Dec. 3-8, 2011 - Brussels, Belgium
I was invited to give a guest lecture at the
University of Louvain-la-Nueve on December 6 on US food labeling health claims. The professor who invited me was our guest
speaker for the Drake Journal of Agricultural Law banquet last year, so when he
found out I would be over here this year, he invited me to hop over to Belgium
and present to his consumer protection class.
I took the 4-hour train down from Edinburgh to London King’s Cross
station where you catch the Eurostar train. That was my first time in the Chunnel, which
takes you under the water separating the British Isle from “the
continent”. It reminded me of the BART
train, which goes under the San Francisco Bay, but free of a highly probable
earthquake. Thus, quite on par with all
of my train journeys, I instantly passed out for the entire 30 min. ride underground
(I swear they put sleeping gas in the vents).
Slightly underwhelming but amazing at the same time – literally I was in
Britain and within an hour I had entered two different countries, France and
Belgium. Unbelievable how compact Europe
is.
I was also incredibly fortunate to have met an administrator from the European Commission
through Drake who deals with US trade negotiations for wine, chicken,
and beef. He and his wife invited me to
stay with them and their two little boys for a few days before the lecture, so
I got to see the inner-workings of a German household! Given my non-existent German and infantile
French, unfortunately I could not communicate with the boys, ages 5 and 2. They were so adorable though and it was great
conversation with Felix and Vanessa (…in English...obvi). They had a children’s theatre performance (in
German) to attend the day after I arrived, so I spent the day at the Belgian
history museum, the Bellevue, in which of course I took infinitely longer than
expected because I can’t help but read almost every sign and visit every
room. But I did manage to take some pictures
of the Royal Palace next door, ate a late lunch at the café on top of the
Museum of Musical Instruments (had a killer view of the city), and stood dwarfed
in the shadow of the Palais de Justice, a building so massive in its symbolic
display of the power of the law that Hitler apparently requested to visit it
after he’d conquered the city.
The next
day I visited the European Commission and the European Parliament. The Parliament is an amazing complex that is
so huge yet supposedly very functional according to the assistant to the
Scottish Member of the European Parliament.
Felix had worked with her on the Beef Hormone issue recently, so she was
amazing to take time out of her day to have a coffee and give me a tour. Her
MEP is the head of the Agricultural Committee, so she is directly working on
the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy right now – amazing conversation
about the lobbying she is subjected to and their negotiations! I collected my bags after that and headed to
my new housing for the next three days – Paul, the professor, and his wife Valerie
had graciously suggested that I stay with them and their two children, ages 6
and 3. I have to admit that was a bit of
a test in my map reading abilities since I had to use public transit (tram),
then walk to find my road in French, and eventually arrive at a door I hoped was
right. Luckily, I had managed and
Valerie was the one who greeted me with Charlotte and Antoine, as well as their
renter Amanda who I was embarrassingly kicking out of her room to stay
there. Apparently that was a contingency
in renting the room to her though that I would be coming in December…but still
I felt terrible! Valerie is amazing and
was a fellow with an organization in DC last year, so she is in the process of
writing her book. Thus, the kids
completely understand English and Charlotte could still speak it, albeit shyly. Their house is fantastic – setup like a traditional
Belgian house with the three-storied living area and bedrooms upstairs, but the
man who had originally lived there converted the upstairs rooms into apartments
for the metalworkers in his shop. In
what used to be the shop out back in the garden, they’ve built a kitchen and
sleeping quarters area more away from the street connected to the front part by a glass hallway. Fabulously generous, warm, welcoming, interesting
people.
That night
I attended a Christmas concert at the Notre-Dame du Sablon Church that I had
been invited to by Felix and Vanessa’s friends, who I met at a small coffee,
tea, and desserts gathering after the German theatre performance. Granted it was all in German, a few pieces in
French (I think?!), and two in English (I Wonder as I Wander and Hark the
Herald), but it was so beautiful in the church, the choirs were amazing (they
had bused in from a region in Germany and the other from Antwerp), and it was
great to experience a European holiday festivity. I was told if one wanted to, one could attend
at least two Christmas celebratory events every night until after the New Year…..we’re
talking Dec. 5th at that point – brilliant! Bonus – I tried my first mulled wine
afterward – hot, spiced red wine *at the back of the church* that all concertgoers were welcome to! Y.U.M. Yes please, exported back to the States
immediately. Upon leaving the concert, I
waited in the cold for the tram to come for about 45 min…..of course the
workers had decided to go on strike on that line for the first time…well…as far
as Valerie could remember. You can take
this for what you will, but I appreciated it when she said my continuing hopefulness that
the tram would eventually come even after 45 min. was what they loved about the States – our
positive attitudes. I just didn’t want
to walk a mile in my uncomfortable dress shoes but hey, didn’t want to
disagree!
The next
day I gave my lecture…yada yada…but actually it was kind of amusing. I was presenting to students at this Uni who
were all native French speakers and only one girl in the class was from Quebec,
so she had great English. Everyone else
spoke/understood basic English (I think, or more like I hope?! J)
but I was shocked when Paul told me that I might be the first American some of
them had ever met so they would be quite curious about me….maybe it’s
irrational for me to be shocked by that, but nevertheless, I had not thought of
that (I’m their first impression?!…oh boy, haha).
