A City Of Life

A really long post today to make up for all my lack of posting recently: My first attempt at travel writing. When you have time please read it. When you have done so do email me at i_wish_iwasjeff@hotmail.com or leave a comment. I really want peoples thoughts on it, good? Bad? Some bit worse than other? Significant problems? Even if all you say is, “ok” I’d really like some feed back. Thanks. B.

A City Of Life

We have overshot, not knowing where to turn off the junction we have ended up in Braine-Le-Chateau. We had directions and a map, however the map was not at all readable and the directions didn’t go to our hotel. Over all I would say that Ed had failed in getting us to the hotel, but I am much to polite to say so. Also Braine-Le-Chateau is a lovely sleepy town so its hard to feel upset. Very French (although of course it is Belgian), pretty quiet, and quite pretty. It is one of the many places we end up in this weekend where no-one speaks any English, the satisfaction of each interaction is increased where you have to struggle to communicate. We wander into several shops looking for a map, each time failing sometimes causing great confusion amongst the staff at our apparently bizarre request for une plan. We give up and have a drink in a café, I order a cheap beer and lean back into the heat of the day. Letting it penetrate and relax me. Ed is worried though I cannot share his stress. The only thing that worries me is fitting the four of us back into the baking hot car. Small and Black is not a good type of car for a long road trip in hot summer lands. I have also completely failed to pack appropriately, it didn’t even occur to me while stuffing clothes into a bag on a cold Scottish morning that the weather might actually be anything even resembling nice. I have no shorts, more than half my t-shirts are black, my shoes are big and warm. 30 degrees in the shade has really taken me by surprise. We stroll back to the car, I snap some photos casually, alley ways and a tree. The intense sunshine hurts my eyes but allows for good pictures, it makes the edges sharp and the contrast harsh. I hunt for bold shadows and clean colours, years of photography have given me an eye for good elements, even if I don’t always have the eye to make them work together. We crawl back into the car, it is messy and hot and we still don’t have a map. We head south, hoping to meet up with the lower extension of a big road which goes back onto the Brussels ring road. Passing a newsagents I hop out and got map hunting, It is strangely satisfying to go into a shop and hold a brief conversation with the shop keeper even though neither of us speaks the other’s language, and even more satisfying in that I leave clutching a big bold map of Brussels. After five minutes I find the hotel and work out which junction we should have come off. Soon enough we are back on the ring road and get off at the right place.

The hotel, a Formule 1, is essentially a Motel. Cheap and sort of cheerful, we check in and eat the lunch that we bought in Braine-Le-Chateau. A baguette with cheese and bottle of Orangina, breaking the bread in the shade listening to the crickets and the motorway traffic it seems so French and yet not quite romantic. This is Brussels, and so Belgian however I couldn’t help but think of lots of it as French, in part this may be due to it’s similarities to childhood family holidays. Cars and heat and music and France are all tied up with memories of my parents and a series of holidays in southern France that have blended into one in my head. The Formule 1 is basic. But the rooms are ok, the beds comfy and clean. Which is all we need. After a while Cat and I plan a walk, heading south towards a bit of forest on the map and a castle and a stream. The four of us head out, the area around our hotel is not particularly nice. Industrial, and partially derelict, it turns out that the river on the map is a barely flowing, practically stagnant canal heavy with weed and rubbish. The wood is fenced off and dirty. The castle is a large house behind a high gate, inhospitable and mean looking. All of this is surrounded by a line of car show rooms that we will come to know well. Uninterested by the delights that Land Rover, Ford and Porsche have to offer we keep walking into the run down suburb of Drogenbos.

Half an hour later we sit down outside a scabby but friendly looking café. A venerable old woman comes out, chats briefly in French before noticing our blank faces. We order beers, Jupiler, Hoegaarden and Kriek. I relax, it is good café, old and worn but filled with old Belgians who look like they have been there since the place was built. After a while one of the old me leaves, his face is red and tired but his eyes are bright, cheery and full of life he speaks quickly at us in French until realising we are foreign.

“English?”

