The Taste of Benelux
Okay, I'm going to do this again like I did for Paris last year, so here goes the latest chapter of the McKee-Levison adventures!
We flew on SwissAir this year, which meant a stop-over in Zurich to and from Brussels. The weather was mostly crappy so we didn't get to see too much of Switzerland, but on the return flight from Brussels to Zurich we got to see the Alps poking through the clouds, which was pretty cool. Our flight from Boston to Zurich left at night and arrived early morning (local time) in Switzerland, and then we had an hour-long connection to Brussels. Both Matt and I failed to get much sleep on either of the flights, so when we finally got to Brussels it was early afternoon and we were absolutely exhausted. We had to kill some time before our hotel room was ready, so we wandered around the neighborhood (which was very nice and super close to one of the city's major train stations) and decided to try some real Belgian waffles...and thus began my waffle obsession. Let me tell you, Belgian waffles are nothing like what American restaurants have led us on to believe: they are rather small and oval shaped, and they have sugar baked into the middle...and oh man, I can't tell you how delicious they are. And that's just a plain waffle, nevermind ones dipped in chocolate or with other toppings... Okay, so then we got to see our hotel room--we stayed in this cute little hotel where all the rooms had been designed by a different Belgian artist! Ours had this diced-up painting of a geisha on the wall with arrows coming out of the ceiling. It was pretty small, per European standards, but served us well. We collapsed into bed for a nap, tired and unhappy and extremely nervous about how our first night in Brussels was going to go...since it really didn't seem like there was much to do in the city. But after a short nap we dragged ourselves out and went straight to the Grand Place, which is the city's main square. Any doubts or frustrations we had completely disappeared...even on a freezing cloudy day it was just absolutely gorgeous. We explored for a while, bought some chocolate, and then headed over to this famous spot for seafood restaurants to try the classic Belgian dish "moules frites," or, mussels with fries. Our restaurant was absolutely adorable and it set the pace for equally amazing food and restaurants for the rest of the trip. We walked back to the hotel completely relived that what we'd feared to be a boring and miserable day had been cute and wonderful.
Sunday morning we went to a huge market in the Marolles district. There were tons of tarps and tables laid out in this huge square, with everything ranging from grody old plastic rice cookers that we couldn't justify anyone buying, to some really beautiful antiques. The highlight for me was this cute old man who was playing records on a really old Victrola behind his sale items. From the market we walked to the Palais de Justice, a unanimously hated building in Brussels. The city was originally built with all of the aristocrats up on the hills and the working class below them, and the Palais de Justice was built right on the line between the two, and for the construction they tore down lots of homes of the poor people who were living there. Then we stumbled upon the main fashion district of Brussels and had lunch at Quick, the European fast-food chain, and bought some chocolates from the famous Wittamer shop. Then we took the metro out to see the Atomium, the huge model of the atom that was left over from a World's Fair back in the fifties, and that has become a symbolic monument of Brussels. Unfortunately it was closed for repairs, so all we could do was walk around. But even more drastically unfortunate was the fact that Mini-Europe, this little village of tiny replicas of the most famous sites in Europe which we'd been anticipating with much excitement for the whole trip, was also closed. So we drowned our sorrows in a chocolate-dipped waffle and headed back to the Grand Place. Before dinner we tried another Belgian staple, the pita (filled with shredded kabob meat, and served with various toppings). We had ours with corn and cocktail sauce (which was more like cocktail-sauce-flavored mayonnaise) and it was delish. However, the night provided me with my most embarrassing French-speaking moment to date. As they were making the pita, one guy asked me if I wanted the sauce on the side or inside the pita. I didn't catch what he'd said and so I tried to pass it off like I was thinking, and meanwhile all the guys behind the counter are looking at me, waiting for my answer and it was so tense and I just had no idea and had to revert to English. After the pita we went to a nice restaurant where our conversation was overshadowed by this loud British boy who kept making extremely mean comments about people and about Brussels. After dinner we saw a little street all lit up, and Matt spoke his famous last words, "Oh that looks cute, let's walk down this street." No sooner had we begun than we were bombarded by over-zealous men outside all the restaurants who physically stopped us in the street and tried to convince us to eat in their restaurant. The first group was the worst. We told the guy we'd just eaten, and he replied, "Well, then you should come in and have a second dinner." He then said we'd both get free drinks and half-off our meal, with the assertion that the owner was his brother (and said brother gave us an extremely enthusiastic thumbs up from the window). We finally broke away and for the remainder of the street assumed our GSU Link faces and avoided any real further trouble.
