Brussels Grote Markt/Grand Place

The Grote Markt/Grand Place of Brussels is probably the most magnificent town square in all of Europe. I put together an old-fashioned panorama of the place, which you can view here. It's not a new-fangled Quicktime VR thingy, just a long spread of photos taken side by side. The photo(s) start(s) at the Breadhouse (Broodhuis/Maison du Roi) and continue(s) past the tightly packed guild houses... then the Houses of the Dukes of Brabant, more guild houses with a statue of Charles of Lorraine on horseback, followed by Brussels Town Hall, even more guild houses, and back to where we started at the Breadhouse. Spin yourself around in the square, why don't you?

Panoramific Grote Markt/Panorabulous Grand Place

Big Time in Brussels

Jan & Maxine, with whom we stayed, and our guides to Lueven, took us sight-seeing in Brussels. Brussels is the capital (or center) of:

• Belgium
• The European Union
  
• Flanders
• French Community of Belgium
  
• EUROCONTROL
  
• NATO
  
• Western European Union
  
• Sprouts
• Statues that Urinate

As if that list were not impressive enough, being the capitol of Belgium, it is the capitol of of a country known for excelling in the production of:

• Trappist Ales
• Chocolate
• Art Nouveau
• Mussels, Frites & Waffles
  
• Comics
  
• Napoleonic Defeats
  
• Giant Atoms
  

Not bad for a country created just to piss off the French. With this impressive list in mind, we set out to experience as much of it as we could. Brussels was a difficult city to figure out... that could have been because we had friends showing us around, and we didn't really have to look at a map or even think about it. Our hosts led us into the Brussels metro near their home to head downtown. Their stop is adorned with characters from the classic Belgian comic Tintin and Snowy. This set the expectations for the day, all of which were met, except seeing a metro stop covered with Smurfs.

The city is divided into two sections: Upper Brussels and Lower Brussels. The naming has nothing to do with one being further north than the other and everything to do with one being higher than the other. Really... there's an elevator you can take to go from Upper Brussels to Lower Brussels.

Upper Brussels offers some good views of Lower Brussels, obviously. Also up here you can find the Palais de Justice, Belgian Parliament, nosebleeds and, occasionally, John Howard. The Australian Prime Minister whizzed passed us in a motorcade while we were waiting to cross the street. We waved but he didn't wave back.

The Grand Place, tiny pubs, bizarre statues and other interesting works of art can be found in Lower Brussels. Most people know about Manneken Pis, a statue of a small boy peeing, but not many know about his female counterpart, Jeanneke Pis. Little Manneken Pis has a colorful past, and I recommend his site for a humorous presentation of his history. These days, they dress him up for special occasions. When we were there, he was dressed as a musketeer. I have no idea why they picked this over, say, an astronaut. Jeanneke Pis, on the other hand, was installed in the 1980s to provide some much needed gender-balance to prepubescent peeing statues. She's hidden down a dead-end alley. Discrimination.

Our history walk was broken up by stops in some of the best bars in the world, of course. We stopped in the marvelous La Mort Subite for some rare gueze, the Delirium Café to flip through their selection of 2004 beers, the hidden-in-a-secret alleyway Au Bon Vieux Temps for a quiet beer beside the stained glass windows, the Flemmish hangout Café Monk for some, yes, Flemmish beers and, finally, the only brewpub in Brussels: Les Brasseurs De La Grand'Place. Phew, that was a full day and night. This may have been the most entertaining city of our entire trip. It's a wanderer's paradise. Thanks again to Jan & Maxine for such an incredible time.

Photos of scaffolds with a giant embryo sketched on them, a statue of a giant cat on a bicycle and a poster for Bruxelles Lesbains/Brussel Bad... among other things.

Winding Down the Big Trip Blog Entries (and Patriotic Fire Hydrants)

I am finally reaching the end of the Big Trip blog entries. The only photos yet to be sorted through and posted are of Brussels, Antwerp & Ghent... but there are almost 600 total. Perhaps I am also concerned about suffering from postpartum after completing a nearly nine month long birthing process of the Big Trip Blog Baby.

I won't have a completed entry today, so, in the meantime, here are some photos taken around the New York/New Jersey area:

Patriotic Fire Hydrant








R2-Mail2











Cactus/Shrub











Great Blue Heron Between New Hope & Lamberville

Dana's Special Day!

In honor of Dana's birthday, we had declared a cluster of days in the third week of September "Dana's Special Day!"s Dana's too special to only get one Dana's Special Day! so she got a few of them.

Dana's Special Day! 1 - Blind Tiger Ale House Victory Event
This sounds a bit like giving your girlfriend a subscription to Sports Illustrated, but Dana really does love the Blind Tiger, plus we are going to be serving Victory beer at the wedding... so we were taste-testing! Ben and I got there early to hold the prime real estate on the side of the bar facing the door. The usuals trickled in throughout the evening, and much excellent beer was enjoyed. Victory might be my favorite brewery... at least in the US. They had 17 beers available, and nearly all were fantastic. A couple were mediocre, but none were undrinkable. And, of course, a few were astounding. As their brewery has grown in size, they have not stopped experimenting, almost always with success, and their well-known beers have not suffered in quality. Sure, they don't have the same percentage of out-there beers as Dogfish Head, and they don't have the distribution of Brooklyn, but for now I think their maintaining the balance perfectly. Guess what... I brought my camera.