“Oui, Englais”

“Well goodbye English men and their wives” Says he and weaves drunkenly round the corner. Only to come out again at the wheel of a tiny cherry red car, he waves happily and drives home. It is only after this interaction that it dawns on us that Drogenbos does not see very many tourists. It is nice to be in such a rural area, though it is in a vast city it could easily be a small town. Only the passing of an occasional tram reminds us of the metropolis nearby. We arrange to meet Cat’s uncle William between nine and ten that evening. Feeling hungry we move to a café that serves food, it is much more upmarket. Filled with local people eating from the barbeque, families chatting friends meeting. There is no sound of English, we read the menu, struggling with the French. Soon we realise we are much poorer than the prices presented to us. So after a beer we cross the road to a cheaper café. This final café is cheerful again. A large family take up most of the time of the one middle aged waitress, her gold trousers shining in the evening light as she chats and pours us beer. The décor is slightly mad, stripes and leopard print vie for space with old wine barrels and rustic ornaments. Three French people sit at a window table. They look like Australian surfers, it is only when they speak that I realise they are French. Our food takes a long time, and though it is very good we have to gobble it and run as we are running late for getting to William’s before ten. Walking briskly down the length of Grote Baan to their house there are few sights, it is residential with occasional businesses, a plumbers a video rental shop. One house breaks the monotony, it is four stories high, though detached it looks like one of a terrace. It has been added to and changed for many years, it is a hotch potch of styles and systems. Balconies and windows and extensions have been moved and removed all over it. It is brilliant.

We make it to William’s house shortly after ten. The sound of music fills the house, Ed knocks timidly, Cat does the same. It is only after some goading and a decent knock that we get a response, Isabelle, William’s French wife answers with a shout. She is surprised to see us and is happy. William smiles, he is forty tomorrow though doesn’t look much over thirty. In white shorts and a white shirt he is relaxed and calm. He exudes a boyish charm that puts us at ease. Isabelle is younger than William, tall and handsome, her graceful features make her look effortlessly stylish. They both suit their house, it is modern and tasteful though still warm and lived in. Big double doors open onto the garden where the remains of the evening is still warm. Old and new furniture work together seamlessly in the house. Strong colours and carefully placed neutrals glow in the light of artful mood lighting. William fetches a bottle of white wine and we settle down to chat. We have all met before and are relaxed as we drink and talk. William talks little of himself, asking about us and our plans. Ed talks of his business, Katie of Edinburgh, Cat brushes aside talk of her work and I talk about Brazil and Sailing. The sunlight fades and the air cools slowly, insects appear and are deterred and another bottle appears. Isabelle goes to bed, she has a busy day tomorrow, the party we are in Brussels for has involved much organisation. We get up to leave shortly after that. We pause till just after midnight to see William’s birthday in and leave happily. We have a borrowed guide book and directions to the Museo Magritte which we shall head to tomorrow. Wandering home past the car show rooms we see the cooling tower near our hotel. It is lit with hundreds of lights, changing colours to make intricate moving patterns, blues and greens and hints of pink are thrown across the night sky, chasing each other. It is beautiful with a pale moon hanging perfectly peacefully near it.

We head out early, towards the station which is near the Hotel, hoping to get a train into town. We hover bewildered by the station and politely listen to another old man talking rapid but presumably helpful French. A younger man catches our eye.

“Parler vouz englais?” Cat hopefully asks

“Non, jus suis Espangole” he says but he wanders over looking helpful anyway.

In a combination of broken French, worse English, bits of Spanish and even a touch of German we understand that tickets are bought on board the train which leaves in fifteen minutes from the other platform. I snap a photo of him as he writes about buses and tram that will get us into the centre faster and easier. We find a bus stop quickly, breakfasting on bread and sliced sausage as we wait for the bus. Ed and Katie talk about the buildings in Brussels.

“There is no theme, no cohesiveness, people can just build what they want, where they want”

“But you always say planning laws are too restrictive” Interjects Katie, his girlfriend.

“Yes, but there has to be something, these buildings are too random, I don’t like it”

Soon the bus stops at the Gare de Midi, we disembark to find ourselves still quite far out of the centre. We walk in the heat up a wide boulevard. Shops selling fruit or computers or books or holidays fringe it. In cafes Arabic looking men sit in small groups drinking tea, or coffee or strange tall glasses filled with mint leaves. More shops sell hookas, and Arabic clothing, most food shops claim halal produce. It seems we are walking through what I later learn is a mostly Moroccan part of the city.

