Sunny Saturday

It is beautiful here today, sunny and clear, low 70s.  Of course, somehow I developed a horrible ear infection yesterday, so I didn’t sleep well and woke up with the right side of my head swollen up (I look like I have half a case of mumps).  Very painful.  Despite that, I did my 18 mile training run for the marathon, very slowly (I’m slow anyway, but anything beyond a gentle shuffle-y run and my ear hurt too much).  Then a nap…so really, other than appreciating a dry and not-too-windy run, I haven’t really gotten to enjoy/relax in the nice weather.  Hopefully tomorrow will be just as beautiful, and I can be lazy and read on the beach.

Brussels Day 3 (24 August 2008)

This morning, I started out with the Musee des Beaux Arts, both ancient and modern.  As in Stuttgart, of course there was major renovation underway which meant that some of the works I wanted to see were actually not on display (really, I wouldn’t mind a little asbestos exposure to see more Ensor and Magritte, but I guess I can understand the workers at the museum preferring to limit their exposure in the long run). 

The highlights of the museum for me were seeing David’s ‘Death of Marat’ in person, seeing a bunch of Ensor and Magritte’s works, and being reminded of how BIG Rubens’ paintings are–they are not my favorites by any means, but they are huge and truly striking in person. 

The museum itself is a beautiful, huge old building.

Besides the Grand Place, the other ‘must-see’ sight in Brussels is the Manneken Pis:

This statue of a little boy peeing is so famous that world leaders are always presenting little outfits to the city, and the naked boy is often dressed up.  The day I visited was Ukraine Day.  Lots of people crowd around the statue taking pictures:

Some other photos from my walks around the city.  First, an old piece of the city wall in the midst of apartment and business buildings:

Street scenes and scenes of downtown:

After a day of walking around, I had an early dinner at Mappa Mundo, which has famously good mojitos and cheap but big sandwiches, and returned to the Hotel, where I treated myself to chocolate mousse for dessert and did some work to get ready for my meeting in Paris with my working group.

 Yum, dessert…

Brussels, Day Two (Saturday 23 August)

I had breakfast for the second day in the ‘Indian Garden’ room at the Hotel Metropole–very European room, but decorated with murals of India and complete with fancy china with tropical birds.  After that, I set out to walk around the Grand Place, THE place to see in Brussels.  It is a square surrounded by architecturally amazing buildings, including the Hotel de Ville (the old town hall).  Full of tourists, rain or shine.  This week, there was an outdoor music festival with sites around the city, including a big stage set up in the Grand Place–slightly tacky, and hiding some of the architecture.

Hotel de Ville

Then it started to rain, so off to the Comic Strip Museum–Belgium was home to both the creator of Tintin and the creator of the Smurfs, and the museum highlights these two comics plus has descriptions of how comics are designed and produced, plus hundreds of plates of old comics.  The museum is well-laid out and the displays are made particularly interesting by creating ‘life-size’ sets of famous comics.  Of course, most of the writing is in French and Dutch, so it was a bit difficult to follow everything.  It was the 50th anniversary of the Smurfs…

I then had lunch at a fantastic, tiny Japanese restaurant (Samourai) where I got to practice a little of my Japanese…much easier than French for me, still. 

In the afternoon, despite the rain, I hiked up the hill again and walked past the EU buildings to the Parc de Cinquantenaire, which has some history museums, a mosque, beautiful gardens, and the famous arches which were created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Belgium.

The gardens in Brussels were absolutely amazing.  The climate is similar to that in the Pacific Northwest, so a lot of the plantings reminded me of the gardens on Bainbridge and around Seattle, Portland, Victoria and Vancouver.

In my hike around the upper town, I also stopped at the church of Notre Dame du Sablon, and the park, Place du Petit Sablon.  (Sablon refers to the sandy marshes that used to populate the hill area).

Along the way home, I took some pictures of the beautiful Cathedral de Sts. Michel et Gubule, which was close to my hotel and my landmark for navigating. 

After my long hike, I had to stop at the hotel for a hot bath and cappuccino…I think I walked about 8 miles in the early part of the day.  Re-energized, I wandered in the opposite direction to explore some of the lower town, starting with the Eglise Ste. Catherine, an old church which is beautiful but hasn’t been cleaned on the exterior for a long time–there are trees growing out of some of the brickwork.

In the area around Ste. Catherine, there are a lot of fish restuarants; the area used to have a canal running through it, but has been paved over and there are fountains in the middle of the plaza instead of running water now.  I saw my favorite restaurant sign thus far in Europe…inappropriate, and inexplicable.

Then, walking around what I thought what was just another stage set up for the outdoor music festival, I stopped to take a picture of a fountain at the end of a long pool.

Then–and I hesitate to write this, knowing Nathan Hall will get ideas–all of a sudden there was the sound of a motor and this appeared:

Two guys were water-skiing (only on a board, but calling it ‘water-boarding’ seems inappropriate) in the fountain pool, with their tow ropes attached to power winches run by gasoline generators.  Completely bizarre.  I followed this sight-seeing with a Belgian beer, Mort Subite Faro, at a great bar called ‘Monk’ in Ste. Catherine Place (across the street from where I took this picture of the restaurant area).

Then I walked south of Ste. Catherine Place and found a great street full of Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, and had another Thai dinner at Restaurant Theva.  Then I wandered back to the hotel, stopping at Place du Martyrs, where there is a statue commemorating those that died in the fight for Belgium’s independence.

Back to List…and Brussels Day #1 Pictures

I made it back to List last night after my two-day meeting in Paris for work and three days in Brussels.  So I will begin a more methodical summary of the trip now, with more pictures.

