Jenn's recount of last night's exploration:
Last night's venture into the Red Light District was, well, a little scarring. You know the saying "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," well, I'd like it amend it to say "Even though nothing happened in the Red Light District, I hope it stays in the Red Light District." There truly was a difference in this part of town that occurred after the hour of 10pm. Earlier in the day when we walked though, you saw girls in the window-fronts trying to lure young/old/crusty men into their rooms, but it was not nearly as busy and most of the clubs and bars were closed. At 10pm, when we ventured in, this part of town had taken on a new life of its own. Our guide gave us some great history of the area. What was particularly interesting were all of the hidden Catholic churches amongst the live sex shows and condom shops. I know, Amsterdam is supposedly a tolerant place, but 16th Century politics forced Catholics to worship on the down low. I guess it makes repenting rather easy and convenient now with the churches next door. Our guide also pointed out the bar that many American gay celebrities attend (Monday nights it is "shoes only"), where Janet Jackson bought her "wardrobe malfunction" leather outfit for the SuperBowl, and how the prostitutes are segregated, typically by race, but also by age as the "almost retired" gals (65 years old) have their own alley, but apparently are still busy bees. After a 90 minute tour of the area, Jules and I set up shop at a notorious English bar on the main canal to people watch. It was interesting to watch groups of men approach the windows across the canal from us and how the women worked their magic. Surprisingly, the women (and some transvestites who are adorned with blue lights to alert their status so there are no surprises) make about 500 Euro a night but the cost to rent the window for 8 hours is about 150 Euro which even by San Francisco standards is a very high rent.
Ok, I talked about it. But we are definitely ready to quickly forget that evening. Both of us went home a little shocked.
Sunday morning. First of all, it's JULIA'S BIRTHDAY TODAY!!! We plan to celebrate in Brussels.
Trains from Amsterdam to Brussels leave every hour at :56 minutes. We woke up at 10:15. With nothing left to do in Amsterdam, we decided we could make the 10:56 train. There was some very quick packing and we bolted for the train station. We were running at the end, but made it with a minute to spare as we got settled on our train. Fortunately, we had the foresight to purchase our ticket the prior day when we returned from Tulip Watch 2008.
The 2 and one-half hour train trip was fairly cramped but uneventful. A few windmills were spotted. Every time I attempted to stretch my legs into the aisle , the coffee cart inevitably came by and rammed into me. As soon as we got off the train in Brussels, we were able to jump on the Metro that took us near the Grand Place and our hotel. Our hotel is in a fantastic location. We are in close proximity to Grand Place, the local bar scene, the Royal Palace, the churches, the chocolate "crawl" of numerous chocolatiers in a row, mobile waffle vans...basically everything you come to Brussels to see.
Our walk of Upper town and dinner and drinks in Grand Place as told by Julia:
Since all the tourist sights are closed on Mondays, we thought we'd spend our Sunday exploring culture and museums. We discovered that Brussels is split into two areas - Lower Town and Upper town, which are divided by their elevation. Lower Town has the historic Grand Place, cute pedestrian streets, and sidewalk restaurants. Upper town is where the rich traditionally lived - it had big marble buildings, including the major art museums, the Royal Palace, Hall of Justice. It also had our daily share of culture and history. We started in the two national art museums, which our guidebook said was an impressive collection of Flemish and Western art; we had our own opinion. Jenn called it "the worst art museum ever"; I called it the catacombs, where, if you can make it through a complicated series of mystery hallways and staircases, you might be rewarded with a masterpiece. Seriously, this place felt like they took 20 separate buildings and tried to connect them into one giant art museum with no logical order whatsoever... and there was some art scattered in between. (Still, as Jenn says "culture for the day, check!")
We finally found our way outside (do we get a prize??), we felt like we had done our cultural deed for the day. So we cruised outside to the Parc du Bruxelles and the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace was pretty impressive-looking, and Belgian flag was flying above it, which means the king was somewhere in Belgium (!). This apparently is impressive, since the king is known to spend most of his time at his house in the French Riviera. We heard that he had a son, but apparently he is "awkward and standoffish", so the dream was crushed forever for these two princesses.
We then made our way through the rest of Upper Town, past a church and sculpture gardens, ending in a lookout point next to the Hall of Justice. Now, compared to other cities we've been to (Prague, Budapest, San Francisco), where the view overlooks a gorgeous cityscape near a river or bay, this view was... the opposite. Some buildings, a couple of skyscrapers, construction cranes. No pretty river. No giant cathedral. We didn't even take a picture.
Don't get us wrong, this is a really nice city! Luckily, we got to see some of the beautiful parts later in the day. We spent the afternoon sitting outside a café on a nice plaza, and had our dinner on the gorgeous historic Grand Place. Speaking of dinner... delicious! Starting with a flight of different Belgian beers, it was a perfect little birthday toast over wheaty, dark, and even cherry beer. Man, the Belgians really know their beer... Don't blame us when we come home with a beer belly! For dinner, we had a Belgian treat that appealed perfectly appealed to our Danish and Russian heritage - straight up meat and potatoes. Jenn had meat stew that came with a side of fries, and I had sausages with this Belgian mashed potato-vegetable mix. I even took a picture! And did we mention you have to pass by about 20 chocolate shops on the way back? Mmmm... dessert.
To end the evening, we found an uber-trendy square full of bars, and sat outside (with our cherry beer) checking out the young urban Bruxellians. The bars kept filling up, friends were walking in and cheek-kissing their friends, the young Belgians kept ordering their cherry beer and chain-smoking their cigarettes... and did we mention this was Sunday night? We're convinced that nobody works in this country. That will be our investigative reporting duty today - to see if everyone is still out drinking beer on the sidewalk. Off to explore...
Send a message