Soon we find our way to the Grand Place, the old central square. It is the Royal Mile, the Via Sacra or the Pizza San Marco of Brussels. Home only to tourists and over priced cafes. It is beautiful though, huge gothic buildings built quickly by enormously wealthy guilds. It shows wealth and power, though now is meaningless, only a show for the tourists, all the power is in the European Quarter to the east. Wanting a drink we long for the 1.3 Euro beer of last nights friendly bars but wander hopefully past the tourists. We head north into shopping mall, into a narrow street filled with restaurants showing faux rustic charm. “Hello”, “Yes, you eat here”, “Bonjour, tasty and good” we are harassed by waiters as we pass each of the twenty or more establishments. Tired looking tourists eat with a cold, dazed look in their eyes. They are willing victims of the monster that is tourism, they have walked into its mouth. Exhausted by a need to see every sight, to ‘do’ Brussels they stop having fun, their holidays become work. I am guilty of this very activity but now I’m filled with hypocritical scorn. For all their sight seeing they will leave without a clue of what the city is like, who it’s people are what it is now. This of course means that I think I will leave better than them, knowing more. Whether this is true or not should be evident from these words.

We walk to the Manneken Pis, marvelling at it’s unremarkableness. It is a small statue erected in DATE to mark the spot where a wealthy business man found his son who had been lost for some days. When he was found the young boy was peeing happily and so the statue is also. It is horribly tacky and cheap looking, apparently it symbolizes “the town’s impudently, mocking and boisterous spirit”. To me it merely reeks of determined tourist mining. Every gift shop sells small ornaments of it, bottle openers, coasters, postcards, small statuettes and most disturbingly corkscrews with the screw coming from the boy’s penis. It reminds me of Greyfriar’s Bobby in Edinburgh, a statue of a Scotty dog who supposedly watched his masters grave until his death. I wander if all statues have a small vaguely pointless statue to be embarrassed of and to try and make a quick buck with. Seeing parasols I head to wards a café, the others follow.

An hour later we are still here, Ed and Katie have gone, but me and Cat sit here and enjoy a slice of quiche and another strong tasty white beer. The café is surprisingly nice, the corner on which it sits is full of things to watch and enjoy. A small festival of flamenco music is happening nearby this afternoon so things are being set up for it. Bunting and flags drape the street in colour. A red and white striped market stall comes round the corner, walking momentarily on feet that stick out the bottom until the people inside becomes visible. It is shouted to a standstill at the bunting and bollards that block it’s way. There is something magical about a café like this that just makes me relax I breath a contented sigh and enjoy the warm afternoon. We head off, looking for the metro station. On the metro, ticket in hand I enjoy the sensation of movement, trains unlike road transport move with a cleanness that makes them satisfying. Watching the world woosh by after the train moves above ground, I look at Flemish graffiti incomprehensively. French signs, English advents Arabic slogans. I think of the languages that are used here. Officially the city is Flemish and French speaking, signs are usually in both. English is common too, even outside the tourist parts adverts and TV exists in English. On the walk in this morning we passed much Arabic. In Drogenbos yesterday many road signs had been defaced, the French obscured from them. But the people in the cafes spoke not Flemish but French. It seems that there is much animosity between the speakers of each language. The Flemish speaking Walloons and the French Speaking XXXX. Cat talks of her uncle who lives on the border between the Flemish and the French regions, he is disliked on his street for being a French speaker. Later when we stop in Brugge we are glared at for thanking people with “Merci”. This makes it sound like the French speakers are the only ones disliked, but I’m sure it works both ways. A linguistic divide separates these two peoples, and all the others that live here.

A hot walk later we find ourselves outside a nondescript door with a piece of paper attached. Ouvert is all it says. We knock timidly again, quickly we are greeted by a friendly Belgian man who directs us upstairs to a pretty dark skinned girl. She wears black clothes and long earrings, her English is very good though spoken with a French accent, I imagine her at an art school, painting large subtle paintings filled with sunshine. Though considering her knowledge of Magritte it seems more likely that she works full time at the Museo Magritte. We are given white socks to cover our shoes, Cat puts hers over her bare feet as her shoes are hurting. We walk through two floors of the surrealists possessions, reading from sheets about his life and his art. The building is the house where he lived and worked for thirty years till his death and it is nice, being a small museum they have very few of his works, but the effort they have gone to to build something out of very little is charm enough. After that we are given a guided tour of the ground floor by the artist girl. It is reconstructed and seems odd, these false living spaces always seem that way, morbid and strange. It is given life by the fact that much of his paintings were based around this house, the front window features in many of his best paintings, the fireplace in others. We see in the shape of the doors and the stairs art that has always fascinated me, a fractured view reminding us that things are only as we perceive them. Change that perception and the objects themselves may change.

