Mons

I went to Mons a few weekends ago. Time to write about it now I suppose! I went to Mons for a beer festival, a belgian beer festival of course! Mons itself was not particularly interesting...a nice clock tower, but the beer festival (which was held in a charming town square) was great. I got a chance to sample several regional beers that I have never seen before. Mons was also interesting in that mostly people did not speak English (it being in the French speaking part of Belgium).

Paris

Well, Paris was everything I had hoped (but did not really expect after other disappointments). It really is as good as "they" say. Specifically it is as good as my mum, my friends and Jude say it is. Just walking around Paris is beautiful, and very cool...The architecture is amazing, the monuments are amazing, and the sense of history is just fantastic. Definitely the best city in Europe so far!

I went with my friend Sasha, his partner Claudia, and Michael (a friend of Sasha's from NZ). It was really great to see Sasha again, and Claudia (who is very nice). And in such a setting as well! I also got a chance to improve my French (which has been improving very slowly in Belgium), and after the weekend I noticed a definite improvement.

Other impressions from Paris: its expensive! (5 Euro for a coffee, 9 Euro for a beer!) The people are not as unfriendly as people say, in fact overall I found them quite nice (though some of the service was pretty appalling). The queues for everything were unbelievably long...that was not fun at all, and when I say queue I am being generous, usaully it showed more resemblance to a scrum. Pastries etc were amazing, but coffee was not so great. Food was definitely not as amazing as I had been led to believe (definintely not as good as Warsaw).


I saw many things (monuments, sites, sights...) but still only scraped the surface. I will definitely need to return.

Look for more posts and maybe some pictures soon.

Next stop Zurich!

Off to Paris

I'm off to Paris this evening! I'm really looking forward to it. I've wanted to go for a long time, and my friend Sasha has organised this and offered to play tour guide.
I'm catching the Thalys to Paris-Gare du Nord, so another little experience there as it is some sort of high speed train (though not as high speed as the TGV or Eurostar I believe). How exciting.

Antwerp

On Sunday David and I decided to go to Antwerp. We had done enough of Brussels for one weekend, and I had been to Bruges, so next on the list was Antwerp. We caught the train (which was surprisingly easy) which deposited us in Antwerp 40 minutes later (a return trip for 7 Euro, rail travel in Europe is a bargain). Antwerp is a nice looking city, much prettier than Brussels. The part around the central station is not so nice (full of awful jewellry shops for one thing!), but the old(er) town near the Cathedral and Grote Markt is very picturesque. We enjoyed a wander around, met up with a friend from work, Luc, who lives in Antwerp and he showed us a nice pub. We looked in the cathedral, which has several works by Rubens. One in particular, showing Christ being carried from the cross, was quite impressive. One other thing that we noticed was that (tourist traps aside) Antwerp did appear to be closed. People used to make that joke about NZ, but they obviously haven't been to Europe on a Sunday. There were thousands of people in the streets, and not a single shop open.

Then it was back to Brussels and sampling more fine Belgian beer, before David had to leave for Leeds. All in all it was a great weekend, and very nice to see him again.

A Weekend in Brussels

So last weekend my uncle David came to visit me in Brussels. We did the touristy thing, and there is plenty to keep a tourist occupied with in Brussels and Belgium for a weekend. There is some debate as to whether there is enough to occupy one for more than a weekend, but we will never know. First we had a look around the Grand Place, which is very impressive, especially at night. We followed that up with sampling some local cuisine (Thai!) and local beer. Then on Sunday we looked around the area around the Grand Place, which has many old and interesting buildings, along with lots of shops and colourful restaurants. Above is a picture of a seafood display at one such restaurant. Be warned though, my experience is that these restaurants are over priced and over rated. If you want a nice meal, go a couple of blocks from the Grand Place and you will get a nicer one for substantially less money. After that we went to the Galeries Hubert which is an expensive and impressive shopping centre. Well worth a look. We then went to visit one of the "recommended" sights - the Atomium. It is a 20 minute metro ride from central Brussels, costs 7 Euro to enter and is one great big disappointment. It is certainly impressive to look at from the outside (but you can do that for free), but inside there is nothing. It is a 100 metre high stainless steel model of an iron crystal. It has recently been refurbished and is definitely impressive to look at. But inside there is room to do something interesting (and quite a lot of room), but instead it is deadly boring. The entire experience was not improved by having to queue for 30 minutes just to get in.

Haircuts

A strange topic for a post on a blog nominally about travel and my exact physical location but what the hell...I've noticed that people in Belgium (and maybe Europe in general) have boring haircuts. Interesting haircuts, or even non-boring ones seem non-existent in Brussels. There are no colourings, no streaks, no funky fringes, no spiky haircuts, no sharks fins, nothing, nada, zip. It's all short-to-mid-length au-naturel. You see far more interesting ones in NZ and Britain. I don't know why this is. The only person with an even vaguely interesting haircut in the office is a kiwi. Now what am I supposed to do when I need a haircut? Its clearly going to be hard to find a good hairdresser, especially one who speaks English!

Brussels = brrrrrr

Brussels is putting on a nice face - it's sunny here, and has been for the past couple of days (unlike the last few weeks) - but it is still damn cold. I am settling into my apartment, and getting used to Belgium again, with all of its little foibles (shops always closed, everything expensive except beer, lots of excellent beer and awesome nearby restaurants). The apartment I am staying in ( in Rue Souveraine) is cool, except it has a deplorable lack of storage space, about 3 square inches to put my food...

My Uncle David is coming to Brussels for the weekend for his birthday. I'm really looking forward to seeing him again. The only thing is I have to find some interesting things for us to do and places for us to go!

Also planning a trip to Paris with Sasha for easter weekend, which should be way cool.

Now in Belgium

I landed in Brussels on Sunday. I have had a day and a half and am still feeling out of it...I have sampled the deights of Belgian patisseries, but haven't had any Belgian beer yet.

In the nick of time....

Work have finally managed to organise my travel (only 2 days before I am supposed to leave!!!!!). I will be in Brussels from April 2nd until the 30th (give or take a few days), and then will go to Zurich for however long it takes to get the project completed (approx 2 months).

While in Brussels I will be living in an apartment on Rue Souveraine (again), yay! I will have a similar apartment in Zurich.

Europe here I come...or not

Well, as hinted at some times things don't happen as planned or expected here. I am still waiting to find out if I am going, when I am going and how long for (though I do know where). Details will be poasted here when I find out (assuming there is enough time between finding out and having to be on the plane that is!)