As beautiful and enjoyable our Brussels time had been, we were eager for the three day-trips out of the city that we'd planned, starting with Luxembourg City on Monday. We inadvertently sat in the first class car on the train ride and the conductor never said anything so the trip down was pretty luxurious. We passed through all these forests and everywhere it was just an endless sea of perfectly snow-capped evergreen trees...so beautiful. I'd built up Luxembourg in my mind as this idyllic country full of castles and old people, and thus Luxembourg City turned out to be a bit of a let-down. The main part of the city (the "Old City") is on a hill and surrounded by old stone reinforcements, and that part is really quite beautiful, but the surrounding areas are kind of sketchy, and it just felt very typical-dirty-city-ish. And though the Old City was beautiful, I was shocked at how commercialized it was, with stores of every major designer and lots of other chains and two H&M's! The main square, which was supposed to be really cute, was pretty boring and had both a McDonald's and a Pizza Hut. But apart from those disappointments, we had a really nice day. We had lunch at this amazingly adorable place called Oberweis, which sold chocolates and sweets on the first floor, and had a tea room on the second, which is where we ate and had delicious salads. After lunch we explored and did some shopping and then for dinner we headed down into one of the valley towns surrounding the Old City to this restaurant that was attached to what used to be the city's main brewery. Matt and I shared a mug of this unfiltered beer that isn't available anywhere else in the world (oh if only either of us actually enjoyed beer...) and then we each had plates of a collection of Luxembourgish specialties, which consisted of five different types of pork. They were all really delicious, but it was sooo much meat and neither of us could eat more than half of our meals. After that we headed back to the train station and tried to enjoy sitting in second class for the three-hour ride.
Tuesday was a delightful surprise for me. We went to Antwerp, and I'd originally been skeptical about going because I'd read it was just an industrial city that had been sort of cleaned up recently, and I really thought it was going to be gross and boring and I thought looking for chateaus in southern Belgium would have been a much better option. Fortunately I was completely wrong about Antwerp and we had what may have been my favorite day of the whole trip. After we arrived, we walked through the main shopping district for a while and Matt got some RIDICULOUSLY European sneakers that I'm in love with. We had some lunch and then as we were walking around we stumbled upon a small shop with a table of amazingly soft sheepskin slippers out in front and we decided to go in and check it out. The room was very small, with slippers haphazardly strewn about and shelves of shoeboxes covering all the walls. The owner of the shop, a middle-aged man, greeted us enthusiastically and immediately started up a conversation. He asked where we were from, and I answered Canada, as Matt and I had agreed to do, never knowing what I was getting myself into. The shopowner perked up at my answer and seemed genuinely impressed. "Excuse me, I know some English, and I'm just curious..." he began, and embarked on a thorough interrogation of us on Canadian life, the first question being, "Is there a big slipper culture in Canada?" His interest seemed so borderline absurd that at first I thought he was trying to expose us for lying about our nationality. But he turned out to be harmless and Matt and I each got a pair of supremely comfortable slippers and a good laugh at this funny old guy. After that we went to the Peter Paul Rubens House, which is the house he lived in and they had a lot of his paintings hanging inside. Antwerp is known as the diamond capitol of the world, so we went to the city's diamond museum which proved to be a most tedious excursion. To get around the problem of all the multilingual visitors to Antwerp, the diamond museum had very little actual printed word in their exhibits, and instead had little numbers next to each item of interest and you were issued a little unit where you could punch in the number and it would play a description of the item in your chosen language. A nice idea, but it turned out to be extraordinarily tiresome, especially when there were over 600 numbers to punch in throughout the whole museum, and they didn't always seem to match the item they were supposedly describing. There was a guy there actually shaping diamonds, which was at least momentarily interesting. After spending enough time there to feel like we justified the four euros we spent to get in, we went back out to see more of the city and then found the evening's restaurant, De Peerdestal. Let me just say that I would be content to spend the rest of my life in that restaurant. It was so absolutely adorable and cozy and gorgeous and wonderful I couldn't take it. We were greeted by this amazingly cute blonde waiter who asked us in a heavy Flemish accent, "Two persons?" and we just melted. We sat next to the window with a view of the beautiful, perfectly small-town-European street. On the opposite end of us in the restaurant there was a long table of cute old Antwerpians who seemed to be celebrating something, and they were just so happy to be together. Our main course this evening was horse steak (!) which was absolutely delicious, though it didn't taste too different from regular steak. For dessert we decided to share a "dame blanche" and were a little disappointed when it was brought out and appeared to be nothing more than a hot fudge sundae. But we forgot this was Belgium, and I never in my life knew the possibility of what hot fudge could be until that night. When we could finally bear to tear ourselves away from our dear De Peerdestal, we walked to a locally famous bar where they served over six hundred types of beer (and Matt and I figured that with that kind of selection there had to be something we would like). My first choice was "Minty," a peppermint-flavored beer. Our jaws literally dropped when the bar-owner poured out the beer and it was bright green! It was pretty tasty, and funny since the bottle itself was covered in dust and the label looked like it dated from the late 70s. Matt got a pumpkin ale which tasted too much like beer to suit him. After that we both got bottles of this framboise beer nicknamed "The Fruity Pink" which was definitely more our speed (and actually pink, too!). Then we walked back to the train station, with me saying "I love Antwerp!" over and over.
