palate. To put it lightly. Ugh. Even Caitlin and Lauren, who do not share my distaste for beer, weren’t fans. The second was a raspberry lambic, which was much better because a) you couldn’t taste the beer as much, and b) there was raspberry, which makes everything delicious. Or, in the case of beer, relatively more delicious.

We still hadn’t eaten lunch, so we set out for the Grand Place, where we had some Belgian fries and waffles. YUM. Lauren’s Rick Steves travel guide informed us that the reason Belgian fries are delicious is that they fry them twice. That is one way to guarantee deliciousness. The waffles were also incredible—Klare had warned me that I’d never be able to eat another waffle after tasting these, and she was right. There was either a lot of sugar in the batter or a sugar coating, because it all carmelized on the outside, which was yummy. AND the chocolate on top of the waffle was real chocolate—none of this lame chocolate syrup stuff. Nope, this started to solidify into real chocolate as the waffle cooled, and it was super rich. My tummy was happy.

After eating, we made our way to an Automobile museum (located right in the Parc de Cinqantenaire). I know next to nothing about cars, but I enjoyed looking at all the old cars. There were a couple names that I recognized from various books, so it was nice to be able to put an image to the name. It was also just funny to see all the crazy car designs people have come up with over the ages—we got to see the first models with bumpers, a car that was even smaller than a Smart Car (it was about a third of my height), and some cars that were ridiculously huge (they looked like tanks, and I do not know how anyone parallel parked those things).

We hopped on the metro back into town and chilled at a café for a few hours. This place had the most amazing chai tea—it was incredible. Apparently some other people agreed, since they’d stuck a note on the wall next to the register saying “BEST CHAI TEA IN EUROPE.” I’ve noticed that most travel guides don’t seem to provide good café recommendations (mostly because they don’t provide any café recommendations). This is a void that must be filled, since one of my favorite parts of traveling is sitting in cafés with my travel journal and people watching. Anyway, I’ve decided that I’ll be working on my own travel guide series that simply highlights all the best cafés in the world. This one definitely makes the cut (I’ve already started to make a list of my favorites in other cities). We then moved on to dinner at an Irish pub, then I called it quits for the night.

Thursday morning we met at the train station to head to Bruges. It’s about a half hour train ride away from Brussels, but it’s firmly in the Flemish area of Belgium—no French here. Bruges is known as the Venice of Northern Europe, presumably because of all the canals (no gondolas, sadly—just speedboats). Like Brussels, it has lots of gorgeous Gothic architecture. Unlike Brussels, Bruges does not have all the new buildings. It’s much less confused. We stopped at a lovely tea shop pretty soon after we made it to Bruges—I wanted some caffeine. This place was EXCELLENT. At first I thought €3,50 was a bit steep for tea, but it turns out the tea comes with a pile of chocolates. Naturally, I was not opposed to this, and the price suddenly seemed quite reasonable. The chocolates were also accompanied by a large heap of whipped cream, which was quite delicious. If I lived in Bruges, I would probably spend way too much time in that tea house.

Anyway (I’m going to start paraphrasing a bit since I really want to finish this post), most of Bruges consisted of looking at pretty buildings and looking at chocolate. I bought some delicious champagne truffles, along with other varieties of chocolate, took lots of pictures, did not pay money to walk past a vial with Christ’s blood in it (I decided to listen to Jesus when he said that you weren’t supposed to turn churches into marketplaces), saw a sculpture by Michelangelo (‘twas excellent), and wandered a lot. There. Bruges in two paragraphs.

Friday Lauren, Caitlin and I met up for more chai tea in the morning, and then I had to head off for my train . I was on my own to Lille and then Paris, but Lauren was on the same train to Rennes with me. Caitlin, meanwhile was on the same train as Lauren from Brussels to Paris, but then she had a different one back to Brittany. Lauren and I chilled in the Starbucks at Montparnasse while waiting for our train, and then we had a relatively painless journey back.

Apologies for both the lateness and the paraphrase in this update (my English teachers would probably want more details and less summary), but it’s already been two weeks since I got back. It needed to get done!

I don’t have any more big travels planned until the end of April. I’m probably going to spend part of next weekend in Vitré with Caitlin, and then the weekend after that I’m going to stay with some assistants in Fougères. Hope all is well in the USA.

summer sun's calling my name

My post on Brussels is still in progress, but I had a lovely day today and therefore wanted to post about that and the weekend before it slips my mind as I try to recall the dozen other things I should post about.

