Summer Livin' - Belgian Style

As the sun becomes less willing to linger in the evenings, and the sky more frequently furrows its dark eyebrows, it's the time of year again when we northern hemispherites must kiss farewell to our sweet, but commitment-phobic love: summer. And so I take pause to look back on a summer whose presence was well-enjoyed.

Being new to Belgium, and yet adjusting to life in a place where there are so many musical and artistic and athletic and cultural delights to be enjoyed, I made it a mission this summer to take in as much of it as I could.

Well, it turns out the Belgians really know how to party in the streets when the weather is fine - with festivals and street parties and markets and concerts galore. And I was right there with the most festive of them. I did my research, put dates in my calendar, and frequently had weekends of solid festival-going throughout the summer. Belgium holds an impressive number of free summer events. In my effort to participate in all of them (I came no where near!) I have to admit, I nearly reached a point of feeling I may have overdosed on festiveness and I'm now ready for a quiet winter of sipping tea and knitting scarves. But it was excellent and I was able to observe and participate in some edifying, amusing, impressive, inspiring and beautiful events.


At the very beginning of the summer, the Royal Greenhouses, built for King Leopold in the 1800's, partly to house some of his exotic plant collection from his exploits in Africa, open their doors to the public for 2 weeks only. I wasn't sure it'd be worth the visit - but after 2 hours of walking through these incredible glass and iron palaces overflowing with botanic beauty...I was impressed. The smell of the exquisite orange blossoms in the King's Orangerie is imprinted upon my olfactory memory.

Halls and halls of colour and loveliness,
connected by tunnels dripping with blossoms.

Peculiar bulbous flowers in the collection.

Pagoda at dusk on the royal grounds.

And when Belgium's leaders aren't taking strolls smelling the roses, they're busy at work at the royal palace...

That's me on my bicycle in the middle, the palace to
the right. I didn't go in for a visit - though it was
also open to the public for part of the summer.

Or at Parliament.

On Belgian's National Day, I did what all good new-comers to Belgium should do and went to the openhouse at the parliament...


Followed by strolling through events promoting various public services...

That's the Brussels fire department scaling office
building walls just for fun and PR.

And then I got into the Belgian spirit in the celebrations on the street...

Eating frit in the street in the heat.
It doesn't get much more Belgian than this -
Belgian fries, surrounded by the Belgian colours,
and with a giant mural of the King in the background.

But it does get cuter. All cars were cleared off this
side street for the day, except for these 3 Smart
cars in the colours of the Belgian flag.

The law courts were open to the public for the day, so I dropped in to see the inside...

Posing at le Palais de Justice.

I've still got a thing or 2 to learn about
posing from pros like this guy.

And I also took advantage of a 1 Euro visit to the fine arts museum as part of the festivities.

Some would argue that this isn't exactly 'fine art',
but it was my favourite piece. Something
I would aspire to make. It's a giant globe
made up of beetle bodies - all collected by
the artist

Entomology + Art - fantastic! 2 of my passions in one.

The Belgian National Day wasn't the only party in the streets. One Saturday evening I discovered a very down-to-earth neighbourly celebration near my office...

I love the party decor of laundry hung to dry
between apartment buildings across the street.
A lovely symbol of neighbourly interconnectedness
and interdependence.

Another morning, I woke up to notice that my street was oddly quiet except for a murmur of friendly chatter. I looked down from my balcony to see this...


It was my street's designated weekend for Brussels' rotating street flea market. I bought what is possibly the coolest hat I've ever owned.

Another one of Brussels' streets, along the otherwise very utilitarian-looking canal, is turned into a beach for a few weeks of the summer with the help of a few loads of sand: Bruxelles les Bains...


In the genre of athletic events, I celebrated Brussels 'Week of the Bike,' also called the 'Dring Dring Festival' by joining a free bicycle tour of one part of the city...

My favourite statue in Brussels - spotted along our bike tour.

A beautiful contemplative garden along our
tour at the home of the Dutch scholar Erasmus.

Another weekend, I attempted to join the weekly Friday-night "Roller Parade" with a friend from French class. 200 people, skating through the streets together to music - a great energy-filled event of community.

But it turns out this is really NOT an event for beginner rollerbladers. Also - be warned, rollerblading on cobblestone is really NOT easy. After approximately...hmm.. 3 minutes, my friend and I realized that we were putting our lives at risk by trying to participate with the far more skilled group. Sheepishly, we tried to discreetly dropped out of the massive crowd of wheeled people rushing past as cars waited threatening to run over stragglers (like us) once the group was passed. Instead, we caught the tram (ironic...we know), and went to the park where we were able to slowly, and safely try to develop some rollerblading skills.

