Brussels: Days One and Two

I was the last one to arrive at the ULB (Universite libre de Bruxeslles) campus by a good five hours, but I made it nonetheless. I checked in with my professor and Clara, our program coordinator, and then dragged my suitcase through the streets to my apartment, where I live with four other MSU students, our landlord and his family, and Sarah, a girl studying here from Spain. We went out to eat, and then passed out sometime around ten.

Day two was much more eventful. We met at ULB to take a tour of the campus, and then had one of part of the city. We saw museums, bars, restaurants, and that statue of a peeing boy which is apparently world famous. We also bought Belgium waffles, which I suspect were crack-infused, because there is really no other explanation for why they were so good. After the end of the tour, we all went back ULB, where we had an introductory lecture, followed by a reception to officially welcome us to Brussels. The reception consisted of champagne, red and white wine, and an assortment of hors d’oeuvre ranging from shrimp to salmon to crab. You know you’ve chosen to study at the right university when they continually provide you with free alcohol. Despite our first medical emergency of the trip (Aaron, one of the other students, had an allergic reaction to something and had to go to the hospital), we had a great time at the reception, where we all stayed for a good hour and a half, maybe longer. After the wine ran out, we adjourned to the bars with our program coordinators, Clara and Augustin, where we continued to enjoy the night. There we were rejoined by Aaron, who had made a full recovery from his reaction, and proceeded to join us in sampling the local beers.

Here are some pictures from our tour:

Most of these buildings have some significance, or a cool past or something, but our tour guide spoke quite fast, and I've forgotten nearly everything he said. So I don't really know what this building here is.

This is a view of the tower of the Brussels town hall.

Same tower, with gardens.

I remember this one. This was a fountain built to commemorate a Belgian revolution against the Austrians (I think). They ended up not succeeding and Belgium remained under foreign domination, but the fountain turned out great.

This is one of the sole surviving sections of Brussels' original city walls. They were eventually torn down to make way for roads and avenues, as well as the trolley system. In the lower right corner, you can see the head of Paul Sanders, our guide, probably giving a multi-paragraphed version of what I just said.

One of the cooler things about Brussels is that all over the city, you can find these walls painted with murals depicting famous comic book characters. Apparently comic books are a bigger deal here than in the US, because Brussels also has a comic book museum. This particular mural was on the side of a store selling fireworks. Interesting fact: it is legal to sell fireworks in Brussels, yet illegal to set them off inside the city. I've been assured that, despite this, people set them off all the time anyways.

Apparently this little guy is quite famous (he's frequently dressed up to celebrate certain events or holidays- this outfit was for the start of the Tour de France). Our guide told us that the statue (called Manneken Pis, for those who don't know) has been around since the early 1600s, and that nobody really knows why he was made. There are many legends as to why he was built (one of my favorites was that he peed on a bomb to put out the fuse, so they put up a statue to commemorate the event), but one of the more realistic legends was that a father lost his son in the city, spent all day looking for him, and then found him peeing against a wall. He was so happy that he built this statue, and its been there ever since.

Here is another comic book wall. They're very fun to see around the city.

This is one of the buildings in the Grand Place, which is the central square of Brussels. The pictures, unfortunately, do not do it justice. It was truly stunning to stand in the center of the Grand Place, and be surrounded by all of these gleaming, beautiful buildings.

Another building in the Grand Place. There were back stories to all of these buildings, but I don't remember all of them.

This is part of the Brussels town hall, an ancient and beautiful building. Its tower can be seen throughout the city (see the first couple of pictures).

Old guild storefronts in the Grand Place. Again, these pictures hardly do it justice.

More of the Grand Place. According to our tour guide, Karl Marx stayed in this building, and may have even wrote some of his Communist Manifesto here. It now houses an upscale restaurant.

A picture of the first covered mall in Belgium, apparently modeled off of a similar one in France.

Another symbol of the hard economic times we're in. Everybody has to eat somehow. 

This was worth a second picture. As a side note, I've been away from home for three days now, and I already desperately miss my dog.

Brussels is a beautiful city, and I'm excited to get to know it better.