Brussels - Day Two The next day I was up at seven for some unknown reason. The time difference meant that I should have been sleeping in until about noon... so I had no idea why I was up. I watched the D-Day coverage for a little while. Everyone looked hot and sweaty in their suit and ties. The British were reporting from a British cemetery in Normandy.

Instead of crosses on all the graves they had smallish, rounded tombstones. I realized that I had never seen the British cemeteries before. I was lieing in my boxers on the bed when my roommate Kirk arrived. He'd taken an overnight train from Hamburg the night before and had been walking around for about an hour trying to find the hotel. I told him it's a good thing he didn't bother with a cab because they seem to be a bit unreliable.

Kirk and I went downstairs for the hotel breakfast. The breakfast buffet was all over the board. They had an omelet bar staffed by a dwarf and the usual European array of little sausages. But they also had six or seven kinds of cheeses and three different types of pickled herring floating in colorful sauces. I was really hoping that I could make a Belgian flag on my plate using the pickled herring but one of the colors was wrong for the flag. My head was killing me so I decided to postpone the herring for another day.
Some members of the group planned on meeting for mass at the cathedral, and since I was up, I decided to trek up there. I figured the mass was going to be in either Dutch or French but boy was I in for a treat, it was the Latin mass! My 40 minute commitment turned into a 75 minute epic in which I didn't understand a single word. The service started with a group of monks singing their way down the side of the church and then singing their way up to the alter. The acoustics were great and the singing monks were easily the highlight of the service. The head priest took his job of conductor very seriously so I entertained myself by watching his flamboyance. Near the end of the mass a tourist came into the building and walked right up to the alter and stood there looking around completely oblivious to the fact that church was in session. It took almost a minute before someone finally got up and asked him to take a seat. I think one of the priests was trying hard not to laugh.
After mass, I ran into some guys from the group in the hotel lobby. Mark had just gotten out of bed and was amazed that I'd been up as early as I was. I had no explanation. We ended up walking to Grand Plah-sah for a drink (a Coke) and then poking around town. We pretty much went to all of the places I had been the day before, including the Maneqin Pis photo board. We also found part of the original city wall from 1000 a.d., which was pretty cool.

At two o'clock the entire group had a tour of Brussels by bus. The Mercedes bus had excellent air conditioning, which made the tour pretty easy to handle. We got a big old tour of the town, including the NATO headquarters and the King's castle. We also went up to the iron molecule for a photo op. I'd never been that close to it before and it was pretty cool.

Later we stopped at a big outdoor park to grab a snack and walk around. There was some sort of Portuguese festival going on because there were dancers on stage doing flamenco and many people were running around in Portuguese soccer jerseys. I think it might have had something to do with the Euro 2004 soccer championship starting in Portugal the next weekend. The place was packed with people and food tents. I just walked around for a while with some other students. We tried to find the museum that was supposed to have an entrance on the square but by the time we found the entrance we were out of time and had to return to the bus. It was getting hot out and I was glad to re-enter the climate controlled bus.

Eventually the bus parked near the Grand Plah-sah and we had to get out and walk to finish the rest of the tour. I figured that I was going to walk over the square for the third time in 24 hours and I was right! Along the way I saw a costume shop that sold afro wigs and the packaging had a picture of two white Belgians (presumably) in black face wearing the afro wigs. I don't think that costume would have gone over too well back in the states. The tour guide was great. She explained the Manequin Pis legend and all about the guild houses on the square. She also explained the legend of the lucky nun... it's a statue of a nun that you touch and get to make a wish. Not really a legend at all, now that I think about it. She also pointed out where to go for good Belgian waffles and the difference between a Belgian and a Brussels waffle. I started to fade out during her explanation and can't remember the difference anymore, but I do remember that you want the Brussels waffle not the Belgian waffle.

Between tourist attractions I asked the guide about immigrants. She said the most of the immigrants were coming from Morocco and that Holland was having a very difficult time integrating them because of the immigrant's restrictive culture. She used swim class as an example and seemed to think that parent's not allowing their child to participate in swim class was a serious affront to the integration of minorities into Dutch culture. I thought about it later and having your parents hold you out of swim class doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. I realize the Netherlands is a maritime based society, but perhaps they've gone a little overboard with their concerns. (Get it, overboard, like a boat) Anyway, it didn't really answer any questions for me as to whether the integration is difficult because of the different cultures, prejudice, or both.
The guide gave us an hour between the tour and dinner so we all went to a bar on the square and had a Kriek, which is a cherry beer. Pretty good stuff, and a much needed break.
Dinner was at a cool place called Leon's. It was our first introduction to the fact that Europe lacks air conditioning, so cool is meant in the figurative sense. It was a long hot sweaty affair from start to finish. We had mussels and fries with a caramel creme dessert. Awesome. However, I think the waiter thought I ordered chicken because he brought out two extra chickens and then got pretty upset when nobody claimed to have ordered them. He just stood there for a few minutes with the chickens and we had a little stand off. Finally he took them back to the kitchen and brought us some mussels. One of the student's brother was with us for dinner and he was active in Germany with the U.S. military. I kept trying to ask him what he did for the military and kept getting the same answer, "As little as possible." Someone finally pointed out to me that active duty people really can't say what they do. It just made me more curious.
After dinner I opted to walk around town by myself. I wanted to call it an early night and part of our class was to keep a journal, so I wanted to write a little in it before bed. I went back to the hotel and relaxed for a few minutes before packing my bag and heading out. I started walking towards a park on the map and found some cute little streets. I also got some good photos of the cathedral.

I found a spot in the park and sat and read for a while. Afterwards I decided to walk around some more. On the tour, the bus had pulled up to an overlook of the entire city. However, we weren't allowed to get out of the bus to get a picture. I wanted to find that spot and get a picture, and I remembered that it seemed to be uphill of the city center, so I started walking uphill. I walked around for quite a while and found the U.S. embassy, another cool church, a broken into car, and finally the overlook. The sky was hazy so none of my pictures turned out. On my way back to the hotel I found a bunch of great streets with little restaurants and bars on them, and I also found the famous Brussels antique neighborhood. Haven't heard of it? Well, Brussels has a place for all your antiquing needs.
On the way back to the hotel I ran across several students sitting around the Grand Plah-sah. I hung out for one drink and we made plans for the next night to go up to the neighbor I had found for a more local scene. When we were getting ready to leave an extremely drunk middle aged woman came up to our table and tried to take the money we had on it. She made a nuisance of herself and the waiter was nowhere to be found. When the waiter came back to kick her out she started yelling and fighting. Finally she left, and on the way out she grabbed Yuki from our group and gave him a big kiss. Awesome! Welcome to Belgium! That night I couldn't get to sleep despite being exhausted because of the espresso I'd had with dinner. Bummer.