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Very Long and Overdue Entry

Oh my goodness! So much has happened since the past entry! And by so much, I mainly mean two big events to which I shall detail below about. So these are long, but worth reading because, obviously, you’re SO interested in my life.

BRUSSELS:

So Friday morning, Diane and I embarked on our journey to Belgium, via the Eurostar. Despite being in coaches on the extreme opposite ends of the train, it was still pleasant to take the train over, especially when we could see the scenery. Although I kind of dozed most of the time. Heh.

Anyway, so we arrived around noon in Brussels time. And who do we see about 2 minutes after we disembark the train? None other than Eleanor Washburn!

For those who don’t know Eleanor, she was one of the journalism editors with Diane and I at FBA. We all graduated together in 2004, and thanks to facebook/myspace, I was able to get back in touch with her earlier this summer. As it turns out, she recently moved to Brussels to earn a degree in international relations at an English uni in the city. Once I told her that Diane and I wanted to visit Brussels and see her, she very kindly offered us free housing with her family friends.



Once we found Eleanor, we took the Brussels Metro to the house we’d be staying in. It’s really entertaining, because the entire Metro is on the honor system. Basically, you have to buy a ticket, but there are no barriers to prevent you from getting on a train anyway. Of course, if you’re caught without a ticket, you’re fined—but I didn’t see a ticket person all weekend long.

As for our housing, it was so amazing. I don’t want to butcher their last name, but the family we stayed with used to live in Dallas, hence how Eleanor knows them. Their house is this beautiful four story building that has a lift, several sets of stairs, and a back garden. The “lady” of the house is an arts person of sorts, so there’s tons of paintings and sculptures around the house. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and the beds we slept in were fabulous too.



But I’m off track. Once we dropped off our belongings at the house, we headed to downtown Brussels. Specifically, the Grande Place; essentially the center square of the city. There’s tons of beautiful buildings there (see my photobucket for examples)! From Grande Place, we wandered a bit and found this café that had very yummy sandwiches. It’s funny, I ordered a Hawaiian ham and cheese panini, thinking that the sandwich itself would have the pineapple inside of it? Uh, no, the pineapple came on the side. It was slightly entertaining. And the frites (which are a Belgium invention, NOT French) were delish as well.

After lunch, it was time to see the sights around the city. I didn’t know this until recently, but the big tourist draw is the Mannekin Pis, which is a fountain of a little boy….yeah. Now I know why Home Depot sells those fountains now! Surrounding the fountain (it’s very small) are all these chocolate shops that sell chocolate Mannekin Pis…it’s highly amusing.



Inspired by all the chocolate, we set out to procure some real Belgian chocolate. Now, I’m pretty much addicted to chocolate, so being in Brussels for a whole weekend was basically heaven. And truffles were pretty cheap—about 50 Euro-cents each. As I recall, Godiva chocolates are waaay more than that.

And truffles, we did indeed find. I think I bought two…and ate them extremely swiftly. So so amazing. Then Eleanor realized that Diane and I have been stuck in London where everything is ridiculously expensive, so she led us to the shopping part where the dollar fares slightly better. And after a long search, I procured not only an extremely cute dress from Zara, but also a pair of BOOTS! Yessss! Ironically, I found them in a shoe store that was inside of a Metro station—go figure.



A brief stop at Eleanor’s flat (it’s so amazing), and we were back to the house for dinner. The family was going out, so we decided to take their hyperactive dog, Fudge, and walk to the grocery store. Oh my goodness, that dog was so hyperactive, and you couldn’t yell at her in English because the family speaks, obviously, French. “No chien, no chien! Arrete!” etc etc.

After dinner, we attempted to watch a movie but failed as Belgium VCRs are trippy. So instead we just hung out in our PJs and caught up on FBA gossip, life, etc. And ate more chocolate, of course!

The next day, post a lovely lovely sleep, we got up and ate breakfast with the family. It was wonderful to talk to them! They were so cultured and intelligent, it was really inspiring. I really want to be bilingual now, especially hearing them speak to each other. I think I would’ve understood what they were saying had it been slower and I had a brush up on my French vocab. Thankfully, this family also speaks English, so we had great conversation at breakfast about politics, the war, etc.

Eleanor had to work on a paper for school, so Diane and I set out to find a bus tour to take. The other day we saw that there was a hop-on hop-off bus service, so the pair of us headed to Central station to check it out. The day was pretty dreary, so a nice bus ride seemed entitled. And find it, we did! Unfortunately for us, November 11th is a holiday in Belgium, celebrating VE day for WW1. So whenever the bus would stop and the tour “guide” (automated, obviously) said there were museums, the driver would come on the intercom and say it was closed! Rather annoying at first.



But nonetheless, it was good to see the entire time. There were some AWESOME sights! I didn’t know that Brussels had a giant replica of a molecule that functions very much like Reunion Tower in Dallas—the top atom is a revolving restaurant! But alas, that was closed.