We had a surprisingly gorgeous weekend--a bit chilly (meaning highs in the low fifties), but sunny. Saturday Lauren, Caitlin, and I went to the Marche des Lices, where we picked up some pastries as well as food for lunch (I grabbed some brie, amazingly fresh strawberries, and saucisson sec). We also stopped at my favorite tea place in town, which was lots of fun. Both Caitlin and I slept over at Lauren's on Saturday night, and we made tacos for dinner. SO YUMMY. Someone really needs to introduce France to Mexican food. They have no idea what they're missing out on.

I went to the ice rink Sunday morning, figuring that early on a Sunday morning would be my best bet to actually be able to practice. It certainly was! I skated for a solid hour and a half, ran lots of moves and ice dance, and tried jumping. Unfortunately, my ankle seized up due to the jumping, so I decided to stick to moves and dance. It was lots of fun skating on my own again (this was the longest I'd been off the ice since I started skating), and then Lauren and Caitlin showed up a few hours later and I skated around with them. The downside is that I am still in ridiculous amounts of pain. Being in running three times a week shape is nowhere near being in skating shape. My muscles are so not happy with me for skating, and it's possible I somehow managed to bruise my right ankle just by forcing it into my skate. Why did I pick this sport again?

Amazingly, the weather has stayed sunny (I think at this point we're at four straight sunny days, which is incredible). This has done wonders to change my opinion of Bretagne (which, as recently as a week ago, I considered a godforsaken place due to all the rain). I don't ask for much, just a little sun to keep me happy. Today Lauren and I were off of work in the afternoon, so I went into Rennes and we had a picnic lunch at Thabor. It was no Ile de la Barthelasse, but we'll excuse that for now, because there were no clouds in the sky. We were quite French about the meal--more cheese, bread, saucisson sec, strawberries, and wine. We spent about two hours simply luxuriating in the sun without jackets on, and I think I might've gotten a decent amount of Vitamin D for the first time since coming to Rennes.

So yay for food, friends, and SUN.

Belgium: Photos

Sadly, my progress on writing an entry on my trip to Belgium is slower than ideal (shocker, yes?). So, once again, we shall resort to a picture post to make it look like I'm on top of things.

1) The Royal Museum of Africa


2) Cathedral in Brussels



3) Grand Place in Brussels



4) A canal in Bruges (which is called the Venice of Northern Europe because of all the canals)



5) The main square in Bruges



Hopefully I'll get the full Belgium blog up in the next week.

Come Wind, Come Rain

Back in the fall, Denise and Jean-Paul asked me if I had been to Mont St. Michel yet, and when I said I hadn’t, they told me they’d find a weekend when they could take me. It was incredibly nice of them to offer, and this past weekend they came through on it and told me to bring a friend. So, for once, I actually had something to do when Sunday came around (Sundays are super boring in France--nothing is open).

We picked Lauren up in town and then headed off to Mont St. Michel, which is about an hour away. It’s technically in Normandy, but it’s right on the border between Normandy and Brittany, so both regions like to claim it. The day, though rather windy, was quite gorgeous (an increasingly rare occasion in Brittany—we had a solid week of rain last week). Originally, Mont St. Michel was an island at high tide, and then when the tide went out, a land strip connecting it to the mainland would emerge. At the end of the 1900s that land strip was built up, so that now you can always access it by land. However, you could see some people making the trek across to the island in knee-deep water from other points along the mainland. They’re currently doing complicated engineering stuff with the water and sand to make it an island again within the next decade or so (for a more adept understanding of what they’re doing, go ask Klare, my college roommate—she no doubt actually understands it).

Anyway, we wandered around the town. It felt a lot like Carcassonne to me—super tiny streets and really touristy. The best part was really just the views, both of the Mont and of the surrounding area. The Abbey for which the islandything was named (I can’t decide what to call it—it’s not a city, it’s not an island…I guess I could go with peninsula) is built into the rocks on the high part, which is really striking. We didn’t go into the Abbey (9€? No, thank you), but just walking around it you could see gorgeous views. We ate a picnic lunch in a small park area, and then meandered our way out.

After the Mont, instead of driving straight back to Rennes, we drove along the coastline to St. Malo, and then from St. Malo we drove south to Rennes. We drove through Cancale, and we also stopped at Pointe de Grouin and walked along the coastline there. Right after we hopped back in the car after that little excursion, it started to pour. Welcome to Bretagne. We looked at a few other views from the car, but no one was courageous enough to get out of the car and brave the storm, so we then headed back to Rennes.

This past week has been the first of a two week break (it’s typically called the February vacation, but ours fell in March this year). It’s been a rather boring week, but it has allowed me to finally get caught up on the blog and go running a lot. On Monday I head off to Brussels, so I’ll be back in a week or so with updates about that. Happy March—the daffodils here have already bloomed!

Nostalgia, Ahoy!

