Belgium, Beer, Homosexuals & Waffles

Wow, that title actually gets better every time I read it.

This weekend was spent in Belgium. I’ve been in a mad flurry to see every city, town, village and bike track of Europe, because it’s just so easy to in London. Everything is only a couple of hours away, and usually costs around £30 - £100 in travel. It’s so crazy, being able to finish work on a Friday and decide, ‘hey, I don’t have a lot on this weekend… why not head to another country?!’ It’s something I’m still getting used to, and every time I do it, it’s like getting a high five from a stranger - it’s just rad.

So, Saturday morning. I woke up at 5am for a 7am Eurostar to the sunny capital of Brussels (Bruxelles, if you’re feeling fancy) and was, as per usual, running late. What is it with waking up at 5am that makes you think, hey, I should GO BACK TO BED BECAUSE IT’S A SATURDAY MORNING. Regardless, country road bag in tow, I made it to the tube on time.

The Eurostar we took went under the English Channel, which is the little piece of river that separates England from France. It’s sort of like a bullet train I suppose, and goes up to 500km per hour at the height of the journey. Call me naive, I sort of expected the underground part of the trip to include windows, so as to allow an enthusiastic traveler to point out fish and sea creatures from the depths of the sea. Firstly, it does not. Secondly, I was informed, politely, that if it did have windows one would mostly see mud and corpses. Classy!

Brussels itself houses about a million people, and the main language is French. I attempted to revive a few of my year seven and eight French lessons upon arrival, but was reminded by Ian of his friend who attempted a similar feat and got the response ‘Please, do not butcher my language.’ I made the decision that perhaps it would be in my best interests to stick to the common ‘HELLO. I AM FROM AUSTRALIA. PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE ME. ALSO, A WAFFLE WOULD BE LOVELY.’

We didn’t realise heading in that it was the gay pride festival in Brussels, and were, once we hit the city center, confronted with a great deal of men with assless chaps. It was awesome. The whole city was alive, with music, beer, and a parade that was surrounded by thousands of cheering fans.

It was a party beyond my expectations, people throwing confetti into the streets, kids dancing on floats, cars with feather boas hooning past with glitter and make up and drag queens and just general fabulousness. Really rad to see the city come alive like that, and kind of unexpected. When we first got into the city we went to this really dodgy looking cafe, that served authentico Belgium waffles. We ordered some, and I got a coffee that sort of looked like engine grease. I spent the next fourty minutes crouching down on street corners trying not to cry and cursing my decision not to get travel insurance. So, really, to go from that to dancing with a drag queens on busy city streets was hilarious.

The next day we headed out to Mons, which is the sixth largest village in Brussels (I take all these facts from my friends, so if they are wrong I am truly, truly sorry) and had the annual Ducasse de Mons, or Doudou. And yes, that did get a few giggles. Basically, it’s this big festival that happens on Trinity Sunday, which is fifty seven days after Easter. The highlight of the festival is a big party in the main square, which happens on the Sunday. From what we could discern (Tanya, our Australian translator, who is fluent in French, looked as confused about this as we were) men go into the square and rip one another’s shirts off. Seriously. It’s like the sexiest festival you’ve ever heard of. Then the whole village pushes a cart up a hill, aided by horses and the population. The two times they haven’t been able to push it up have (apparently) been the years of world wars, so they take it pretty seriously. European traditions are so hilariously rad, they completely blow me away.

Once the festivities were over (which we missed the majority of, due to a much needed sleep in) we headed to a BBQ at Tanya’s friend Francois’ boss’ house. He explained to us that a part of the festival is opening the doors to visitors, making a haven for travelers to the town. We attempted to thank said hospitality with as much beer as we could fit into a bag at the local supermarket, and sat around chatting. When asked where we were from, we said Australia. To which the host replied ‘Oooooh. That’s far away.’ Which, I suppose, it is.

After as many “au revoir’s” and “merci’s” as we could handle, we got back on the train, and back on the Eurostar, and back to London. Which is, clearly, the center of the universe.