brussels

i'm writing this post, unbelievably content after an amazing day in brussels, eating a piece of milk&white chocolate covered in strawberry glaze.

i started the day off by joining an organized bike tour of brussels.

first stop. grand place.

grand place is the old medieval "downtown." this is where the 48 guilds (trade unions) of brussels was gathered. so, these flemish-baroque are old guild offices that were burned down and rebuilt between 1696 - 1698.

the semi-wide building with the greendome, flanked by a statue, was the baker's guild office. now it's the headquarters of InBev, the largest brewery in the world.

brewer's guild.

the white chapel-like structure is the town hall. however, it was built in parts in two different times so it's asymmetrical. the left wing is much longer than the right.

so, the architect used some tricks to mask the asymmetry (thought not very successful). first, the arcades on the right are wider to make that wing seem wider. second, the entrance to the town tall is much closer to the left in order to widen the right side.

afterwards, we proceeded on our bikes to....

manneken pis, symbol of brussels. one of the myths surrounding this statue is that it's commemorating a boy who extinguished a huge fire in brussels by peeing on it. i forget the "true" story, but the important thing is that every now and then it's wearing a costume. in fact, the museum of brussels has thousands of outfits that it has worn during the past years.

on our way up towards marolles. i didn't know this but brussels is a major cartoon city. apparently, it has the highest concentration of cartoonist per capita (not sure how you measure that statistic). some major belgian cartoons include TinTin and The Smurfs. so, walls with cartoon murals are ubiquitous in the city.

marolles used to be a very poor area, but as it happens in most cities, it's becoming very hip, trendy and posh. this area is largely flemish because it's become more and more expensive to live here. (more on the flemish and french dynamic later)

view from marolles, the highest point in brussels.

palais de justice. this is a court building, but it's closing down within the next year for several reasons: impracticality (too huge to be of any effective use), expensive to maintain, insecure (three prisoners have escaped from here in the past year, while they were waiting to be tried), and finally there's apparently no way to cost-effectively/efficiently heat the complex. no clue what it'll end up being used for.

beautiful sablon square.

statues representing the 48 guilds, (they're everywhere!)

my bike @ sablon square.

the white marble status on the right corner (holding a ball) is gerardus mercator. he invented the first comprehensive and scaled atlas, and he also invented and standardized all the symbols of maps (like the cross for hospital etc etc)

then, on our way towards the EU quarter one of the bikes had mechanical issues, the PEDAL CAME OFF. so our guide sara had to scramble to get a new bike for the person while we stalled for about 15 minutes. but, all worked out because around 12:30 we headed to get the famous belgian frites!

at maison antoine! one of the two most popular frite stands in brussels.

classic large fries with mayo for lunch (couldn't finish all of it, or else i would've felt sick biking). i say, anything double-fried is absolutely fantastic.

while eating my fries, i chatted with a couple on their honey moon and a junior from washu in st. louis, who's also spending a semester in london at king's college.

after a nice frites lunch, we headed to the EU quarter.

European Parliament building.

glass monstrosity. here's the most ineffective thing you've probably ever heard. the EP is held in two different cities, in brussels and in strasbourg, france. neither of the cities are willing to give up their housing the EP, so on a weekly week, the 780+ MEPs alternate meeting in strasbourg and brussels. complete waste of energy, money and time. (i already knew this from my EU class. also, thanks to my EU class, i was the only one on the tour to know that the EU has 27 Member States! woot woot!)

brussels gate. it was here that we talked about the fact that belgium DOESN'T HAVE A GOVERNMENT RIGHT NOW!!! the prime minister resigned a few days ago, as have the past two prime ministers during the past two years......this is due to the constant tension between the flemish and french constituency in belgium. belgium is officially bilingual.

belgium is divided into 3 sections. Flanders in the north where they speak dutch, Wallonia in the south where they speak french, and a german portion in the far east. this all gets very iffy because french-speaking people hold most of the government positions even though they only constitute a third of the population. BUT, the flemish people, who are underrepresented, constitute 60% of the population and are the richer population. so, the government has perpetual difficulty balancing the flemish and french constituency. in fact, there's constant talk about the possibility of belgium splitting into two. but, I'd personally like them to stay unified because i think it's fantastic to have two language co-exist so beautifully.

parc de bruxelles, one of the many pretty parks we biked through.

palais royal in the royal quarter.

brussels cathedral, our last stop in the bike tour.

