Europe Sampler, Part II: Brussels

We first sampled Belgium chocolate through a box of Galler in our hotel room. Unfortunately, G and P ate 3/4 the box in about 5 minutes and entered blissful hibernation. However, if not for the sacrifices of my teammates, I would not have survived to write this post, instead, I would be lumbering in chocolate heaven, never to return. The remaining members of the Team, Y and me, would be covering Brussels by ourselves the first day.

Brussels probably had my favorite architecture on the trip, next to some parts of Paris.

Our first goal was Autoworld, a museum of historical cars located in the awesome Parc du Cinquantenaire. The archway was the most breathtaking building I’ve seen up to that point, unapologetically magnificent, from the extremely wide wall paintings on either sides of the horseshoe to the bronzed guardians on the chariot. Brilliant.

Charles Girault was a man among men.

Autoworld was a lot more fun than it should be, given that the only thing I know about cars is how to mooch rides off friends so I don’t have to drive. The most interesting car was the Amphicar, pictured below (runner-up: the 1954 BAT 7 ).

I used my car as a boat too, but that's just because I was a really bad driver.

Alex and Nathan have told me to not miss Delirium Cafe, but even getting to it turned out to be an adventure, as we had to fight through a trecherous gauntlet of outdoor restaurants which I named the Red Food District. Around 10 maitre d’s would block our way and ping us with every language they figured we would speak and attempt to drag us to the tables. We fearlessly fought through the undead horde and arrived at the home of the 2000-long beer list. I am not a big enough beer buff to peruse the full list of 2000 beers, so we just looked at a small list and picked out the Floris berry kriek and the St. Bernadus Abt 12. This was as unholy as beer matrimonies go, but I wasn’t exactly feeling saintly by the 50 or so taps.

The infamous St. Bernadus Abt 12 (10.5% abv). I assure you the monks were not their monkly selves after drinking a liter of this.

Y was starting to see pink elephants at this point, so we willingly offer ourselves to the vices of the Red Food District. I actually got a pretty amazing rumsteak (though the wine was bland) for 17 Euro. Quite full, we sit and take in the town square before going back for sleep.

One of the overseers of this tourist deathtrap would not let me physically pass without saying we would be back. "Good. We have an American promise," he said. What does that mean????

In the morning, we take the bus in the wrong direction and get lost (I blame P’s French, or maybe the nice grandmother on the bus giving him directions really wanted him to be with her longer), but we somehow bumble our way back to the city center, where we ate at the climatically-named Brussels Grill. P reminded us that there was a Belgium specialty we should not be forgetting.

Belgium is not just known for chocolate. This glorified cocaine for the tongue made me melt into it instead of the other way around, for an altogether amazing (yet creepy) experience.

Before finally getting on the train to Paris, I stopped by the Tintin Boutique, revisiting my childhood hero (Harry Potter has nothing on the most badass 22-year-old freelance reporter of all time). I settled on a Captain Haddock coffee mug, but I realized it could not be the only souvenir when I saw the Snowy plush. Now I had a lovable and fiercely loyal companion to aid me through the dangers of graduate school. Little did we know that an unexpected storm already awaited me in Paris.

Thousands of blistering barnacles.

-Y

Snowy, curtesy of the Tintin Boutique (store.tintin.com)

P.S. Brussels elevators earn massive points by having a mathematically clean numbering system. The B’s, L’s, and M’s always annoyed me.

This is the kind of things I (and probably that xkcd guy) think about when zoning out.

P.P.S. Y astutely pointed out that having the trunk of the car opening up to be a seat was a pretty sweet feature. I think he is spot on.

Now you can finally (legally) fit 7 Asians into a car.

Europe Sampler, Part I: Amsterdam

The bad luck started early when my Boston-Newark flight was delayed for 2 hours. Anxious idling in a waiting area is not my style, so I struck up a conversation with the businessman to my left, who turned out to be a partner in a bank.

He looked like he was trying to look happier than he was – his smiles sighed and his laughs frowned when we talked about mundane work and life and he gave advice that seemed to have been nailed to his heart: “If you get the big things right – and there are only two big things really: your job and your wife (chuckles, points to ring), you can make all the small mistakes you want. Never make the mistake of working for money. It drives people crazy and doesn’t make you happy. Find a job you love and you will not have to work.”

But there was no mistaking the youthful sparkle in his eyes when he recalled the tonic-like air of Notre Dame and the comfortable drizzle of the streets of London. A naked glee surfaced when he talked about how the best part of 8-AM meetings in Europe was getting to climb mountains and enjoy parks for the rest of the day. I handed the conversation to him at that point, and his hat no longer looked as heavy on him.

