From Friday until Sunday we had a long weekend of travelling. On the Friday we rose early and hurried onto the bus in the cold dark hours of the morning. Most people slept on the way to Brussels, and awoke to beautiful old buildings lining the streets and lots of traffic.
That day we were to visit the European Parliament and the European Commission, which we had just been learning about in our course. At the Parliament we were greeted by a very enthusiasitc guide who gave us a lecture about the various European bodies. Many of us were surprised to have a lecture as on our itineries it stated that we would ‘visit’, and in our minds that meant walking around and seeing things!! However the lecture was very informative, and helped us to consolidate what we had learnt in class as well as giving us extra information, and the chance to ask lots of questions. The building that hosts the European Parliament is very interesting in itself, as you can see:
After our visit, we all parted ways for lunch. I ended up at a cute little French-speaking Italian resturant where we had filling pasta dishes. We then headed to the Commission where we had to whip out our passports for identification. Dario collected them all up, and we came to the concensus that he was going to sell them to the black market and run away!
I found the Commission slighty less interesting than the Parliament, although I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. I think we were all just very tired from the early morning, the travel and all of the information from the morning’s lecture so it was difficult to fully concentrate!
After checking into our hotel, we all went out to a pub (Delirium Cafe) to trial the Belgium beer! It had a great atmosphere, and in a count conducted in 2004, they had 2004 different varieties of beer! Our dinner that night was 10 euros each for a drink and a beef steak, salmon steak, chicken or lasagne! Yum!
On Saturday morning the Psych kids joined us, and we had a historical tour of Brussels, which felt to me like a cross between Paris and Amsterdam, with the addition of some areas of big glass buildings. But not ugly modern buildings. I felt that everything fit togther quite nicely, and found out later that there is a law for building, where you must consider your surroundings when you build. We need to adopt the same idea in Australia. Anyway, back to the tour:
- In the main square where we were, there is a huge catherdral-type building which is actually the town hall! Many people are married there, and the many tiny statues and carvings tell stories – eg. One pillar had a carving of a man and woman kissing, the other side of it had the man and woman with kids, the next pillar had the man at the pub drinking, the other side had the woman throwing him out of the house with the furniture, and the next pillar had the man alone doing the chores for himself!! I still think she should have kept the furniture, but each to their own.
(2nd pic is of some of the old buildings in the main square)
- We were taken to the oldest undercover shopping mall in Europe. It was filled with expensive fashion stores, chocolate shops and cafes. Halfway down the mall, there was a slight change of direction, and apparently it was designed like that so that people would be curious about what was around the bend and wander further in to see!
- We visited Manneken Pis (the boy who pees) and also his female counter part. There are many stories behind these two, and it is unknown exactly which is true. When we arrived, the boy was dressed in costume but was not peeing. A man had to climb over the fnce and fix the piping so that the fountain worked. Both statues are normally naked, but the boy is dressed several times a week in different costumes. The girl was placed where she is (down some little side streets to entice tourists into that area and help the bars and resturants there. She is locked behind a grill so that no one can steal her.
Pick the real Manneken Pis!
After the tour we had a few hours of free time to explore and grab some lunch. We all parted ways, and some of us headed back to the chocolate shops! The chocolates were very tasty! We also stopped into the Tin Tin shop, and realised that some of our group obviously missed out in their childhood by not knowing the adventures of Tin Tin and Snowy!
We had lunch in an Ethiopian resturant where we enjoyed a range of meat and vegetable dishes which we wrapped up in pieces of pancake and ate with our fingers! With full stomachs, we left Brussels and bussed to Gent where we had a quick stop to walk up the Belfry tower which gave us a wonderful view. We then drove to Bruges, our final destination for the weekend.
Sunday morning we had a historical tour of Bruges. Bruge is a small town of about 20 000 people who live there permanently and then 2-3 million tourists who come every year. It is a quaint little place, with beautiful original and restored buildings, horse and cart taxis, lovely little cobbled streets, and very cold weather!! I think Sunday was the coldest day (or definitely very close) that we’ve had during our trip! Other than the beautiful buildings and atmosphere, the highlight of Bruges for me was definitely the brewery visit to Halve Maan brewery! The guide we had was just fantastic, and really made the experience memorable with her amount of knowledge and her great sense of humour! A couple of interesting things that I learnt:
- For tax purposes, beer is classed as a food, while wine is a drink. This means that drinks such as Port are very cheap and popular, while beer is comparatively more expensive despite the lower alcohol content.
- When they used horse and carriage to transport the beer, the drivers were given 7 beers a day. They would then normally get a beer or two at every place they stopped, and so would often end up drinking a carton of beer a day! When the company started moving towards trucks, these drivers were very against it because they couldn’t drink this much, fall asleep and trust the horse to take them home. Sometimes if the drivers were inside drinking too much at a stop, the horses would get frustrated and go home without them. For this reason they had to change the routes every couple of weeks!
- Hops is related to the nettle, and so the pickers would get very irritated skin from it. It also apprently increases female hormones and raises labido! A pillow filled with hops is also supposed to help with sleeplessness. In the words of our guide, this all led to the picking women having ‘huge balconies and lots of children’.
Altogether it was an amazing weekend and I had an absolute ball. Despite our itinery being great in itself, the people there made it even better. Everyone in our program gets on well with everyone else and all are happy to give a helping hand, share some knowlegde, the cooking, have a few drinks, and speed walk to uni together in the mornings when we are running late!
Tip of the week
You can’t get tap water in resturants in Belgium!! Though unlike a number of countries that can’t drink tap water, buying still water is very expensive. Frustrating.
Fun fact of the week
The highest point in the Netherlands is 323 metres high and is therefore called a ‘mountain’.
Sophie Ootes is participating in our January 2012 International Relations and Politics in the EU program at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Sophie is about to enter into her 4th year of a Combined Bachelor of Arts/Laws degree at the University of Adelaide.
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