overall, the bike tour was only satisfactory, not spectacular. It was great that we got to cover so much ground in 3.5 hours. also, it was fun riding through the cityscape, feeling the wind in your face. these are some of the negatives. firstly, the guide was very new and today was only her second tour so she wasn't as knowledgable, suave, or comfortable giving the tour. however, i once was an inexperienced tour guide (for exeter and nyu) myself, so i empathized with her. second, we didn't have enough photo opportunities so I missed a lot of things i'd have liked to record, but i took many mental pictures. finally, it made me realize that i am possibly the least graceful person on a bike. you'd think i could manage biking through a relatively flat city, but no. i embarassed myself multiple times so i don't think i'll be going on anymore bike tours.

in order to make myself feel slightly better about being so ungraceful, i bought myself a waffle. it was delicious and it instantly made me feel better.

mont des arts.

musee royaux des beaux-arts. including the ancient art, by which they mean 15th - 18th century art, not ancient greek or egyptian. and modern, meaning 19-20th belgian art.

venus et l'amor by lucas cranach l'ancient. 1531. love this piece, whose artist was previously unknown to me. story: cupid came crying to his mom venus after having been stung by bees while stealing honey. then, venus told him sth along the lines of "loves wounds will sting more."

elongated body in the gothic style. and look at venus' demonically coy smile, while being "covered" in a translucent veil.

rubens room! didn't know peter paul rubens spent most of his life in antwerp, belgium. also didn't know that hispieces were so ginormous.

cool surrealist piece by salvador dali. elephants on spider thin legs. after a good hour and half at the museum, i simply wandered around to explore.

place du grand sablon, where i went chocolate sampling at all the chocolatiers that are concentrated on this little square.

interesting pairing at an antiques shop.

pierre marcolini, one of the more posh chocolatiers in brussels.

i got 8 pieces of chocolate here. 2 of each of: earl grey praline, pierre marcolini dark chocolate, strawberry glazed white & milk chocolate, and another not delicious enough to remember. of course, i finished all of them during the afternoon and had the last piece just now.

hodgepodge of architecture throughout brussels. some parts are really beautiful, and some are ugly. the different quarters all have their distinct look. grand place is flemish-baroque. the royal quarter is neo-classical with modern art buildings. marolles is almost rundown. and the north & EU quarter is disenchantingly manhattan-like, and quite ugly.

street signs with both french and dutch, but the french is always on top. love bilingualism!

cartoon mural mocking the mannekin pis.

frites stand in front of st. catherine church.

one of the last standing original, very modest, friteries.

bilingual metro sign in the north of the city, near the moroccan quarter. there wasn't too much to see. another area becoming gentrified.

grasmarkt

back to grand place before sunset.

petite rue des bouchers & rue es bouchers . little street packed with tourist-trappy seafood restaurants, but i craved the famous mussels, so i went into the cutest looking one i could find.

brussels mussels, frites and belgian beer. what better way to end a day in brussels. that pot of steamed mussels was absolutely delicious!! interestingly, the waiters kept referring to me as "lady." "lady, you want beer?" they'd ask. what? it was a tad awkward. but, after i told them i was from new york they called me "new york." slightly better. but, when i said new york, one of them asked "what part? new jersey?!?" haha. those belgians need to brush up on their geography, but my guess is the americans no far less about european geography. also, one of the waiters asked me if i had an email address, but didn't ask me for it. awkward but cute.

today, i saw a lot of brussels, both the charming and the super industrial parts. i kind of wish i was wiser with my time, so i could've seen another museum rather than being disenchanted after walking through the manhattanesque area. but oh wells. also, i probably overdid my daily suggested calorie intake by 500%, but how else was i supposed to experience brussels?

all in all, great day. I mean, really, how can you go wrong with a day in a city known for its fries, waffles and chocolate?!

(these blogposts are taking me forever. are they supposed to take this long?)

April 21 - 25th; week in review.

i had a fantastic 5 days and would love to share them in this concentrated blogpost.

Wednesday. 21/04 (this is how they write dates in europe)

I went to St. Aloysius again for the first time since spring break. though i hadn't seen them in 2 weeks, the kids were all very happy to see me. this week's theme seemed to be life in the sea, so i helped a few children decorate and color construction fish. except, not many of them were excited to do it, so i was a little hurt when they unabashedly told me that they didn't want to do the activity with me. afterwards, i went to out recess with the kids for the first time. i usually take my coffee break then, but since the weather was so beautiful i decided to go play with them. they were all running around like crazy, so i just sat on one of the benches and watched them play, and periodically kids in my home room would come show me something or ask me to help them with riding the wooden train.