So I tried to give myself a pep talk that I would speak slowly (which I
managed) and straightforward so as not to confuse anyone. But immediately when I started….the
self-deprecating jokes just came out, which can be a bit hard for a non-native
speaker to interpret as to whether you’re serious or not. I didn’t inundate them with too many, and I
was relieved to hear scattered laughter so some people got them, but still – it’s
so natural at this point it’s like verbal diarrhea. Kind of like my verbal tick of “sorry”
(thanks Mom J).
Regardless, the professor was very
pleased with my presentation and I think the information was well tailored to
the audience. Phew. I spent the remainder of the afternoon in
Louvain-la-Nueve at the art museum before taking the train back into Brussels
(*Belgium is split between French and Dutch speakers, so when tensions over
instruction being given in French rose to the point in the 60s that those
professors and students were protested against and kicked out of the now
Dutch-speaking University of Louven, Louvain-la-Nueve was a town specially created
for a separate French-speaking Uni).
These two incredibly nice women with minimal English were so excited to
show me around the museum and insisted on cryptically explaining the evolution
of color palette usage through the centuries (…..complicated subject matter in
a shared language let alone with very few understandable phrases). So I missed the train I meant to take, but it
was a great experience.
The next
day I went out sightseeing, and since it was the first Wednesday of the month,
the national museums were free in the afternoon! Totally by chance – yay! In the morning I walked instead of taking the
tram six stops into town. Amazing to
uncover things you wouldn’t have normally seen, like the Botanical Gardens, the
monument memorializing Belgian independence and the first National Congress in
1831, and St. Michael’s Cathedral sort of off the beaten path. From there I visited the famous Grand Place—unbelievably
ornate buildings surrounding a large plaza—and the Mannekin Pis—the fountain
with a little boy peeing the water into your waiting container that has become
sort of a symbol of the city. However,
the latter is quite deceiving if I may say so myself. The pictures make it look like the fountain
is big and freestanding in the middle of some plaza. It actually only stands about two feet tall
and is set into a wall alcove that’s fenced off with a good five feet in front
of it. Standing across the road and
watching the hordes of tourists recently unloaded from their buses snapping
pictures of it reinforced Paul and Valerie’s comment that it would be
thoroughly underwhelming – my thoughts exactly.
So I hit up one of the hundreds of waffle shops surrounding this tourist
trap and spent the next fifteen minutes trying to scrape some of the
overflowing Nutella off of my already sweet waffle (note: no topping is
necessary on real Belgian waffles sold on the street if you ever visit
Brussels) and prevent my hair from flying into it. Unsuccessful on both counts and was immediately
covered in Nutella from head to toe. After
that disaster, clearly I needed a beer J so I headed to a
little pub by the Christmas market and ate the most delicious traditional Belgian
beef dish accompanied by a tasty Belgian lager.
The
afternoon at the museums was so interesting.
I walked into the huge raised foyer of the national art museum that
houses both a 15th-16th C. onwards wing and a modern wing
and there were about 30-50 people milling about. About 20 of them had these paper blindfold
mask things over their eyes, no shoes on, and were using blind walking
sticks. They were saying things in
French and reaching out in front of them like they were feeling for something. One girl got dangerously close to touching me
and since I didn’t know what they were doing, who they were, and couldn’t
understand them, I was not pleased at the prospect of being semi-fondled by
this person faking blindness. After dodging
out of the way, I asked the desk worker what was going on. They are a group of protesters
(art students, patrons of the museums, Brussels residents) who gather every
Wed. afternoon when they’re supposed to be able to visit the modern wing to protest because it’s
been closed since last February. They’re
very upset about it because she said there’s really not been any good
explanations as to why it’s still closed/not really any work has been done to
it even though the reason given for closing it was renovations, so they come up
with clever ways of showing they’re pissed each time. This time they were seeking out the painters
whose names they were saying (shows how much modern art I know right?) but
couldn’t see because the modern wing is still closed, and the shoe thing was
because I was there the day after Dec. 6th – a separate holiday from
Christmas (also with St. Nicholas but they consider him separate from Santa) where children leave their shoes by the
door with a carrot in there for his donkey and they wake up to small
presents. They were asking St. Nicholas
to bring them the gift of reopening the modern wing. Clever huh?
After touring the old wing, I visited the museum dedicated to Belgium’s
famous modern artist Rene Magritte. It
confirmed my hatred for modern abstract art. I know this makes me sound uncultured and
stupid, but I just can’t get the "wow, that really speaks to me" meaning of it or why it’s so spectacular. It helped that the displays explained what
was going on in the world and his personal life at certain times that
influenced changes in his methodology, but I still can’t be bothered. Much more of a 19th century
impressionist fan.
So that was
my time in Brussels! I made it back to
Edinburgh with a relatively uneventful trip.
Granted that was the day 100 mph winds decided to come up in Scotland,
so delays and reroutes were threatened, but we forged ahead on-time and didn’t
take a ridiculous amount of extra time.
The train was a’rockin though – slightly nervous we were going to be
blown off the track! Slight nervous that
you may not have made it to the end of this monstrosity of a blog post as well….so
with that, I will just say thanks for taking time to read this, hope you are
doing great, and I’ll post again very soon about Christmas in the UK! Take care!
Cheers,
Beth
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