Brussels was a fantastic city, I really enjoyed it.  French is the language of most of the businesses, and the street signs and such are in French and Dutch.  But luckily for me, just about everyone speaks English.  I stayed at the Hotel Metropole, which is a famous landmark due to its exemplary Art Nouveau lobby and reception area.  It also has very good specials in the summer…check on the big travel web-sites before booking on the web-page, though.  The hotel was in a great spot for walking to just about anywhere I wanted to go in the city, and had easy access to the Metro which I didn’t use.  I spent the first day doing mostly outdoor things, seeing churches and parks.

You will notice that all the pictures are a bit on the gray side…it was supposed to be a sunny weekend, but instead turned out a little drizzly (occasionally pouring), but rarely so rainy that it wasn’t perfectly comfortable walking around.  There were some sunny moments, but not too many. 

I first went to the Botanical Garden, which used to be a garden with as many plant species as possible for botany students to study; now the building is used for all sorts of things and the garden is simply maintained as a park without the diversity it originally had (the plants for study were moved outside the city).  There is apparently drug-dealing in the park in the evening, but I only went during the day so I can’t attest to that. 

After walking around the Botanical Gardens, I visited Waterstones (big English book store), I got my haircut (luckily it turned out well, this was the only time that I encountered a non-English-speaking business…but lots of hand motions and pointing at pictures later, I ended up with a good haircut) and had lunch outside the hotel at the Cafe Metropole.  Then I set off for the Parc du Bruxelles, which has the Judicial Palace at one end and the Royal Palace at the other, and beautiful tree-lined pathways and smaller sitting areas in the center.  Beautiful and quite touristy, but large enough that it doesn’t feel crowded.

Royal Palace

Walking around the back of the palace, I stumbled on a very cute European house:

I then walked downhill from Parc du Bruxelles back towards my hotel, passing by the art museum and a number of famous churches (those pictures will come later).  The Museum of Musical Instruments (in the ‘Old England’ building) is particularly unique looking:

  One thing that really struck me about Brussels (and is a problem in Paris as well) is the graffiti everywhere.  On statues, buildings (new and historic buildings), any possible surface.  Here you can see graffiti on the wall behind one of the gardens on the hill:

For dinner I found a great little Thai restaurant called ‘Thai City’, and having walked about ten miles plus worked out in the gym I called it a night fairly early the first night.

Language Overload…

Within the last 48 hours, I have spoken German, English, French, Spanish and Japanese.  If I found someone with whom to exchange a few words in Norwegian, that would cover all the languages I know; I have had to do a bunch of reading in Dutch, so I’m also dealing in languages I know nothing about.  I think the most bizarre situation was speaking a combination of French and Japanese to order lunch today–but at least it resulted in the best Japanese meal I have had in years.

Brussels!

I made it to Brussels, a long trip for a not-so-long distance.  12 hours from door to door…but my hotel is beautiful and comfortable, Brussels is full of things to do and good food & beer.  Friday was gray and a little rainy, but I still explored a lot of the city looking at parks and architecture.  More of that today, then museums tomorrow when everything else is closed.  I found two good English book stores, and that probably covered my shopping for the trip…

I will post more pictures when I get home (I’m paying by the minute for internet at the moment), but here is a little taste of Brussels:

Update: Bruises, Sun, Almost Brussels Time…

Not a lot to write about of late; then there will be a deluge after I travel next weekend.  All or nothing, I guess. 

My biggest news is of my clumsiness.  I was out running in the rain and wind, and kept my sunglasses on because the wind was bothering my contacts.  This meant that I somehow did not notice a missing plank on the boardwalk over the dunes, and my foot went right into the hole while I continued my forward motion…ended up landing on my wrists and chest, with some nasy bruises to show for it, my foot still in the hole.  I avoided wrenching anything essential out of place in my knee and ankle, but not for lack of trying–all the little stabilizers in my legs have been sore for days.  Not my finest hour, but luckily no one else was stupid enough to be out in the rain so my humiliation was private.

This weekend we actually had SUN in List, along with temperatures in the low 70s.  Tropical for this summer.  I even went swimming–first time in the sea here.  It was cold, but probably about the equivalent of the outdoor pool at the Sports Center in Morehead at the beginning of May.  Fine only as long as you are moving.  While at the beach, I met three guys from Egypt who are here heading up the steel engineering on the new hotel here.  We had an interesting conversation in a hodgepodge of English and German.  They were relieved to hear that not everyone from America likes George W.

I leave Thursday for Brussels; right now the forecast is for rain for the entirety of my trip.  I might be seeing a lot of museums…but there are a lot to choose from, including a museum devoted to comics.  I’m hoping for at least one dry day, though.

Happy Day!

Today at the grocery store, there were Doritos.  I am a happy person.

Pictures for Friday

That picture just about sums up this week.  Although, a couple minutes before I took this picture there was an amazing rainbow stretching horizon to horizon, so I can’t complain too much. 

Wild Sheep

The past 24 hours have been really windy.  Last night, it was so windy that just walking from the lab to home, I had to concentrate on walking in a straight line because the wind was blowing me so hard.  It has died down a bit, although winds are still around 20-25mph.  Apparently, this is upsetting all the sheep.  When I went running this evening, the sheep were all over the area around the road and biking trail on the north part of Sylt.  But they were also really skittish.  Many times I would be running along and approach a sheep that was grazing just next to the biking/running trail, and the sheep would make a little jerky surprise movement and look around for somewhere to run to, and then either skitter away or find the nearest bush or fencepost and try to ‘hide’ behind it.  Sheep are not the smartest of animals.