On Wednesday we went to Bruges which is perhaps the most picturesque place I've ever been to. It's this gorgeous little town surrounded by a moat with canals weaving throughout it. It's extremely touristy, which is a shame, and even being there on a cold day in March I would say at least half of everyone there were tourists. When we arrived there was a huge food and flower market going on in the main square of the town. We sampled some local Flemish stew for lunch, and then walked around for a bit. We found this shop full of beautiful hand-made bags and pillows and things, and I got a pretty handbag. The woman who owned the store and made everything was so nice and cute, and was doing planning work for a Chinese film festival! Then we took a canal boat tour with these extremely British older couples, with delightfully stereotypical names like Nigel and Judith. Matt and I basically tuned out the tourguide to listen to their adorable banter. On another, not-so-cute British note, on the train ride over we spotted this group of disgustingly overweight Brits with horrible teeth that Matt nicknamed The Dursleys. We kept running into them in the beginning of the day, and then just as we'd forgotten them we spotted them in the window of this gross bar having dinner, and then, wouldn't you know, they ended up sitting right across from us on the train ride back. After our canal tour, we walked a bit out of the central part of town which was great because we actually got a feel for the part of the town that was actually lived-in, and not overrun by tourists. We went to a church where women come in every day to make lace, and they allow visitors to go in and watch. We were the only visitors there, so at first it was a little awkward, but the women were all very friendly and it was fascinating to watch. There was this one very old lady who was just incredible--she was weaving the bobbins over one another so fast that at first when I looked at her I thought she was just carelessly moving them aside or something. Matt and I watched her for a long time. It was amazing how she could just throw the bobbins about with one hand while pulling out a needle to stick in for the next part with her other hand, all while looking at the pattern and not at what she was doing. She couldn't speak English but pointed out two beautiful pieces she'd made in a glass cabinet that was behind her. She was just adorable and seemed so happy that we showed such an interest in and appreciation for her work. After that we headed back into town for another delicious meal and another cute restaurant where we both had fish waterzooi, a type of Flemish stew. We also decided to exploit our legal drinking age and ask for cocktails, since the drink lists only ever included aperitifs, beers, and wines. We asked for rum and cokes, and were horrified when our waiter returned with two tall glasses HALF-FULL with rum and two glass Coke bottles. It actually wasn't quite as bad as we'd anticipated, as the rum was Bacardi and went down pretty smooth. Back to the train station and the Dursleys and then to our last night in Brussels.