Dana's Special Day! 2 - A Hike in New Jersey and Dinner
Hiking in Jersey? Yep. About 15 minutes from where we are living is the South Mountain Reservation, which has 19 miles of hiking trails. These are real trails, not paved, and there are plenty of birds, chipmunks and deer to see. For a little while during the hike I was worried we get lost, like the Pine Barren episode of The Sopranos. I kept hearing Tony saying, "You got lost in the woods in Jersey?" Christopher corrects him, "South Jersey." Well, we were in North Jersey, so a trail of broken beer bottles next to a waterfall led us back to civilization. Dana's Special Day!

To satisfy the hunger we worked up, we had dinner at Antonella's with Susette, Marvin, Tom & Alexis. The Venetian food hit the spot. I know it was Venetian because of the blinds. I'm sorry, I had to.

Dana's Special Day! 3 - Gutterball!
After a makeover at Bloomingdale's with Beth, the two met Ben and me at Mug's for dinner. The destination for the night was the newly-opened Gutter in Williamsburg. Or is it Greenpoint? No one seems to know for sure. The place, opened by the same guys who brought you Barcade, is a retro bowling alley with craft beers on tap. (They do have some cutting-edge computers for managing the lanes, though. I think it was a Commodore 128. That's one hundred and twenty-eight kilobytes of pure power. I'm still using the 64.) Sadly, the hipster line was too long and we never made it bowling. I would like to get back there on a Saturday afternoon someday. The mooches that we are, we stayed at Ben & Beth's for the third weekend in a row. And so the Brooklyn apartment hunting began this week. For more on Gutter, you can find some great photos and misleading information here. Our photos here.

Dana's Special Day! 4 - French Food at Sophie's
Finally, Jim & Gail took us to enjoy the most authentic French food we've had since we left France. Mussels, goat cheese, beets and various fish and meat products left us very satisfied and very full. It was a fun week, but Dana and I need to take a break from birthdays for a little while now.

In Leuven with Jan & Maxine

At last we made it to the last country on our Big Trip: Belgium! The land of chocolate, beer and confusing politics, the heart of the European Union, and the home of our friends Jan & Maxine. We met them while traveling the Top End of the Northern Territory in Australia. Jan is Dutch, and Maxine is British, so they live in Brussels, of course.

Our excellent hosts brought us to the nearby town of Leuven that first night. The Flemish city was alive with festivities for Beleuvenissen. According to Jan, this is "a word-play on the Dutch word 'belevenissen', plural for belevenis(NL)=experience(EN). Different themes every night: folk, jazz, latin and special." What I know is that it was a very good time. Besides boasting seven stages of music, Westmalle Tripel was available for four euros and served in a glass. Leuven may be the home of InBev, but they still know how to serve beer.

Photos from Leuven.

Farewell Germany, Heading to Belgium!

One of the main reasons we stayed in Düsseldorf was because I thought it was on the way to Brussels from Koblenz. I was wrong, but the drive was very entertaining. We had seen a postcard for a Chuck Close exhibit at the Ludwig Forum in Aachen and decided to make a stop. Winner, all around.

Chuck Close is an incredible portrait artist who has been painting for over 30 years. Most of his early paintings were brush paintings of people he knew. They were almost always extremely large. He began experimenting with making entire portraits out of fingerprints or dots, and these were amazingly lifelike. In 1988 Close suffered a spinal artery collapse, which left him a quadriplegic, but he has continued painting with his brush between his teeth. As perhaps the greatest proof that art comes from the brain rather than the hand, Close's portraits since then have continued to improve on earlier techniques and trump earlier paintings repeatedly. If you hear of a Chuck Close exhibit coming your way, please go. His Web site.

The rest of the Ludwig Forum in Aachen was almost as impressive. We pulled in at 11:50AM and were told to wait there at the counter until noon before we could pay and enter. That was a bit weak, considering we were the only people there and the counter was in the middle of the exhibition space. Still, the variety of art on display was fantastic. For a stop of a few hours, you could not beat the Ludwig Forum.

Back in the car, we drove through the Netherlands on the way to Belgium. The truck stop we chose for a snack provided appropriate views of windmills, and they served excellent beer, but the food was unbuyable. Actually, why offer good beer at a truck stop? Especially 8% Belgian beer... seems like asking for road rage.

http://dwarbi.com/BigTrip/Germany-Aachen/Germany-Aachen.html

CORRECTION

In my previous post, I wrongly called the dish that Dave & Sabrina brought to the BBQ "dirty rice". It was, in fact, arroz con gandules. Evidently, someone called it dirty rice, and Dave said, "It's not dirty rice." This happened a few dozen times, but I must have heard him say, "It is dirty rice," each time.

A recipe for this tasty meal can be found here: http://www.hechoenpuertorico.org/comida/gandules.html

Dave recommends making your own achiote oil and adding chicken or pork rather than chorizo. I still think he made it with leftovers from the week before.