Last Thursday afternoon after working my first two morning classes, I had a quick hour to throw my life into a backpack and a messenger bag before taking off for the Gare. Unfortunately, it appears that I left during one of the few nice weekend Rennes has—it was gorgeous when I hopped on my train. I was able to get a direct train to Avignon and not have to switch in Paris, which was a nice treat. That said, there were still plenty of stops and it was not as high speed as it could’ve been, so it was nearly 9pm when I made it into Avignon.

When I first found out I’d be working in France (but not in Provence), I immediately decided that I had to go back to Avignon. It seems a little silly to return to a place where you lived for four months when there are still plenty of places around Brittany that I’ve yet to see. That said, I had such a wonderful time in Provence that I wanted to revisit it, and when I visited Amelia in October, she agreed, and we finally settled on last weekend as a good time to head there.

Amelia and her friend weren’t arriving until Friday, so I had a very low budget hotel right by the TGV station on my own for the first night. It was a bit sketchy, but no one tried to attack me, so it turned out okay. I entertained myself by watching Dirty Dancing dubbed in French, which was an excellent use of my time. I’m ashamed to admit it I noticed this, as that means I’m publically acknowledging the fact that I have most of the movie memorized, but there were several differences between the dubbing and the original words, and some of them were pretty significant. I did not approve—they even changed Baby’s real name to a typically French one.

Woke up earlier than I would’ve liked the next morning and hopped on the navette into town. It was gorgeous out, which made me quite happy—I’d have been disappointed to discover that Avignon’s weather wasn’t as lovely as I remember it. I grabbed myself a pain au chocolat from the boulangerie that I always remembered as being packed, and it was quite delicious. From there I walked to l’Institut, my old school, mostly out of habit. That was always a meeting spot, or just a place to check your email, so it seemed normal to stop by there first. Unfortunately, as of the end of January, the Avignon center is closed. I was pretty sad to hear the news—it’s been around for over thirty years, and it was a fantastic program. It’s associated with a program in Aix that’s still going on, but the Aix program doesn’t do homestays, which was one of the really fantastic things about the Avignon program. I’m not sure what they’re going to do with the building. It’s this gorgeous old 12^th century church, and it’ll be a shame if it can’t be used anymore.

After staring wistfully at the building for a bit, I decided to try and make my way to Place Pie, which was where I would grab my bus back in the day. Much to my delight, I took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up back on Rue de la Republique. So no, the streets in Avignon have not become any more orderly since I left. I was always getting lost there, and it felt terribly fitting to be getting lost there again. Finally found Place Pie, wandered around Les Halles, and then the lack of caffeine was starting to get to me. Stopped at a café and enjoyed a café au lait while reflecting a bit. By the time I finished, the stores were opening up, so I browsed some of them. Amelia’s train was late getting in, but I found out that Daniel, another student who did IAU with us, was also coming in for the day. Like us, he’s doing the teaching assistant program, and he actually got placed just an hour or two from Avignon. He came in with another assistant, and once I met up with them, we went to the Palais de Pape to luxuriate in the sun. They’ve added an upside down elephant statue there (for reasons I do not entirely understand)—the elephant is standing on its trunk. QUITE entertaining, especially when compared with the very classy residence behind it that used to host popes back in the day. Amelia joined us there, and we went off to grab some food.

We went to a tartine place Daniel remembered, and apparently it’s actually one that’s associated with the tartine place here in Rennes, and actually has an identical menu. Thus, I ordered my tomato, pesto, and mozzarella tartine that has never failed me, and we all split some wine. We sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous weather—Amelia and I were particularly grateful for it, since we see so much rain up north. Post-lunch, we went to pick up Amelia’s friend, Emma, from the train station, and then the three of us went to check into our hotel for the night (I had, by this point, tired of carrying my backpack and messenger bag around).

Emma, Amelia, and I then went to rejoin Daniel and Odessa, and we searched out some old haunts. We also did a brief walk along the outside of the walls, but it was pretty blustery, so we decided to head back inside of them. We stopped at a tapas place to chill out for a bit, and we enjoyed sangria, fried zucchini, and an eggplanty-tomatoey-deliciousy thing until Daniel and Odessa had to catch their train (they were headed off to Nice for the weekend to see a lemon festival). Emma, Amelia and I lingered a bit longer before deciding to seek out a real place for dinner.