Thursday we said goodbye to our cute little geisha, "alternative vision of reality" room and headed for Amsterdam. I was pretty nervous about it, just because everyone always warns you so sternly to be careful and not carry anything important with you, etc., and specifically the central train station was supposed to be very sketchy, so I even wore my backpack in front pregnant-style (or idiot-style, as Steve said) but the station didn't seem at all particularly more shady than the other stations we'd been using, and the city on the whole felt pretty safe. The only remotely sketchy things that we dealt with were this group of over-eager Italian boys and this crazy British guy who ran up to me frantically, gestured to my ear muffs, and asked, "Are you listening to music?!" I said no and he replied, "Oh just keeping warm, then? Okay, thanks." Matt and I were completely baffled...was this guy having some extreme musical emergency or something?? Weird, but harmless. Our hotel in Amsterdam was really wonderful, except that there was an incredibly steep and long staircase that led up to the lobby from the street. The staff was super nice and gave us free soft drinks when we arrived, and our room, though small of course, had a beautiful view of a canal and a huge church. The hotel was in an incredible location, right in between the Dam (main square in Amsterdam) and the Anne Frank House. For lunch we went to a pancake eatery and then headed for the Anne Frank House. It was an incredibly well-done exhibit, but it was a shame because there were so many people there that you couldn't really take your time and receive the full emotional impact of the place. After we left we were walking back to the hotel and ran into some of Matt's friends!! They were also in town for a couple days and on their way for some Anne Frank action. Matt and I continued on to the Dam and explored for a while. We had another incredible dining experience at this nice little place that was mostly filled with fortysomethings. I had veal cheek and Matt had roasted guinea, and both were just amazingly delicious. After dinner we walked around looking for a "coffee shop" (where you can smoke pot) that didn't look too sketchy. I ended up smoking waay too much..at first it was fine and I was just super giggly (especially when Matt pointed out that in this Dutch techno song that was playing it sounded like the singer kept saying "Your wife tastes like cat food" over and over again...I just couldn't stop laughing) but then I started to feel a little dizzy and put my head on the counter, and next thing I knew I had passed out!! Matt said that all these Middle Eastern guys who had been standing nearby rushed over to help, and that it took everyone a little while to get to me because my leg was entangled in the bar stool. It was pretty embarrassing at the time but now I just find it hilarious, and when do I NOT laugh at people falling?? So I went and lay down in a booth hoping to get my strength back, but I told Matt I was going to be sick, and before he could secure me a bucket I start barfing all over the table. hahahaha, oh man I was so miserable...not only did I feel like shit and drive out all of this poor guy's customers, but I had to sit there and look at the gross chunks of my delicious veal cheek dinner. But Matt pointed out that it was pretty cool that I was able to enjoy that wonderful dinner, and yet not have to deal with any of the calories, and I thought, you know, maybe those bulimics had something going for them after all... So fortunately everyone there was really concerned about me, since there I was, completely out of it, the only girl in this coffee house in Amsterdam, with no one but Matt to look after me, and things could have gone considerably worse.
Friday we woke up and took a canal boat tour. Unfortunately it was a cold and rainy day, but Amsterdam is such a beautiful place that it didn't get us down too much. After the tour we walked to a flea market which was not so happening because of the rain, so we advanced on to the Heineken factory!! Matt and I had been eagerly anticipating this for the whole trip because we'd heard about all the silly interactive exhibits they have there, and boy was it silly! In one room you stood before a big screen and held onto a bar in front of you and you got to feel what it was like to be a bottle on the assembly line, and the floor jerked around accordingly to a super dramatic soundtrack. In a similar part, you sat in a wagon and got to feel what it was like to be in the official Heineken carriage when horses pull it around Amsterdam. Then there was a part where you could recline back in a comfy chair with your own personal flat video screen and watch Heineken commercials from all different years, which seemed like a huge waste of cool technology. Then there was a part where you could peek into the laboratory of the guy who isolated the special yeast that Heineken uses, and there was this hologram of him working in the lab, and then he spots you looking in and angrily draws the curtain. We also got free beer (a.k.a. free soft drinks for me, though Matt was able to down one beer) and a free Heineken glass (free included with the price of admission, of course) so overall it was a grand time. We got on the train back to Brussels and by this time we we're feeling exhausted from the cumulation of all the walking and events of our whole week, so we just couldn't wait to get to our hotel, the Sheraton at the Brussels airport. When we got to the train station in Brussels I was dying to get my waffle fix and I bought two and ate them and felt sooo sick. We finally got to the hotel around nine o'clock. We'd been a little worried that, even being a Sheraton, our room still might be typically European and tiny. We pushed open the door and squealed with delight at how luxuriously spacious it was. Then we went downstairs to the ritzy French hotel restaurant and both ate fillet of emu. Sooo delicious, with some cheese and chocolate mousse for dessert. Then we retired to our amazing room and it was the perfect way to end the trip.
Not too much to tell about the way back, except that for some reason I got put on stand-by for the flight from Zurich to Boston so we were afraid we might have to get on another flight, but it all worked out. So there you have it! I had such an amazing time, and I hope to revisit some of the places when I'm in Hungary this summer. And I'm so glad to be back in BOSTON and to have CLASS!!!!!! But seriously folks, what I'm really excited about is seeing The Conformist un-dubbed and in its original aspect ratio on the big screen tomorrow night!!! 7:30 at the Coolidge!! Also Raging Bull is at the Brattle this week!!