in the middle of recess, something absolutely bizarre happened. one of the slightly older boys from another homeroom looked at me and screamed "go back to america!" multiple times while running around. it made me speechless and left me dumbfounded. it was my first seemingly anti-american sentiment that i've felt since i've been in london, and it came from a 8-yr old. i had no idea what to think. i could've easily brushed it off as a silly comment from an immature little boy, but it's left quite an impression on me.

after recess, i experienced quite a charming culture shock. the class had gathered for an impromptu 'show and tell.' one of the boys sheepishly stood up, hiding something behind his back. then, he proudly whips out a bear key chain. so, ms. raggio enthusiastically reacted "oh, it's a bear." the boy turns to his teacher and says "no, it's not a bear. it's an ARSENAL bear." all of a sudden, all the 5-yr olds in our classroom starts rowdily chanting "ARSENAL! ARSENAL!" (arsenal is football team that originates around the king's cross area) in response, ms. raggio jokingly says "nah, i think chelsea's better because i'm from east london." the children passionately disagreed proudly showing their local team loyalty. such strongly loyalty to football and to their local team at such a young age showed me how football is so deeply embedded in british culture.

at 11am, i walked out of the classroom to a beautiful day and decided to grab lunch. I had previously looked up this cafe/breadshop called gail's bread that serves great freshly made natural bread. it was in hampstead, an area i'd never been to so i decided to walk there knowing that it'll take me at least an hour.

from euston station i started walking northwest towards hampstead. on my way i passed through camden, and this familiar area helped me connect two seemingly isolated parts of london.

pastel colored houses

uphill towards hampstead

north london, leading to hampstead heath is very residential and has beautiful architecture.

cute little creperie with a sign in french!

hampstead!

finally, after about an hour and twenty minute stroll I arrived at Gail's Bread!! no tourists. just a local bakery. so many different kinds of loaves of fresh bread! amazing sandwich on mixed olive bread. yummmm

Thursday. 22/04

my one thursday class was cancelled, so i slept in and spent most of the early afternoon working on a paper. then, around 4:30 i headed out to attend the annual Shakespeare lecture at the British academy near the river, south of piccadilly circus. The british academy was founded in 1902 in order to promote the humanities. The only reason i attended was because my Shakespeare professor, Michael Hattaway, was giving the prestigious lecture that night. He spoke on the subject of "Shakespeare & Fairies" unfortunately, much of his lecture was stuff he already talked about in our class, so it was very repetitive. so, i enjoyed the lecture much more in ambiance than content. about a 100 people showed up, and my favorite part was the reception afterwards where we were offered wine. felt particularly intellectual attending an event at the british academy. afterwards, my friend from the class and i went out for italian and hung out for quite a while.

then around 9:30, i headed for Stansted airport for pick up my friend DANA, who was visiting from florence, italy!!! we were both super nervous that the volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajokull volcano in iceland would cancel her flight, but thankfully flights started resuming mere hours before her flight! i got there at 11:30 when the flight was supposed to get in, but of course, it was delayed. Dana finally came out through the arrival gate at 1, and though i was tired I was so excited to see her and just glad that she was able to make it through the volcanic ash.

Friday. 23/04

only after a couple hours of sleep, dana and i were ready to start the day bright and early. the first stop, the british museum! Dana is absolutely in love with ancient greek art, and she has been dying to see the elgin marbles from the parthenon since forever ago. i had saved the elgin marbles to see with her, so i was equally excited. what's interesting is that dana was the first one to tell me about the debate surrounding elgin marbles, and got me thinking about cultural property. so it was perfect that we'd get to see it together. we walked around the egyptian and roman sections for a while, then went on a 30 min free tour of ancient greek art that covered greek pottery and the very first sculptures. then, we went on our own to see the ...

ELGIN MARBLES from the PARTHENON

one of the most complex compositions of the elgin marbles. unique v-shape

absolutely beautiful.

gown clinging to the figure's body! the ruffles are unnecessarily plentiful so it's not naturalistic. but they accentuate the delicacy and sensuality of the figure

sculptures from the pediment.

we spent a good half an hour in the parthenon room, completely awestruck. greek sculptures like these always make me wonder if this level and kind of craftsmanship if completely obsolete and irrelevant today. the medium of marble is not very common, and the perfect human anatomy does not seem to be artists' priorities these days. i'd love to see a contemporary artist following greek ideals.

our motto for the weekend was "we can do whatever we want." we didn't set any particular agenda, but we just simply played things by ear, going with the flow. not stressing out about cramming every landmark tourist spot into 48 hours, but simply soaking in london that i know best.

since we were hungry for lunch, we headed to covent garden, which is my favorite area of london. we grabbed delicious pie, and sat at st. paul's piazza watching a rather terribly awkward street performer.