I would like to take a moment to apologize to Avignon. I’ve spent the last three years thinking that it was outrageously expensive, and even while in Brittany, I still had the idea that Avignon was more expensive. After all, I could never afford to eat out there, and even buying a kebab from a street vendor was a splurge. Well, it turns out that my memories were just tarnished by the following facts: 1) The exchange rate at the time was the worst it had ever been, 2) I had no income at the time, 3) What money I did have was in dollars, meaning that it was getting me nowhere, and 4) I was getting fed for free at Mireille’s. Amelia and I were laughing at the fact that a restaurant that she remembered as outrageously expensive had a menu (entrée+main+dessert) for 15€. So sorry, Avignon, for giving you a bad rep on the money front!

We ended up getting dinner at a place called Love & Epices (spices), which Amelia had tried and loved the last time we were in Avignon. It was absolutely delicious—one of those places where the menus are handwritten, since they change based on what is available. We ordered some rosé, since Provence is the place to do rosé, Amelia and Emma got quail, and I got Greek lasagna (which had feta cheese, ground beef, and lots of mushrooms). It was amazingly delicious. We all had dessert as well (crème brûlé for myself and Emma, and…oh dear, I forgot what Amelia got, but I’m pretty sure it was yummy) before we went back to the hotel and collapsed, because we are all grandmas and like our sleep. We were serenaded to sleep by the wonders of French VH1, which played such hits as “No Scrubs” and “In the Navy.”

The next morning, once we all made ourselves presentable, we grabbed pastries at the same boulangerie I’d hit up the day before, and we went to enjoy them at Rôcher des Doms—a chance for Amelia and I to relive our memories of Avignon, since that was one of the two preferred picnic spots at IAU. We wandered the area, still enamored of the sun, and ended up running into two Chinese girls trying to find a movie theater. We happened to know which movie theater they were looking for and where it was, but our ability to describe how to get there through the winding streets of Avignon was not up to snuff, so we decided to just walk them there. They briefly suggested we speak English when we told them we were American, but we soon discovered that English was not going to be an efficient means of communication. After asking them several questions about what they were doing in France and getting some very confusing responses, it appeared that French wasn’t that efficient of a means of communication, either. Anyway, we deposited them at Utopia, the theater, and then I headed to Place Pie so I could grab a bus to have lunch with Mireille, my host from when I studied in Avignon.

By some twisty turn of fate (expression © Paul Hetman), I actually remembered what bus to get on and what stop to get off at—quelle chance! Mireille’s first comment upon seeing me was “Ah! Tu n’as pas changé!” Question du jour: is it a good thing or a bad thing that I haven’t changed? She’d also invited one of her friends, Marie-Thérèse, to join us—I’d met Marie-Thérèse several times when I lived with Mireille, and she’d also hosted students from IAU. As she always did when I lived with her, Mireille stuffed me with food. We had some rice chips for an appetizer, along with a sweet nut wine. Then we moved on to quiche Lorraine (which is my favorite thing Mireille makes), followed by chili con carne (but sans spice, as this is, of course, France), followed by salad, followed by two desserts (chocolate flan and tarte aux pommes), followed by the cheese course. At this point I was ready to fall over from all the food, but it was all quite delicious. It was great to see her again and we had a wonderful conversation over the meal—movies, Barack Obama, Sarkozy (while Mireille used to think Sarkozy was an okay president, the retirement issue got her quite fired up and she is no longer a fan), and several dozen other things that I can no longer remember.

When I finally left (absolutely stuffed), I took the bus back in to Avignon and then walked over to the Ile, where Amelia and Emma were. It sadly had gotten rather cloudy, but cloudy by Avignon standards is practically sunny by Rennes standards. We sat around for a while and chatted, enjoying the view of the Pont and the Palais, and then we returned to wandering about the city. For dinner that night we went the thrifty route—an indoor picnic with dried sausage, cheese, bread, and fruit. It was lots of fun, and we followed it up by playing card games, which was also quite enjoyable. I headed to bed pretty early, since I had an early train back to Rennes, and that was that. It was a really nice weekend trip, and it was lots of fun to hang out with new and old friends.

A quick note on the quirks of school life in France—it just occurred to me today when I was talking to Anna, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet the ridiculous amount of PDA that goes on in my school hallways. The French clearly have no shame when it comes to making out in the hallways, and I find this seriously uncomfortable. It didn’t both me much before I knew any of my students, but now I do know them, and I really do not need to see them attached at the lips every time I try and walk down the hallway. It’s all made even more awkward by the French lack of a personal bubble—fine, make out, fine, do it in the hallways, but there is no need to do it THREE INCHES FROM MY FACE. In my lesson about the myriad meanings of the verb ‘to get,’ I clearly forgot to include the meaning of “get a room.” I’ve already done one lesson on social conceptions of personal space…it appears I’ll have to do another one on propriety. My country was founded by Puritans. We’re big on at least pretending to be quite proper.

Next time on la jeune fille Katrine: Mont St. Michel !