This week, I'll be posting my accounts of a recent trip to three cities in the Low Countries: Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Brussels.
The woman at the ticket counter told me to board a train to an Antwerp suburb and then switch for the fast train to Brussels. I decided not to heed her advice and instead got on a train that had "Brussels" on the signage, the only word I could decipher. It turned out to be a local train, and a complete bust. I tried to console myself by cheerily thinking, "this is the scenic route," as we stopped every ten feet or so. Then after we sat at a station for about ten minutes, a train employee got on and walked through the cars making an impassioned announcement in Flemish that caused everyone to get off the train and hurriedly walk to another track in a different level of the station.
I heard a British guy swearing and asked him if he knew what was going on, only to find he didn't, "have a fucking clue. Something about an argument." I found a bench at the end of the dusty platform and sat down to wait for the next train. Recalling a quote from the "Emotions" show I had seen in Antwerp, about how humans are the only animal capable of artificially inducing pleasant feelings, I thought it apt inspiration to break open a box of the Burie chocolate diamonds I had at the bottom of my bag. I asked an Australian couple on the next train what the fuss was, and the woman told me that all of the delays were due to, "the actions of a passenger against another passenger on the train in front of us." I definitely felt like I was headed into the (relatively) big city.
I arrived in Brussels open-minded although cognizant of the city's reputation as bland and boring. In truth, although I missed Antwerp terribly, it was nice to be able to converse with people a bit more and understand markedly more of what was going on around me. Brussels is definitely more French than Flemish, with a heady cosmopolitan vibe that exudes power and influence in a way that is easily recognizable as similar to the Washington, D.C. of my youth. The first thing that I noticed was that there were lots of beggars, a sight that surprised me in Europe. And tourists, which I had hardly seen in Antwerp, at least not Americans.
After checking into the Hotel Metropole, which was different than I expected although very elegant and well-appointed, I walked over to the Grand Place, which is the main square in the historic center of the city. I came to like the hotel more after walking around and seeing more of the city, but had dismissed it earlier for its location on what seemed like a rather tourist-y commercial promenade. Later, I appreciated that it was so well-located.
I took a couple of wrong turns on my way to the art museum and ended up on Avenue Louise, where international shops line the wide boulevard on both sides. From there, I wound around to the Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium), arriving an hour before it closed. The entrance is through an older entryway, beautifully executed in high Art Nouveau style, with stained glass and motifs for an establishment called "Gresham's." Brussels has many gorgeous examples of Art Nouveau.
In the museum, I loved seeing "The Death of Marat," (which always makes me think of Steve Erickson's Days Between Stations, a novel that takes place in Los Angeles and Paris and remains a favorite of mine). There's also a nice showing of works by Surrealists Rene Magritte and Paul Delvaux, whose work I've come to appreciate more and more. Seeing the work of Flemish Primitivist painters (such as Jan Van Eyck) active in the 15th and 16th centuries in various museums also gave me a new perspective on some of the potential influences behind early 20th century art. I didn't have time to see the COBRA (Copenhagen/Brussels/Amsterdam) mid-20th century collective's work, but how avant-garde could it be without including Antwerp?
I went through the "old" section of the museum, having breezed through the new and found I had some unexpected extra time, and loved the Flemish Primitive paintings on display and the vivid scenes of peasant life by Brueghel. I left at closing and walked back across town and up through Ste Catherine, where all of the more avant-garde shops, like Stijl, line a four or five-block stretch of rue Antoine Dansaert. I snapped a few photos and admired quite a few genuinely exquisite Art Nouveau facades along the way. I knew I needed to get up early the next morning to catch my flight back to New York, so I planned to eat in the hotel's Cafe Metropole and and then perhaps order a movie in my room.
The best thing going in Cafe Metropole was a hamburger, so I walked a few blocks over to Ste Catherine and Bonsoir Clara, unbeknownst to me one of the more happening restaurants in town. After knocking back a half-half (a local specialty that is half white wine, half sparkling wine, I think), I stumbled a bit over my schoolgirl French when ordering and misunderstood the difference between a glass and a pitcher of wine, setting the stage of perhaps the most fun evening of my trip from a joie de vivre perspective. My meal was absolutely divine (I had the croquillant d'agneau) and by the end of it the waiter taught me how to say "Do you have light?" en francais and was lighting my cigarettes*, which I grew more and more fond of with each passing glass of the excellent house red.
I asked the three English-speaking men at the next table if I might borrow their ashtray and they invited me to join them. Americans from Minneapolis and Eugene, Oregon -- Rob, Roy, and James -- they were in town for a bicycle race. We chatted amiably about our experiences in Amsterdam and Belgium and ended up going to a nearby bar for a couple of rounds of Belgian beer after we left the restaurant. It was a fabulous evening, and an absolutely perfect end to a perfectly wonderful trip.
*It's worth noting that although I don't smoke, other than in the course of the occasional social gathering, in my regular life in the U.S., I learned on my last trip to Paris quite memorably that it's easy to make friends if you smoke cigarettes. I learned on this trip that it's even easier to make friends if you smoke and don't carry a light.
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