A foreign city

Jason had a week-long business trip last week in Brussels. Since I've never been there and Katie has not yet started school, we decided to join him for the last part of the week.

Brussels is a beautiful city and we enjoyed our time there. It is, however, the most "foreign" city that I've explored on my own. In Dublin, they speak English; in Paris, I had been there before with Jason; but in Brussels, I really had no idea what I was doing :-). They speak French and Flemish in Brussels, and although many people speak English, not all do :-). The first day Katie & I sat at an outdoor cafe to have some lunch. The menu board was in French and I could tell from the little I did understand that there were several options available that we would NOT care for. So I was a little scared to just point and hope for the best :-). The only staff person outside did not even acknowledge us for several minutes and did not speak English besides. I asked for a menu and he brought me the wine list (for Katie?). I just didn't know what to do! Every time I tried, I was getting nowhere. So finally he realized the problem and brought out another waiter who spoke English. He was able to translate the menu and explain to me how it all worked. It was a bit of an awkward time getting there tho!



We also usually travel with a Frommer's guide book, but since this was more of an impromptu trip, we did not have a Frommer's guide for Brussels. I did look a little bit online at Frommers.com and had asked friends for suggestions on what to do while we were there. But I took for granted the "background" info that we usually get from Frommer's that I did not bother to read in their online version. Several times we took the LOOONG way to someplace that was actually only a block or two away. The map I had was pretty bad and got me way turned around several times. I wasn't sure what their "convenience stores" looked like when we just needed a bottle of water or a small snack. One afternoon we stopped at a bar/cafe for a glass of water and a snack b/c we couldn't figure out where else to go. There was no "snack" food on the menu - and the water bottles were $3 each. Just after we left the bar, I walked across the street and belatedly noticed a nice little store selling water for a mere $1 or so :-). But on 1st glance, it just hadn't looked like the kind of store that would sell water. And who knows what kind of a place is an appropriate one to ask for a public potty? Hmmmm.....

All this is NOT to say we did not have fun - we were very glad we went! It was fun getting to be with Jason even while he was on a business trip! And in our sometimes directionless wandering, we did stumble onto some fun things. We went to the Comic Strip Museum - apparently Belgians are very into comic strips! Tintin comes from Belgium (not that I'd ever heard of it... but apparently it is quite famous...) and the SMURFS do as well! They had a special Smurf exhibit at the museum - it was very fun to see & to show Katie since I grew up watching the Smurfs every Saturday morning. The Smurfs started as a comic strip in Belgium and only later migrated across the pond to American Saturday morning TV. I remember that my mom was never quite convinced of the benefit of us watching those particular cartoons, but we liked them :-).

Another fun "accident" was stumbling on a free concert in the park in front of the Royal Palace. Who knows who the band was or what they were singing about... but they were good :-). We also really enjoyed a science exhibit in the Royal Palace. Not sure why it was there, but it was fun. Katie especially enjoyed the part where you could make your own rocket out of paper and then blast it out of a air-pressured rocket to try to hit the target. Of course we also found a carousel - here is Katie blowing kisses as she rode past :-). Katie was such a good sport with my lack of preparation, so we had to do one or 2 super fun things just for her.

We very much enjoyed the food in Brussels - YUM! The 1st morning we set out, Katie & I had to have Belgian waffles for breakfast. We were undeterred when we discovered that it seems Belgians don't eat these for breakfast exactly... but we didn't let a little thing like chocolate sauce stop us from enjoying them for breakfast anyway :-). (hey, they do it at IHOP!) Katie actually only finished half of hers before she was a bit disgusted by all that sugar so early in the morning! :-) We also enjoyed mussels (haven't you heard of the Mussels from Brussels?), and some other yummy traditional Belgian food like green mashed potatoes with veggies called stoemp. The last night we ate on a super fun street where there were cafes on both sides of a very narrow cobblestone street. It was fun! And yes, we also enjoyed our fair share of fine Belgian chocolate :-).

I think primarily this experience increased my empathy: for Jason, since this is the sort of thing he deals with ALL the time in all sorts of countries; for Katie, who does not know what's going on around her most of the time when we're out; for other friends here who know little or no Spanish and feel like I did all the time. Mostly, it once again made me thankful we came here with as much Spanish as we did. We have language difficulties on a regular basis. But it could be much, much worse. This has been my main emotion since returning from Texas: just a deep gratitude that we have a life set up here that runs fairly smoothly and that we more and more are feeling at home. Thank you, Lord!