We catch the metro back into town, weary from the heat and from walking we have an ice cream and walk through a garden filled with people. We pass a couple kissing passionately on a bench. I am reminded of an afternoon we spent in a similar park near a similar looking couple though they were arguing then. Both couples had the same intense passion despite their public setting, one in Zagreb the other in Brussels.

“Look they made up” I comment to Cat “The couple from Zagreb”

“Oh yeah” She says, understanding my thought and giving me a kiss.

It seems that every city is in some way the same. Different places times and purposes don’t change the fact that they all have the same squares, statues, museums and couples. Maybe the heat is making me think crazy but I am struck by the similarity of this city to so many others. Thinking about this on the way home it occurs to me that because Brussels is such a varied city it resembles so many others. With its multitudes of architecture and public transports and languages and peoples it has bit of so many places. Brussels is the most multicultural city I have ever seen, beating even London. Down one street you see people of a hundred different skin colours, and ten different languages. Buildings from twenty different styles and five hundred different years. It needs six different kinds of transport, and four entirely separate regions. Brussels is so vibrant and alive that it makes me hopeful for every other city on earth. Hopeful that others could integrate so many other cultures into their own without losing all that made them themselves. All school children should spend a week here just to learn what multiculturalism could really mean. Except of course it isn’t quite that ideal, there is dislike, growing racism, French removed from road signs in Flemish areas and visa-versa. This great mass of people still find a space for irrational dislike, but they must be further towards true integration than any city in Britain. The lack of any significant majority means the city, at least in part, belongs to all races and creeds. Edinburgh on the other hand is such a big old white city I saw more black people in a weekend in Brussels than I do in a month in Edinburgh.

Three hours later after a tram, a walk, a read, a sleep, a shower, a shave and a beer we are ready again. This time we are ready to go to a party, to go to our reason (or excuse) for being here in the first place. And it is everything we had expected, indeed if you imagined William and Isabelle as I hoped earlier then the party is everything you expected too. It is continental and stylish, French and summery, it is friendly and smart. There are roughly two groups there the French, Belgian, European people. And Those from Britain, William’s friends from university and from school. I have to admit we never really manage to talk to the former, but later on we chat to the English contingent and find them personable and fun. The champagne is tasty and in good supply, wine is the same (the next morning we will see five empty cases of champagne and three of wine – sixty six bottles in all). Decent Belgian beer comes from a proper draught tap under a gazebo in the garden. Early on the music is jazz and latin, later it becomes French pop, or pop from the seventies and eighties. Two hair dressers stand looking happy in suits with matching purple flowers, camp as a Graham Norton. A French girl of thirty or so dances exuberantly with a red faced English man in a shirt one size too small. Candle light dances on a table covered in empty glasses its reflections doubling back infinitely. Their two daughters, Celia and Lucie run around talking to people, staring with big eyes through the crowd. I collapse onto a deckchair at the bottom of the garden and watch the stars drift above. Lebanese finger food is followed by a selection of tortes and more wine. Ed and Katie sit and talk, drinking badly poured, foamy beer. We dance, Cat and me spinning and laughing into the night. Eventually we leave, walking home past the cafes, past the car show rooms, past the glowing and changing cooling tower. We crawl into bed drunk and happy, lost to the world till late the next day.

Sunday, what a lazy day it was. We get up late, clean last night’s excesses and the long hot night’s sweat off ourselves and walk back past the cars. We walk past the dirty woods and past the nettles reaching out to sting us. The heat is growing already, the sky hazy and the ground dusty. The canal seems to be less full, the heat stealing from it too. We arrive at the house at lunch time, just in time for bucks fizz and pain au chocolat. Although in reality they both go on as long as we could desire them. We hide from the sunshine under the gazebo and talk to the English people from last night. I have already forgotten their names. One was a teacher, tall and significantly bald, he cycled and talked about it passionately. Another worked in Hull, exporting printers or some such, he had a casual wit and talked of travel in a off hand way that I liked. A couple talked little of themselves and more of their son who was one year and one day old. The father tall and lanky, silent for the most part but with occasional smiles and slightly out of kilter comments. His wife is shorter, rotund rosy and pleasant. They are cousins of someone somehow, though I have forgotten the details. Feeling guilty for our inactivity we take down the gazebo, and stand awkwardly around. Soon the others leave, William runs people to the airport and the four of us remain. Ed has a nap, Katie reads, Cat draws and I try to read about Belgian history. I get as far as the Hundred Years War when beer and heat and lack of sleep take their toll and I doze off in the dappled sunshine of a beech tree. I wake to find the sun has moved round and I am too warm. Moving the deck chair I sit and chat to Cat, at Williams return we head up to the house again.