My fellow beginner-roller companion.
Notice how happy with anticipation she
looks BEFORE we set out with the group.

I don't have pictures of how pitiful we looked as we
attempted to skate and then dropped out a few meters later
- we were focused on other things... like not breaking limbs.
But here's me recovering my pride as we waited for the tram.

Let's try this again. Without cobblestone or
people yelling at us to keep up, or cars eager to step on the gas...

And voila. I look like I can rollerblade, no?
It's all fun & games until you try to stop.

Then just this weekend, it was 'No Car Day' in Brussels, which is not just a nice recommendation here, but actually strictly enforced. Instead the streets are filled with happy cyclists and strollers. Alas, my weary body was confined to my apartment, suffering as I currently am from some evil virus (H1N1 or otherwise), and so I could only look down longingly from above, and watch the queue at the ice cream shop across the street, wishing desperately that I could join the happy healthy people in body as well as spirit.

Families of bicycles parked in front of Brussels finest
ice cream shop (conveniently located accross the
street from my home - am I a lucky kid of what?)

In addition to political PR, random street celebrations and athletic events, there was also plenty of art and culture all through the summer.

In the dramatic department, I attended the Brussels International Film Festival and learned all about the Sri Lankan National Handball Team, laughed uproaressly at the Brussels Stand-Up night, dropped in on the small neighbourhood street theatre festival called the Fete de Fleur...

Yes - that would be a 6-piece band on a 6-man tandem bicycle.
Impressive. The left break played the symbol at the front, and
the man at the back played the tuba while simultaneously,
beating the base drum using a foot peddle. I wonder
if they started out with training wheels.

...And I attended the Love's Labours Lost performance held by the 'Brussels Shakespeare Society' at the loveliest of stages: outdoors in the garden of a small castle...

Castles like this can be found in little villages around here.
People used to live like this.

And it turns out - people still do live like this.
As I posed for this photo, a man stuck his head out of
his window above and said bonjour. We were later
informed that it's his private property and we
should have kept to the garden outside. Oops.

And then, of course, there was music. Song & dance & beautiful notes on the summer air.

From a lunchtime classical music concert, sitting on the floor of a great stone church, listening to Bach's notes rise up to the domed ceiling and to the heavens above, to groovin' in the streets during the completely free Brussels Jazz Marathon...


Then there was the Brosella Folk, Blues & Jazz Festival, where I danced into the evening with a bunch of ball/folk-dancing Belgians to fiddles and guitars and acordians.

The tidiest and prettiest amphithetre I've ever seen:
1 row of green hedge, 1 row of people.

Learning Belgian folk dances with the locals on a square in the park.

At the 'Bal National' in Brussels and the annual 10-day 'Ghent Festival', I joined in as best I could, singing and dancing to what I could only surmise were Belgium's most famous folk and pop songs of the last 30+ years.

In Ghent, there was this beautiful 'public bonding musical moment' (actually, a full couple of hours) where I was in the midst of a massive square full of people and more hanging out of their balconies around us, all singing along in what amounted to a mass-karaoke party. From toddlers to grandmas, and everyone in between, we belted out the words to well known songs in English, French and Flemmish (ok, so the latter 2 weren't so well-known to me), with the help of a newspaper printed each year with all the words on it.

I'm proud to say I can now sing a song in Flemish. The main chorus goes: "Ik hou van u, ik hou van u, ik hou van u. Geef me een kus! En vlug, voor de laatste bus!" (Translation: "I love you, I love you, I love you. Give me a kiss. And quickly, before the last bus.") ... Might come in handy someday, no?

In Ghent, eating Belgian Frit (fries) with mayonaise,
with a typical Flemmish house in the background.
Another very Belgian moment. (I've never eaten
fries as much as I have this summer, and for the record,
was doing it strictly to enhance my cultural awareness -
followed by lots and lots of walking).

It was a very culturally rich summer.

And if you think that's a lot, I sadly missed the Summer Music Festival, 'Friskies' weekly park areobics, the Drive-In Movies and the Theaterfestival to name just a few.

So much fun to be had in a European capital!

Coming soon: Other highlights of summer in Brussels, and sweet sailing adventures in Canada.