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I arrived in Brussels on Friday evening and met Pierre at the designated spot and headed to his place. Thanks to Viviane and Mary who had stayed with Mum and Dad back home I had a place to stay for an entire week if I wished. My own room and all. In the end, I did actually stay an entire week.
On the very first night I went out with Pierre and one of his friends out to a pub where there was a birthday party. I didn't get to meet everyone there, but I had conversations with a good number. It's interesting that everyone here speaks French, when just an hour away in Bruges everyone speaks Dutch (well Flemish actually). We only had a few drinks and then went home.
The next day was somewhat more interesting. Turns out it was Gay Pride week in Belgium so there was a huge parade through the streets and then a massive party that evening. We started the day with a picnic in the park and then when up the gate which looks like the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to get a view over the city. Pierre and a couple of his friends then took me a small tour of the city. When and saw the cathedral and town hall, that kind of stuff. One of the biggest tourist attractions in the city (and what my bottle opener is) is Manneken Pis. It's just a tiny water fountain with a little guy pissing. It's 400 years old and there's a bunch of stories about it's meanings. But in any case they now have traditions of dressing him up in little costumes for various reasons. When I saw him he was dressed up as a witch. No idea why though.
After walking around a bit more and watching the parade a bit we went to get a drink. The first bar we went into was one Pierre had heard of but hadn't actually been to. It was a very dark bar and was decorated in death. One of the tables was a coffin with a glass top and a skeleton inside, pretty awesome. It was a nice sunny day though and too dark in here so we went somewhere else; to the Delirium bar. This bar is famous for the fact that it has 2400 beers (though they only guarantee that they will always have at least 2004 in stock at any given time; which is an oddly specific number). They have a menu with every single beer they have, it's quite thick. On tap they have something like 50 or so beers. I can only imagine what their beer fridge must look like. I wonder if any has every tried them all; apparently the owner has.
Then it was time to head back to the main street of the parade where there was now a street party. We bought a couple of beers from the supermarket and then hung around for a while. Then went and got some Belgian fries. Apparently the secret to these fries is that they're deep fried in fat twice, or something like that. Either way they're very tasty and come with a huge range of sauces. I've discovered the Brasil sauce is very delicious. I've even started getting burgers with it.
The next morning Pierre and a bunch of guys were doing a half marathon. An annual event like the City to Surf in Perth which this year had 40,000 people running and one death. I slept in instead. After the run they all came back to Pierre's place and we had a BBQ in the backyard. Somehow I had managed to come to Brussels on what will probably be about the only sunny weekend they have. And it was perfect BBQ weather. Almost felt like being back home. Just not quite as hot and nowhere near as many flies. After the barbie we went to the park to play Pétanque, a very French game, kinda like lawn bowls except you too steel balls towards the jack. Oddly enough I had played this game once before, at a wedding of my old work colleague Adam, and I wasn't half bad at it.
Over the next two days I planned on doing things, but ended up not doing much at all. Everyone was now working all day as the weekend was over, so I was at home by myself. On Monday I mostly just sat in the sun reading and on Tuesday did even less, other than try to plan my next move.
On Wednesday and Thursday I finally took the day trips I had wanted to take for a while. One to Ghent and the other to Namur. I only spent a few hours in each. Ghent was a really nice town along a couple of rivers, not too unlike Bruges with some amazing cathedrals and pretty cool small castle. Namur was even smaller and was more of a French style city. Its main attraction was the citadel up on the hill overlooking the town.
Today I leave to Antwerp.
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