After chatting briefly he drives us into the centre of town, we head for L’Archiduc an old Art Deco jazz bar. It is run down and scabby but obviously was once very great. The elegant proportions of the big two story room appeal to me, and the darkness dispels the heat still outside at eight in the evening. Shining silver columns merge into the ceiling and a grand piano holds pride of place between them. I imagine an older generation enjoying cocktails on the mezzanine watching a jazz band play through the smoke of fifty cigarettes. They are smart in suits and hats, waitresses move through them smiling and serving drinks in tall glasses. Apparently they still have jazz on Fridays and Saturdays, we shall have to return to see that. We drink one round then say our goodbyes to William, he heads home and we go to another place he recommended. The Falstaff is that other of the great 19^th century Arts, Art Nouveau. And what a building it is, big and grand, beautiful iron work doors lead from the street tables where we are sat to the main bar. It is an expanse of lavish wood and patterns, bold sky lights light the interior, even the toilets seem grand. The food is another issue entirely though. The waiter, narrow and Arabic, hands us the menus and talks in confident but heavily accented English.

“Hello, you want to manger to eat yes?”

“oui, s’il vous plait” someone answers, we all nod and smile.

“That is good, but I am sorry we have not some food, we don’t have any mussels, they are not in season. We don’t have any of the sausages, and none of the fish”

We thank him and apologise to Katie who had her heart set on a bowl of Mussels. We order our food and a bottle of wine. After five minutes the waiter returns looking apologetic.

“I am sorry but we have none of the Rabbit, who was that for?”

Katie looking down heartened sighs

“Ok in that case I’ll be brave and have the steak tartar”

“I’m sorry we had only one left and your friend has ordered it”

I look sheepish and Katie laughs, exasperatedly she orders a Belgian goulash and we chat. Our food arrives and it is very good, Katie’s is the best in the end. Having drank the wine I try and order a Leffe Blond to wash down dinner only to get the now predictable answer

“I am sorry monsieur but we have ran out of that also”

I settle for a Brune and sit enjoying the chat of my friends. Unfortunately the waiter is able to produce our bill so we pay, leave a small tip and walk to the tram stop.

This time we miss the car show rooms because William passes us as we walk home. He has just picked Isabelle up from the station and gives us a lift back to the Hotel. We say our goodbyes again and go to bed, we have planned an early start for tomorrow as we intend on stopping in Brugge to buy beer, chocolate and breakfast.

The next morning we manage our early start and get all the way to the centre of Brugge without a single problem. We park underneath ‘t Zand, a large square where me and Cat stayed on our first holiday together more than three years ago. Bathing in our self indulgent happy memories we wander to the central square. Struck by how different Brugge is to Brussels. It’s only about a hundred miles between them but there is none of the cosmopolitan vibrancy about Brugge. It is more of a tourist trap, and more Dutch. Wholly in the Flemish part of Belgium, French is no use here, though everyone speaks English. To make up for this however it is more simply pretty, canals and small old buildings crowd the centre. It reminds me of Prague, the square is big and has a statue in the middle. We hunt for and find one of the canals that keep the city cooler than Brussels. Flowers bloom and it’s hard not to be happy to be here. We buy chocolate and beer and head back onto the road.

Two hours later we are in Calais. With time to spare we hunt out the beach, during this search find that Calais is not as horrible as it’s only being famous for being a sea port qualifications would make you think. Mary I did die with the place in her heart after all, so it must have some charms. The beach is just like any British sea side town, I half expect to see pony rides and a Punch and Judy show. But It’s much to French for that, they have friteries and a Moroccan take away. Walking down the pier I gaze longingly at the sea, and at boats sailing by. In a few months I am going sailing, for a long time. All the way to Brazil and back, my impatience to leave is always worst when watching other boats sailing by on a beautiful day like today. Snapping out of my reverie we buy lemon ice creams and paddle briefly in the still cold Atlantic. We run back to the car as we are now slightly too late for the ferry home. Ed drives fast and angrily, his perpetual good mood breaking at me and Cat’s casual attitude to time keeping. We make it, just, and stand on the deck watching France recede into the distance. Next time I see those shores it shall be from the deck of the yacht “Cochise”. Soon, soon enough, no never soon enough.