I hope everyone had a wonderful break!!!
We flew on SwissAir this year, which meant a stop-over in Zurich to and from Brussels. The weather was mostly crappy so we didn't get to see too much of Switzerland, but on the return flight from Brussels to Zurich we got to see the Alps poking through the clouds, which was pretty cool. Our flight from Boston to Zurich left at night and arrived early morning (local time) in Switzerland, and then we had an hour-long connection to Brussels. Both Matt and I failed to get much sleep on either of the flights, so when we finally got to Brussels it was early afternoon and we were absolutely exhausted. We had to kill some time before our hotel room was ready, so we wandered around the neighborhood (which was very nice and super close to one of the city's major train stations) and decided to try some real Belgian waffles...and thus began my waffle obsession. Let me tell you, Belgian waffles are nothing like what American restaurants have led us on to believe: they are rather small and oval shaped, and they have sugar baked into the middle...and oh man, I can't tell you how delicious they are. And that's just a plain waffle, nevermind ones dipped in chocolate or with other toppings... Okay, so then we got to see our hotel room--we stayed in this cute little hotel where all the rooms had been designed by a different Belgian artist! Ours had this diced-up painting of a geisha on the wall with arrows coming out of the ceiling. It was pretty small, per European standards, but served us well. We collapsed into bed for a nap, tired and unhappy and extremely nervous about how our first night in Brussels was going to go...since it really didn't seem like there was much to do in the city. But after a short nap we dragged ourselves out and went straight to the Grand Place, which is the city's main square. Any doubts or frustrations we had completely disappeared...even on a freezing cloudy day it was just absolutely gorgeous. We explored for a while, bought some chocolate, and then headed over to this famous spot for seafood restaurants to try the classic Belgian dish "moules frites," or, mussels with fries. Our restaurant was absolutely adorable and it set the pace for equally amazing food and restaurants for the rest of the trip. We walked back to the hotel completely relived that what we'd feared to be a boring and miserable day had been cute and wonderful.
Sunday morning we went to a huge market in the Marolles district. There were tons of tarps and tables laid out in this huge square, with everything ranging from grody old plastic rice cookers that we couldn't justify anyone buying, to some really beautiful antiques. The highlight for me was this cute old man who was playing records on a really old Victrola behind his sale items. From the market we walked to the Palais de Justice, a unanimously hated building in Brussels. The city was originally built with all of the aristocrats up on the hills and the working class below them, and the Palais de Justice was built right on the line between the two, and for the construction they tore down lots of homes of the poor people who were living there. Then we stumbled upon the main fashion district of Brussels and had lunch at Quick, the European fast-food chain, and bought some chocolates from the famous Wittamer shop. Then we took the metro out to see the Atomium, the huge model of the atom that was left over from a World's Fair back in the fifties, and that has become a symbolic monument of Brussels. Unfortunately it was closed for repairs, so all we could do was walk around. But even more drastically unfortunate was the fact that Mini-Europe, this little village of tiny replicas of the most famous sites in Europe which we'd been anticipating with much excitement for the whole trip, was also closed. So we drowned our sorrows in a chocolate-dipped waffle and headed back to the Grand Place. Before dinner we tried another Belgian staple, the pita (filled with shredded kabob meat, and served with various toppings). We had ours with corn and cocktail sauce (which was more like cocktail-sauce-flavored mayonnaise) and it was delish. However, the night provided me with my most embarrassing French-speaking moment to date. As they were making the pita, one guy asked me if I wanted the sauce on the side or inside the pita. I didn't catch what he'd said and so I tried to pass it off like I was thinking, and meanwhile all the guys behind the counter are looking at me, waiting for my answer and it was so tense and I just had no idea and had to revert to English. After the pita we went to a nice restaurant where our conversation was overshadowed by this loud British boy who kept making extremely mean comments about people and about Brussels. After dinner we saw a little street all lit up, and Matt spoke his famous last words, "Oh that looks cute, let's walk down this street." No sooner had we begun than we were bombarded by over-zealous men outside all the restaurants who physically stopped us in the street and tried to convince us to eat in their restaurant. The first group was the worst. We told the guy we'd just eaten, and he replied, "Well, then you should come in and have a second dinner." He then said we'd both get free drinks and half-off our meal, with the assertion that the owner was his brother (and said brother gave us an extremely enthusiastic thumbs up from the window). We finally broke away and for the remainder of the street assumed our GSU Link faces and avoided any real further trouble.