So obviously, I was a little concerned. I came to Brussels for not only the chocolate, but also TinTin. And now, I’m being told that the museums and shops are closed. Museums, being the Comic Book Museum (I didn’t know Belgians were obsessed with comics!) with the giant rocket from TinTin, and shops being the TinTin boutique. It seemed a little dire, although I wasn’t TOO upset because Brussels was still enjoyable anyway. (on a side note, I saw a poster for the band, MIDLAKE…they were opening for another band in Brussels, but it was hilarious that a Denton band had a poster up on some street in Brussels).



We got off at Grande Place again, and wandered around a bit before meeting up with Eleanor for a waffle lunch. We headed back to the café from the day before and had GIGANTIC waffles with chocolate on it. Oooooh Myyyy Goooooooosh. No words can describe. (and a side of frites, of course).

Wanting to work off our lunch, we explored more—and I discovered that the TinTin Boutique was indeed open! Hahaha, I was so happy. Bonnie, you’re going to love me at Christmas. As for me, I got a calendar and a Milou (aka Snowy) keychain. (as a side note, one of the family’s daughters, Isabelle, thought it was really funny that I knew what TinTin was…it’s all thanks to Gram, who always took us to Toad Hall in Austin where we’d buy them!)

I felt like walking more, so we decided on a whim to try and find the comic book museum on the slight chance that it could be open. I’m so thankful we did, because it was OPEN! And so I got my photo in front of the rocket ship. My life is complete. I actually didn’t go inside the museum as it was 7 Euro and very crowded, but that’s perfectly alright. Back in town, more chocolate was acquired, and it was time to chill out at “home” for a bit, before getting some dinner.




Now, dinner was something very unique. Eleanor took us to this place that serves “Belgian junk food,” also known as durums. What those exactly mean, I have no earthly idea. But it’s basically like Chipotle on steroids or something.

I couldn’t read the menu as it was a bunch of French words that I didn’t understand (save “fromage” and “poulet”), so I went with my gut and ordered a durum-mexicano. And what did my durum have in it? Well, it’s a gigantic tortilla-wrap with meat (assuming it’s beef), “salad” (lettuce, tomato, etc), a weird cheesy/mayo ish sauce, and….french fries. Yeah. They all come with FRENCH FRIES. It’s tres bizarre…but extremely delish! Haha. I definitely ate my entire thing.



Poor Diane, she thought she was ordering some other type of durum, but the guy at the counter didn’t hear the “durum” part, so all she received was a random strange sausage. We were dying laughing, but she got a mexicano durum like I did and it was all good. But it was so fun to try a random new food, props to Eleanor for introducing us! (even if it was junk food!).

Somehow we managed to waddle home that night and enjoyed some random French/Dutch television followed by a viewing of “Love Actually”, which is a great movie, especially if one is in London for Christmastime.

Sunday morning, we woke up and enjoyed breakfast again, and killed time before our 1 PM train by walking the dog a bit and just chatting. The weather was lovely and I was thankful that it wasn’t raining at all.



DiMac and I got to the train station early on, so we wandered around and found lunch, and found a huuuuge vending machine that I have a picture of in the photobucket. Made it back home by 3 PM London time.

FAUST:

Last night, my theatre class had tickets to see a performance of Faust. But this was no ordinary performance. It was put on by this company that performs in warehouses. Yes, warehouses.

It’s really hard to describe how Faust was, but let me just first say that it was insanely freaky and intensely awesome. Basically, the “audience” wanders around a 5 story warehouse and sees parts of the play acted out by the characters. It’s kind of like a haunted house, only no one jumps out at you, persay. Sometimes you’d find a character, such as young Faust, in a certain room such as a bar (it was set in the forties, sort of), and he’d leave—to find the next part of the story, you’d just follow him until you ran into other characters. So there was some audience interaction…

I forgot to say that all the audience members had to wear a mask the entire time. It was weird at first, but it kind of gave you a sense of power, being able to explore whilst anonymous. Honestly, I was confused most of the time because I didn’t read the synopsis of the play close enough to really know what was going on, but fortunately I ran into other people who DID know, so I was able to catch the finale at the end. It was intense, like I said. But so amazing. I’m hoping to get tickets and go back again—my theatre teacher has now been twice, and she said she caught parts she had never seen before!

So if you’re in London, definitely go to this. It’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s definitely NOT suitable for kids (nudity and sex involved, but that was originally in the play anyway), but so so freaking cool. Oh man…I was so impressed.

It was really cool, because in class on Wednesday, we all talked about what parts we saw, and it seemed like everyone saw something different! Hence why I want to go back, as it seems I missed a lot. That was the only problem, there were a couple of floors I wandered about that didn’t have much going on—plus, I wish I had explored rooms more, as you really have free rein of the entire building.

So in the end, it’s awesome. Now, seeing A Moon for the Misbegotten with Kevin Spacey and, more importantly COLM MEANEY (think Star Trek and Scarlet, oh family) wasn’t bad either, but that play was just depressing. I’m so so glad I’m taking this theatre class. Seriously.

Looks like I might take a train to Norwich this weekend for a night, to visit with Ashley Strosnider. Then on Sunday, Sarah Deane arrives!!!! Ooooh grand fun awaits…..

As usual, all photos can be seen here.

posted by Marion M. @ 8:38 PM Comments: 3