Bruxelles

This past weekend, Reba and I went down to Brussels (Bruxelles in some languages) to visit Shelby, my pal from business school.  We hadn't been on a weekend trip for quite a while, so it felt good to top up on travel.  I always feel like I'm wasting my time over here to some extent by not traveling at every chance.  Europe is so close to our little island home, and though it's easy to just chill at the apartment and go out to dinner in the neighborhood on the weekends, I won't have this proximity forever. 

Brussels is in Belgium, which seems to be a sort of German-ish France.  Apparently there is a big cultural/geographical divide between the French speaking Belgians and the Flemish (a kind of Dutch, which makes it a kind of German) speaking Belgians, with all the tension, rivalry and distrust that naturally builds up between two groups of white people living a country the size of Massachusetts.  Actually that doesn't make any sense to me, but if you figure (a) one half of this country is Germanic, and there's plenty to pick on Germans about if you're looking for a fight and happen to have had grandparents in northern Europe during the last century, and (b) the other half of the country is French.  Let's face it, other than my French teacher back in Seattle and a few francophilic femmes from said French class, nobody likes the French.  I'm not saying that it's right, just that it's true.  So, maybe this big divide in a tennis court sized state isn't such a shock after all.  Whatever.  After a while you realize that when you live over here, it's a lot better use of your time to not worry about why these 14 white people in one tiny corner of Europe hate those 23 other white people in the next tiny corner, even though they're probably all 3rd cousins anyway.

Shelby lives in London and works for BT, but she's been assigned to some project in BT's Brussels office, so they're putting her up in a fabulous apartment while she's there.  It was really good to see her, she's been away for a while now and I likes my Shelby time.  She's moving back to London in a few weeks.  Good!  She organized a pretty cool tour for us: visit to a Christmas market, nice dinner out, seeing all the wacky Belgian Christmas pageantry (more on this later) and best of all: a trip to Delirium.  Delirium is a bar just off the main square in Brussels where they have 2004 different beers for sale, mostly Belgians.  While the actual space is a shithole, the beer makes up for it and I was in that most lofty of heavens, beer heaven.  I drank a lot of Belgian weird beer (more on this later), and was very happy about it.  Shelby and Reba were very good sports and sat with me and watched me go through the various delicious options.  Thanks girls!

Belgian Christmas Pageantry

Adding to the long list of Euro stuff I don't get, there are apparently 2 key non-Jesus Christmas figures in the Belgian Christmas tradition.  There is a Belgian Santa Claus who is roughly analogous to the Santa Claus we all know and love back in the states.  Belgian Santa does his thing on December 25th just like everywhere else, but he's also in a sort of medieval parade on December 6th where he rides around Brussels in a horse drawn cart followed by guys on striped stilts, but what the hell, it's cool, I like stilts.  What's not cool is dude #2.  This is "black peter" or something like that.  This dude is Santa's helper or slave or something, and his face is supposed to be all black from chimney soot.  So, of course this means that there has to be a white dude in blackface walking behind Santa in the parade.  Oh yeah, and instead of giving presents, this guys beats up bad little kids and takes them back to Spain.  I am not making this up.

We had a lovely, culturally enriching trip to the continent this weekend, and I even got to use my French.  Au-bon.

Belgian Weirdbeer

I like weird beer.  Ok, scratch that, I like beer.  Even an ice cold lager is all good with me, but in colder months, complicated weird beer makes me very happy.  Seattle is famous/notorious for this stuff, and I quaffed my share of the weird before I left.  LoFiBri and I used to do the occasional weridbeer outing, and thinking back on those trips makes me happy and thirsty.  The Belgians however, take this art-form to a whole new level.  There are thousands of little breweries in this little country, all with their particular take on what a tasty little weirdbeer is.  I guess the best way to put it is: the Belgians are as diverse and serious about making beer as the French are about making wine, so get out there and drink some.  A Belgian focused recommendation I gave to my Austin pal Gabe just yesterday follows:

"good solid belgian beers that I like are chimay and duvel, nothing too wild but reliable. NOT for consumption on hot summer days tho, way too thick. for something a bit more interesting try westmalle. for something super kickass and weird try the Abbaye des Rocs by Brasserie de l'Abbaye des Rocs. This shit is the bizomb dizzle. I also drank one called "satan red", which is just a good idea generally. I think you can get all of these (except maybe that last) at any good hipster grocery. definitely at any beer store."

Special to Carl: we're pouring one out for Tiki this week, though I suspect he would have preferred some dropped bbq instead.  Take care my brother, you're in our hearts and in our thoughts.