I spent four days in a museum yesterday afternoon! This was an immense space, ten floors in a Belle Epoch building with a soaring atrium so large that buzzards were circling overhead waiting to pick off those without the strength to find an exit. There were remnants of tour groups that had been separated from their leaders weeks ago. There were also lots of pictures hanging everywhere. (twenty thousand plus and we saw them all!)
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des Beaux Arts) in Brussels is truly magnificent and certainly worthy of several visits, especially when there are no crowds as there were today. The Christmas holiday here in Europe extends until January 6th and the tourists are still out in force. Surprisingly there are a vast number of tourists from Spain, all on group tours since they always seem to be in clumps of dozens, just like the Chinese, who I think are angry there are some tourists who are louder and pushier than they. The museum visit was a way to get out of the cold and damp that seems like the permanent grey shawls on aging grand dames. For some reason unknown to us, they still publish sunrise and sunset hours - this in a city that hasn’t seen sunshine for weeks so who can tell if they are telling us the truth?
When my sister and I were young we spent a summer with our grandmother in Long Beach Long Island. One time we went to a matinee with some kids we had met there and it started with a cartoon about the Sunshine People. We didn’t know at the time that it was produced by Borden’s Dairy, but we sure liked it and I am still singing the main song “We’re happy when we’re sad; we’re always feeling bad” whenever I see someone who is being a royal pain. I should beam this to everyone in Belgium as a public service. If you have a spare eight minutes, watch this oldie but goodie cartoon. Got milk?
I’ve mentioned this before but the Belgique claim to have a cuisine that is far superior to the French and I say to that PHOOEY! You can’t find a decent vegetable here that hasn’t been sliced, diced, minced or pureed and served in some stew, soup, or gravy. Their two most famous dishes are Carbonnades Flamandes, which is beef stew cooked in beer, and Waterzooi which is either fish or chicken cooked in some kind of cream, egg and butter sauce. Both are served with what we call French fries but which are known here as simply frites and are always served with mayonnaise, aka stroke in a bowl. Here is a list and you tell me what you can’t live without. (Yes, the mussels are swell but at 25 euros a serving they are twice as expensive as those in Nice, which are also fabulous!) However, I have to admit that the cookies and the chocolate are fabulous, and this from a person who is not a big fan of chocolate.
Service continues to be a problem in Belgium. Not sure if the unions require all employees to take a fifteen minute break every fifteen minutes, but that is what it feels like. Never go to a restaurant in Belgium if you are hungry; you could starve! I’m guessing that everyone here has a substantial snack before going out to dinner. We have waited twenty minutes to get a menu and then another fifteen to order a drink before dinner. Order the drink, not get the drink. It is universal, top notch restaurants are as bad as middle of the road; just sit tight and hope to get food before sunrise, which of course no one knows the exact time.
Love from Brussels, Cindy and Wm
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