As beautiful and enjoyable our Brussels time had been, we were eager for the three day-trips out of the city that we'd planned, starting with Luxembourg City on Monday. We inadvertently sat in the first class car on the train ride and the conductor never said anything so the trip down was pretty luxurious. We passed through all these forests and everywhere it was just an endless sea of perfectly snow-capped evergreen trees...so beautiful. I'd built up Luxembourg in my mind as this idyllic country full of castles and old people, and thus Luxembourg City turned out to be a bit of a let-down. The main part of the city (the "Old City") is on a hill and surrounded by old stone reinforcements, and that part is really quite beautiful, but the surrounding areas are kind of sketchy, and it just felt very typical-dirty-city-ish. And though the Old City was beautiful, I was shocked at how commercialized it was, with stores of every major designer and lots of other chains and two H&M's! The main square, which was supposed to be really cute, was pretty boring and had both a McDonald's and a Pizza Hut. But apart from those disappointments, we had a really nice day. We had lunch at this amazingly adorable place called Oberweis, which sold chocolates and sweets on the first floor, and had a tea room on the second, which is where we ate and had delicious salads. After lunch we explored and did some shopping and then for dinner we headed down into one of the valley towns surrounding the Old City to this restaurant that was attached to what used to be the city's main brewery. Matt and I shared a mug of this unfiltered beer that isn't available anywhere else in the world (oh if only either of us actually enjoyed beer...) and then we each had plates of a collection of Luxembourgish specialties, which consisted of five different types of pork. They were all really delicious, but it was sooo much meat and neither of us could eat more than half of our meals. After that we headed back to the train station and tried to enjoy sitting in second class for the three-hour ride.
Tuesday was a delightful surprise for me. We went to Antwerp, and I'd originally been skeptical about going because I'd read it was just an industrial city that had been sort of cleaned up recently, and I really thought it was going to be gross and boring and I thought looking for chateaus in southern Belgium would have been a much better option. Fortunately I was completely wrong about Antwerp and we had what may have been my favorite day of the whole trip. After we arrived, we walked through the main shopping district for a while and Matt got some RIDICULOUSLY European sneakers that I'm in love with. We had some lunch and then as we were walking around we stumbled upon a small shop with a table of amazingly soft sheepskin slippers out in front and we decided to go in and check it out. The room was very small, with slippers haphazardly strewn about and shelves of shoeboxes covering all the walls. The owner of the shop, a middle-aged man, greeted us enthusiastically and immediately started up a conversation. He asked where we were from, and I answered Canada, as Matt and I had agreed to do, never knowing what I was getting myself into. The shopowner perked up at my answer and seemed genuinely impressed. "Excuse me, I know some English, and I'm just curious..." he began, and embarked on a thorough interrogation of us on Canadian life, the first question being, "Is there a big slipper culture in Canada?" His interest seemed so borderline absurd that at first I thought he was trying to expose us for lying about our nationality. But he turned out to be harmless and Matt and I each got a pair of supremely comfortable slippers and a good laugh at this funny old guy. After that we went to the Peter Paul Rubens House, which is the house he lived in and they had a lot of his paintings hanging inside. Antwerp is known as the diamond capitol of the world, so we went to the city's diamond museum which proved to be a most tedious excursion. To get around the problem of all the multilingual visitors to Antwerp, the diamond museum had very little actual printed word in their exhibits, and instead had little numbers next to each item of interest and you were issued a little unit where you could punch in the number and it would play a description of the item in your chosen language. A nice idea, but it turned out to be extraordinarily tiresome, especially when there were over 600 numbers to punch in throughout the whole museum, and they didn't always seem to match the item they were supposedly describing. There was a guy there actually shaping diamonds, which was at least momentarily interesting. After spending enough time there to feel like we justified the four euros we spent to get in, we went back out to see more of the city and then found the evening's restaurant, De Peerdestal. Let me just say that I would be content to spend the rest of my life in that restaurant. It was so absolutely adorable and cozy and gorgeous and wonderful I couldn't take it. We were greeted by this amazingly cute blonde waiter who asked us in a heavy Flemish accent, "Two persons?" and we just melted. We sat next to the window with a view of the beautiful, perfectly small-town-European street. On the opposite end of us in the restaurant there was a long table of cute old Antwerpians who seemed to be celebrating something, and they were just so happy to be together. Our main course this evening was horse steak (!) which was absolutely delicious, though it didn't taste too different from regular steak. For dessert we decided to share a "dame blanche" and were a little disappointed when it was brought out and appeared to be nothing more than a hot fudge sundae. But we forgot this was Belgium, and I never in my life knew the possibility of what hot fudge could be until that night. When we could finally bear to tear ourselves away from our dear De Peerdestal, we walked to a locally famous bar where they served over six hundred types of beer (and Matt and I figured that with that kind of selection there had to be something we would like). My first choice was "Minty," a peppermint-flavored beer. Our jaws literally dropped when the bar-owner poured out the beer and it was bright green! It was pretty tasty, and funny since the bottle itself was covered in dust and the label looked like it dated from the late 70s. Matt got a pumpkin ale which tasted too much like beer to suit him. After that we both got bottles of this framboise beer nicknamed "The Fruity Pink" which was definitely more our speed (and actually pink, too!). Then we walked back to the train station, with me saying "I love Antwerp!" over and over.
