Weekend of surprises in Brussels

This weekend I went to visit my friend Sandy to Brussels. I realized that since the beginning of June, I have spent every single weekend either by travelling or an intense social event, except for the weekend I arrived from Paris, when I was just chilling. Evaluating my up-to-now experience I didn't expect anything extraordinary now. Of course I was wrong and it was the weekend I will remember for a long time, maybe forever. Therefore it deserves a long post.

Me, Sandy and her friend from Luxembourg who joined us for lunch
I've been already once in Brussels with no particular memories (except for the big main square, the pissing boy and the Atomium), so the first kind of surprise was that Brussels is very nice city in general:) We went by car with Sandy to see also remote parts of the city-centre and taste at least some kinds of Belgium beer.

Languages
The second one, more shocking discovery, was what does it mean to live in a bilingual city... everything is in two languages, which must be extremely (not only) administratively demanding. Metro tickets, street labels, maps, even subtitles in the cinema or that paper they gave you in McDonalds's on the tray... everything in two languages. Respect:)

Third surprise, still related to languages, is that everyone has been comfortable with English, what I didn't expect after my experience from France, where when I was asking for an umbrella in English, the shop assistant even didn't care, but as soon as I asked for "parapluie" in French, everything was fain... or when you're in McDonalds' in France and you order your menu with all those things they ask you in French even if you reply in English!
One FishMac menu please. ~ Grand ou moyen? ~ Medium ~ Qu'est-ce que vous bouvez? ~ Fanta ~ A porte? ~ No, here :)
Nothing like this in Brussels.

Metro
Fourth surprise was actually one of the first ones which I experienced right after my arrival, in the metro station... they play music here! And nice music... what I remember is Coldplay (Clocks), Madonna (Don't tell me), soundtrack from Shrek (All star) etc... can you imagine you're waiting on the platform at Florenc in Prague and listen to this music? ;-)

Let's stay in metro... in some countries they have timetables on the walls, in other countries they have displays with digits. It was the first time I've seen a scheme of stations showing the position of metro trains by inbuilt diodes (standing for particular stations). See the picture, it's smart.

Photos
Despite all surprises, I also acknowledged that there are some "things" that exist everywhere, e.g. a "tourist-photographer"... just have a look on my pictures with a famous pissing boy:

"Hmm...try once again please"

"Perfect!"

Once talking about taking pictures. Do you have any idea what is this lady focusing on?

Next "surprise/s" (I don't count now) came in the evening... just the way I spent it was totally unexpected:)

Unforgettable evening
In the afternoon, I was sightseeing on my own in the city-centre, because Sandy had to go to work. At 10 p.m. we had a meeting with 3 members of Belgium MC and some trainees and we watched Spiderman 3 in open-air. It was held on a parking place, intended for drivers (as the sound was transmitted via radio), but the pedestrians might have joined as well. Cars were for 8€, us for 1€ each. It was a good price for the warm evening. The movie must have been for free as it wasn't worth more:) Well, effects were good, but the rest was very simple and easily predictable...


Anyway, if you're going to watch this movie, just pay attention sometime at the beginning of the second half, when the main character buys new clothes and then performs Madonna steps. This part was good:)

After the movie, at around midnight, we caught the last metro and went at the party. It was also in open-air, this time in the Royal garden close to the Royal palace. I'll not describe this so in detail, because you must experience it on your own to know what I am talking about. Just few sentences:


The party was kind of hard core, around 2000 people in total, 9 of ten people smoking hash, 3 out of these 9 doing even more to be censored, loud music all over the place, stage for the bravest with light and smoke effects, beer stands organized in McDonald's style (front line of shop assistants only receiving money and giving beers, back-staff filling cups and 1-2 "managers" just checking that everything was OK:)

Maybe you can imagine the atmosphere better when I say that all the girls from our group left right after we arrived on the place and only me, Vishal and Sandy stayed on. Still, we "got lost" around 10 times and needed to set meeting points in the vast area of Royal garden so as to find each other.

It was a good place to try out many things (e.g. another party style...) as well as to practice French a little bit:)

When we were leaving the party at around 4:30, looking for our car outside the Royal garden, we saw a serious accident. A car smashed another one, small Mercedes Smart, which turned over on driver's door! It wasn't possible to get the girl from inside! I felt kind of weak and so powerless. The ambulance was there within few minutes. I believe she survived, she was slowly moving, despite the bleeding.
Not to be enough, as we were finally approaching our car, we noticed that quite a big part of the Royal garden went in fire!
It was pretty demanding day.

On Sunday, it was much more relaxed day, however, it wasn't sunny any more. We visited Atomium, had a lunch together, I bought some souvenirs and went back to Rotterdam.

Me, Sandy and Vishal, my hosts and guides in Brussels