dana loved her butternutsquash and goat cheese pie. mmmm...

then went through soho, and spent a couple crazy hours in topshop at oxford circus. what's perfect was that the entire went on sale just in time for dana's arrival. then walked down beautiful regent st. towards piccadilly circus, trafalgar sq. and finally to westminster to see parliament and big ben.

yay now i have a picture of me and big ben. proof that i've studied abroad in london.

westminster abbey.

we crossed the westminster bridge to southbank and walked northeastwards along the thames. it was just as exciting for me because i had yet to do that. got to see a lot of cool things like the southbank center, and new views of london from the south of the thames.

cool graffiti covered skate park on southbank. oh, gotta love the british punks.

lovely dana & me

cool new area called gabriel's wharf. very boardwalk-esque open area with a bar crowded with peoples. would love to come back for dinner and to hang out at night. after an hour-long walk along the thames, we headed over to brick lane to meet with one of dana's friends for amazing indian food....food coma.

we covered most of central london on foot, and i surprised myself in knowing all the paths and areas as well as i do. tiring, but productive, day.

saturday. 24/04

on our way to tate modern in the morning, we stumbled upon borough market, one of the places i've been meaning to check out! it's this cool farmer's market under a bridge right next to london' bridge underground stop.

so many different kinds of olive oil!

one of the best things ever in borough market. this is a cheese sandwich stall. what they do is that half half-tubes of cheese sitting under fire, so the exposed surface of the cheese is sizzling and that's what you get on your sandwich with rocket and other delicious stuff. must try the next time i go back.

spent the morning at the tate modern. saw a fantastic exhibition on theo van doesburg and the international avantgarde, including some stuff about the bauhaus. there, we bumped into katie, dana's friend from italy and we headed to camden together.

camden is another one of my favorite spots in london, as is for many other college students. my favorite thing about camden is not the shopping, but the food there!! cheap street food from tons of different cuisines, and so many different kinds of desserts. had a fantastic lunch there and spent a couple hours afterwards walking around shopping at vintage, second hand stores.

after camden we were planning on going to the national gallery, but we were too tired and didn't want to stress ourselves out with sight seeing. so we headed straight to leicester sq to buy tickets for les miserables on the west end theatre district. we spent the interim two hours chatting at milk bar, and walking around soho.

then at 7:30 we headed to queen's theatre to see les miserables, the MOST EPIC SHOW EVER!! i've seen a couple broadways in new york, but everything i've been before pales in comparison. the music, acting, set design, story. everything was perfectly beautiful, and i cried multiple times during the show. whereas other shows were spectacular entertainment, les mis left me speechless and genuinely moved me. watching les mis with dana on saturday night in london was probably one of the best decisions ever.

after the show, we grabbed thai food, which is not available in florence like most cuisines. and that was the end of our perfect weekend. we were extremely lucky to have been blessed with beautiful weather for the weekend as well.

showing dana around london got me excited about london all over again, especially because together we stumbled upon areas/sights that are new to me as well. but playing tour guide made me realize that i know london pretty well, and i have my london with my favorite spots and etc. also, both of us, having studied abroad, are determined to go back to nyc with the same exploring mentality. there's so much to see in manhattan alone, and my being in london made me realize that i'm not quite the new yorker that i thought i was.

sunday. 25/04

dana and her friends had to get an early flight, so i dropped them off at the bus station at 8am. not wanting to come back to my room, i grabbed coffee and started reading my book lewis carroll's "through the looking glass." as soon as the bus left and i stepped into the cafe, it started raining as if to reflect my mood. but by the time i left, it stopped raining so that I could walk through hyde park.

took the tube to lancaster gate on the northern edge of hyde park/kensington gardens, and near the giant serpentine lake. thankfully, the drizzle had stopped so i was able to stroll along the water in the peace and quite of sunday morning. few runners, dog-walkers and lots of birds chirping, and a slight mist blanketed the park.

so many birds

the main reason i came to hyde park this morning. to see the richard hamilton exhibit at the serpentine gallery that ends today. richard hamilton is a painter/collagist, and he famously coined the term pop art. i thought the exhibit would feature his famous collages, but instead it was a handful of images dealing specifically with representation of conflict. it was interesting, but not what i had expected. it was a good fifteen minutes in the gallery especially considering it was free. i felt particularly cultured, going to a small gallery on a sunday morning when only two other people were there. very, almost intimidatingly, quiet. made me focus on the images more.

along the serpentine

all in all, beautiful weekend that has left me with absolutely no motivation to do work. but i'm ok with that.