On Wednesday we went to Bruges which is perhaps the most picturesque place I've ever been to. It's this gorgeous little town surrounded by a moat with canals weaving throughout it. It's extremely touristy, which is a shame, and even being there on a cold day in March I would say at least half of everyone there were tourists. When we arrived there was a huge food and flower market going on in the main square of the town. We sampled some local Flemish stew for lunch, and then walked around for a bit. We found this shop full of beautiful hand-made bags and pillows and things, and I got a pretty handbag. The woman who owned the store and made everything was so nice and cute, and was doing planning work for a Chinese film festival! Then we took a canal boat tour with these extremely British older couples, with delightfully stereotypical names like Nigel and Judith. Matt and I basically tuned out the tourguide to listen to their adorable banter. On another, not-so-cute British note, on the train ride over we spotted this group of disgustingly overweight Brits with horrible teeth that Matt nicknamed The Dursleys. We kept running into them in the beginning of the day, and then just as we'd forgotten them we spotted them in the window of this gross bar having dinner, and then, wouldn't you know, they ended up sitting right across from us on the train ride back. After our canal tour, we walked a bit out of the central part of town which was great because we actually got a feel for the part of the town that was actually lived-in, and not overrun by tourists. We went to a church where women come in every day to make lace, and they allow visitors to go in and watch. We were the only visitors there, so at first it was a little awkward, but the women were all very friendly and it was fascinating to watch. There was this one very old lady who was just incredible--she was weaving the bobbins over one another so fast that at first when I looked at her I thought she was just carelessly moving them aside or something. Matt and I watched her for a long time. It was amazing how she could just throw the bobbins about with one hand while pulling out a needle to stick in for the next part with her other hand, all while looking at the pattern and not at what she was doing. She couldn't speak English but pointed out two beautiful pieces she'd made in a glass cabinet that was behind her. She was just adorable and seemed so happy that we showed such an interest in and appreciation for her work. After that we headed back into town for another delicious meal and another cute restaurant where we both had fish waterzooi, a type of Flemish stew. We also decided to exploit our legal drinking age and ask for cocktails, since the drink lists only ever included aperitifs, beers, and wines. We asked for rum and cokes, and were horrified when our waiter returned with two tall glasses HALF-FULL with rum and two glass Coke bottles. It actually wasn't quite as bad as we'd anticipated, as the rum was Bacardi and went down pretty smooth. Back to the train station and the Dursleys and then to our last night in Brussels.
