Thoughts on Brussels

After a weekend in Brussels, I have some thoughts on the city. As ever, there are ten of them. Note that these only reflect the two days we spent there which may not be representative of the rest of the year as a whole. Here they are:

1. It seems like a relatively quiet city (notwithstanding items 4 and 7 below). There isn't much traffic given it's the capital of the EU and everywhere seems quite peaceful.

2. They have good beer. Some of it is quite strong, but like all beer drunk abroad in Europe, it doesn't seem to get you as drunk as if you drink it in England.

3. It's amazing that you can get there from England on the nice train. I know I mentioned this the other day, but it's still cool.

4. On Saturday afternoon, a lot of people were blowing their car horns for no good reason. Not occasionally, incessantly. It was odd. Like a couple of girl goats not invited to hang out with the cigar smoking boy goats, we had no horns and were unable to join in.

5. The city is of a size that you can walk pretty much anywhere you need to without having to resort to public transport. All cities should have this property. (And relatedly, I can't believe that it now costs four quid for a single trip on the London Underground. Four whole quid!)

6. Travel from the "Upper Town" to the "Lower Town" is via a hill. Perhaps a sensible person wouldn't be surprised by this due to the names, but it surprised me. I'd expected a flat city.

7. On Sunday, the city was overrun, packed to the rafters with Scouts. And others similar to scouts. And girl ones too. And when I say overrun, I mean nearly a hundred thousand of the buggers. That's a lot of scouts. It was a little disconcerting. They were quite noisy but seemed to be having fun.

8. If you get to Brussels and change your mind and decide you'd rather go to a different Belgian city, you can do that because the Eurostar tickets allow you to go onwards to any city of your choice! We didn't take advantage of this as it meant I would have bought a guidebook for no good reason.

9. There is a lot of sitting out on the street going on in bars and restaurants. I think that even if a restaurant is posh and/or expensive, it feels cheap if you're sitting out on the street. Until you get the bill.

10. There are less sprouts than you might imagine. Unless you have a limited imagination with regard to thinking about sprouts. I don't. I can imagine them with every meal.

And that's Brussels!

Under The Sea

So I've been in Brussels for the weekend. One reason I chose that place was that I fancied going somewhere on the Eurostar. It's been in existence for a few years now and it's quite exciting since it's a train that goes underwater.

I was impressed with the whole experience. The trains are nice, run on time and go faster than normal English trains. However, coming back was a little disconcerting due to the Earthquake on Saturday. On Saturday morning, Kent experienced an earthquake (*) of magnitude 4 to 5 on the Richter Scale. Kent is quite close to the Channel Tunnel entrance hole.

Whilst there was no major damage caused, it meant that when travelling home I had to blank out the thoughts that went:
1. I'm two miles under the English Channel.
2. There was an EARTHQUAKE near here yesterday.
3. Oh Shit.
4. I'm going to die via the medium of drownage on train.
5. Oh Shit.

In retrospect, I need not have worried. There were no subsequent aftershocks and the journey did not end in my end.

(* there is a conspiracy theory that says it was actually the Kentish people conducting an underground nuclear weapon test, in preparation for the 2009 bid for indepedence. I don't subscribe to this theory)