Falling in love...with Brussels

Two weeks ago I fell in love with Brussels! Katie and I went to Brussels and Lille (a city in Northern France) during our February Break. The first two nights we stayed with a fellow Luther alum, Blake, south of the city. He is living in Brussels for the year teaching at the International School. I really enjoyed spending some time with an old friend and it allowed Katie and I to get a very different view of Brussels. We went out the first night with some of his friends: American, Canadian and Flemish. Monday we went to school and watched two of his early childhood pyschomotricty classes. I was in heaven :-) I even took some notes!
Monday through Wednesday Katie and I stayed at a fabulous hostel (used to be a 3 star hotel) just a few seconds from Grand Place. The first time we stumbled into the Grand Place the look of awe on our faces must have been amusing to watch. There are huge, ornate buldings surrounding a large, open, cobblestone square.
I'm going to just give you a list of the sites we saw and the things I loved about Brussels:
1) Belgian Waffles (they just melt in your mouth and have crystals of sugar in the dough)
2) Belgian Beer (during the 5 days there I managed to sample 12 different beers)
3) Belgian Chocolate
4) Multilingualism; so impressive to watch one person go from French to Flemish to English without any hesitation
5) French is spoken more slowly and clearly than in France; I felt much more comfortable speaking here.
6) We visited the Musical Instrument Museum: AMAZING! It is housed in the Old England building (a former department store) which I thought was just the coolest looking place! They had a very comprehensive collection of instruments and provided you with headphones to hear how each sounds.
7) I wish I lived in Brussels: what a fantastic location from which to travel!
8) Brussels is culturally vibrant city. For example, there is live music everywhere you look. One night Katie and I went to a place called Music Village for dinner and drinks. That night they happened to have a Salsa band playing.
9) We also went to the Comic Book museum...unfortunately neither Katie or I could truly appreciate it. We did however get some Belgian comics (TinTin, Titeuf, and I almost got an Asterix comic).
10) We went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts as well. I was quite disappointed to find out that the Magritte exposition doesn't open until June 2009. Oh well....

Thursday we made the 40 min train ride to Lille. Wow. The architecture in this French city is breath-taking. It's almost overwhelming to have so much to look at! Lille's architecture is very much influenced by the Flemish style. There was red brick everywhere and each building had it's own unique character. Perhaps it was so impressive to us because we are used to Brest...every building looking more or less the same. Lille is home to the second largest book store in Europe. It's very very commercial and 5 stories...Katie and I didn't love it but figured we should probably go! We also went to the art museum as well as a museum focused on the local history of Lille.
We stayed with an older French couple in their home filled with antiques, paintings and local history. They were a very interesting and adorable couple. (Katie took a picture of them ...so I'll post those once she gets them off her camera.) They even invited us to dinner with them our last night. They recited poetry for us (that they've been working on together) and told us stories about their lives. For dessert we had a Merveilleux, type of cake with meringue, whip cream and chocolate mousse. Not my favorite...but I managed to eat the HUGE slice they gave me. This was served with champagne to celebrate having 2 Americans staying with them and Obama's election.
I'm really glad that we chose to go to these places for our February break. It was a great change of scenery.
After a week back in Brest and getting back into the routine of life here again I'm ready for the next little trip. This coming weekend Katie and I are going to Paris. The weekend after that I am going down to Quimper for the open house at the sister university there. Two more weeks after that and it will already be April. I can't believe how quickly time is flying by this semester...and I'm not going to complain! I'm nervous, but looking forward to applying for teaching jobs back in the states!