Thursday we said goodbye to our cute little geisha, "alternative vision of reality" room and headed for Amsterdam. I was pretty nervous about it, just because everyone always warns you so sternly to be careful and not carry anything important with you, etc., and specifically the central train station was supposed to be very sketchy, so I even wore my backpack in front pregnant-style (or idiot-style, as Steve said) but the station didn't seem at all particularly more shady than the other stations we'd been using, and the city on the whole felt pretty safe. The only remotely sketchy things that we dealt with were this group of over-eager Italian boys and this crazy British guy who ran up to me frantically, gestured to my ear muffs, and asked, "Are you listening to music?!" I said no and he replied, "Oh just keeping warm, then? Okay, thanks." Matt and I were completely baffled...was this guy having some extreme musical emergency or something?? Weird, but harmless. Our hotel in Amsterdam was really wonderful, except that there was an incredibly steep and long staircase that led up to the lobby from the street. The staff was super nice and gave us free soft drinks when we arrived, and our room, though small of course, had a beautiful view of a canal and a huge church. The hotel was in an incredible location, right in between the Dam (main square in Amsterdam) and the Anne Frank House. For lunch we went to a pancake eatery and then headed for the Anne Frank House. It was an incredibly well-done exhibit, but it was a shame because there were so many people there that you couldn't really take your time and receive the full emotional impact of the place. After we left we were walking back to the hotel and ran into some of Matt's friends!! They were also in town for a couple days and on their way for some Anne Frank action. Matt and I continued on to the Dam and explored for a while. We had another incredible dining experience at this nice little place that was mostly filled with fortysomethings. I had veal cheek and Matt had roasted guinea, and both were just amazingly delicious. After dinner we walked around looking for a "coffee shop" (where you can smoke pot) that didn't look too sketchy. I ended up smoking waay too much..at first it was fine and I was just super giggly (especially when Matt pointed out that in this Dutch techno song that was playing it sounded like the singer kept saying "Your wife tastes like cat food" over and over again...I just couldn't stop laughing) but then I started to feel a little dizzy and put my head on the counter, and next thing I knew I had passed out!! Matt said that all these Middle Eastern guys who had been standing nearby rushed over to help, and that it took everyone a little while to get to me because my leg was entangled in the bar stool. It was pretty embarrassing at the time but now I just find it hilarious, and when do I NOT laugh at people falling?? So I went and lay down in a booth hoping to get my strength back, but I told Matt I was going to be sick, and before he could secure me a bucket I start barfing all over the table. hahahaha, oh man I was so miserable...not only did I feel like shit and drive out all of this poor guy's customers, but I had to sit there and look at the gross chunks of my delicious veal cheek dinner. But Matt pointed out that it was pretty cool that I was able to enjoy that wonderful dinner, and yet not have to deal with any of the calories, and I thought, you know, maybe those bulimics had something going for them after all... So fortunately everyone there was really concerned about me, since there I was, completely out of it, the only girl in this coffee house in Amsterdam, with no one but Matt to look after me, and things could have gone considerably worse.
Friday we woke up and took a canal boat tour. Unfortunately it was a cold and rainy day, but Amsterdam is such a beautiful place that it didn't get us down too much. After the tour we walked to a flea market which was not so happening because of the rain, so we advanced on to the Heineken factory!! Matt and I had been eagerly anticipating this for the whole trip because we'd heard about all the silly interactive exhibits they have there, and boy was it silly! In one room you stood before a big screen and held onto a bar in front of you and you got to feel what it was like to be a bottle on the assembly line, and the floor jerked around accordingly to a super dramatic soundtrack. In a similar part, you sat in a wagon and got to feel what it was like to be in the official Heineken carriage when horses pull it around Amsterdam. Then there was a part where you could recline back in a comfy chair with your own personal flat video screen and watch Heineken commercials from all different years, which seemed like a huge waste of cool technology. Then there was a part where you could peek into the laboratory of the guy who isolated the special yeast that Heineken uses, and there was this hologram of him working in the lab, and then he spots you looking in and angrily draws the curtain. We also got free beer (a.k.a. free soft drinks for me, though Matt was able to down one beer) and a free Heineken glass (free included with the price of admission, of course) so overall it was a grand time. We got on the train back to Brussels and by this time we we're feeling exhausted from the cumulation of all the walking and events of our whole week, so we just couldn't wait to get to our hotel, the Sheraton at the Brussels airport. When we got to the train station in Brussels I was dying to get my waffle fix and I bought two and ate them and felt sooo sick. We finally got to the hotel around nine o'clock. We'd been a little worried that, even being a Sheraton, our room still might be typically European and tiny. We pushed open the door and squealed with delight at how luxuriously spacious it was. Then we went downstairs to the ritzy French hotel restaurant and both ate fillet of emu. Sooo delicious, with some cheese and chocolate mousse for dessert. Then we retired to our amazing room and it was the perfect way to end the trip.
Not too much to tell about the way back, except that for some reason I got put on stand-by for the flight from Zurich to Boston so we were afraid we might have to get on another flight, but it all worked out. So there you have it! I had such an amazing time, and I hope to revisit some of the places when I'm in Hungary this summer. And I'm so glad to be back in BOSTON and to have CLASS!!!!!! But seriously folks, what I'm really excited about is seeing The Conformist un-dubbed and in its original aspect ratio on the big screen tomorrow night!!! 7:30 at the Coolidge!! Also Raging Bull is at the Brattle this week!!
I hope everyone had a wonderful break!!!