“Good meeting you, son. You have a long and exciting life ahead of you. Good luck on your trip.”

“You look like you still have sixty years yourself.” I was not really joking.

Of course, we get another delay taxi-ing in the airport, so by the time I exit the plane,  Y, G, and P were already in the plane to Amsterdam. I started running Olympic-speed (in the event involving flip-flops and two bags). “Final boarding call for Yan Zhang for flight XXX, departure time 5:20″ repeated itself twice, but two Continental workers cheered for me (“Go go go!”) as I Usain Bolted down the final stretch, ending with a long jump into the gate at 5:09. “No need to be so feisty, brother,” said the second worker.

—-

The first thing that caught my attention exiting Amsterdam Centraal was an elegant-looking tween brushing past me, a flurry of camera flashes following her. She had the face of a girl heading to a final exam. Then I saw the bikes.

It's China! With white people!

P, the Amsterdam expert, led the search for coffeeshops (as opposed to coffee shops) of Amsterdam, through the Rijksmuseum, the Dam Square (where we saw a shielded Inca Warrior and.. Batman taking pictures with tourists next to the wonderfully phallic National Monument). It took me quite a while to know what this meant, but I understood soon after entering one. Maybe it was the Rastafarian art on every wall, the sculptures of aliens and UFOs on the ceilings, or the marijuana menu in plain sight catering every strain from Purple Haze to Northern Lights. An elderly couple in their fifties came in after us, grabbed two seats, and started rolling their joints.

We soon come to the I AMSTERDAM sign at Museumplein Park. We sit and breathe in the air, which breezed de-stress and relaxation… or maybe that is just all the secondhand hash in the wind working.

I am sterdam! But where am I? (Solutions at the end of the chapter)

Of the few things I planned ahead for in this trip, the first was the Van Gogh Museum, which was visible in the distance at this time across a green field. The museum was small and unassuming, and all of Van Gogh’s works were collected on one floor in a cycle of rooms with no doors, starting from the darker (shade, not context) works of Dutch influence of Nuenen (early 1880’s), through the colorful works he adapted from French and Japanese art (despite his earlier disdain for them) in Paris, ending with the amazingly varied and mature works in Saint-Remy (including my favorite, cliched yet abrasively efficient in its strokes: “Wheat Field with Crows, 1890″). Considering I have the memory facilities of a peanut, I strained to take down every pixel I could, looking at each piece several times. I was frequently distracted by Y, who at this time (had a little too much coffee?) was hulking around like an iron golem behind me, whom he (it?) took as his adaptive mother. However, I did manage to find a couple of new favorite pieces, including this one:

Tree Trunks with Ivy, 1889. Watching the tesselating strokes somehow form a coherent picture was mesmerizing. (Source: www.vangoghgallery.com)

I gained more admiration for the master’s refusal to be bound to academic tradition (almost entirely self-taught!), and wished I could summon the same genius while being a rebel to tradition. On the way out, G buys a Moleskin to pay respects. The notes from my own,which I bought in Boston before the flight, will eventually become these blog posts.

At this park, a boy in red plaid was throwing balls for two cute white puppies with an instrument that looked like it came from jai alai. "Do dogs instinctively know how to run after balls?" Y asked.

The next day, we woke up fighting jetlag to see Fernando Torres score a hat trick on New Zealand, and now I have a new favorite soccer player. I became more excited about soccer simply because I was in Europe, a testament to the power of ambient culture, something that will resurface several times. For various reasons we were more chilled-out today, so we spent more time canal-watching. I ordered a pretty mean caprinha (Brazil’s national cocktail) from one of the canal-side bars, and the “frites speciaal” from Fedo (fries, mayo, delicious bad-for-you-goodness). I saw ducklings.

Cute duckies. Like me.

For the day’s walk, we decided to walk down to Sarphal Park south of the city center. We grabbed some coffee at Coffee & Company, chilled a bit in the park, and swung back north to the infamous Red Light District. Coffeeshops galore, this den of legal iniquity featured, at each crimson-framed window, a worker showing her jiggly wares, always impeccably dressed and made up.

It was late and we have an early train to Brussels, so being the ballers we are, we end the day by eating at a high-class restaurant that “you people” can never afford.

This is how we roll

-Yan

P.S. Answer to quiz:

If you still can't find Yan then you need glasses

P.P.S. I mean seriously. Not only can the guy score from anywhere, he is hot too! Check out his official site.