Jamie’s Travels

Brussels is not one of the prettier cities I’ve been to. It feels stuck in the past being there. I can’t explain it but it’s just a feeling I had.

We arrived to our hostel fairly late and headed out to find some shops for dinner – of which there were not many. The hostel was very nice though. A private room to ourselves and a kitchen are always a bonus. We even ran into a loose connection there. By shear coincidence Josie’s house mate ended up staying in the same hostel as us. We chatted with her for a bit and wished her well as she’s just begun her solo journey across the continent.

In the morning we headed to the city. Tightly packed streets and overly priced food didn’t sell me too much on the city early doors. We then headed to an exhibit about Magritte. Who I recognised purely off of the painting of the guy with an apple over his face (which unfortunately is in a private collection and wasn’t included in the gallery). I’m not sure if his art is really my thing – for the most part I didn’t really get what he was going for. I did enjoy his leaf birds though.

Blissfully we left the art museum and headed towards Atomium. The large pods in the sky connected by columns and beams. Built in the 1950s for the worlds fair, they were meant to represent hope as at the time atomic theory was being reworked as an energy solution. Nowadays they’re a viewing gallery for the city and an exhibit about the worlds fair from 1958. The exhibit also includes a light show experience, this was more or less the pinnacle of the activity as the views over Brussels are not especially impressive.

For some reason the tour starts with a 15 minute queue for a lift to the top. You then hang out at the viewing gallery (which we seemed to leave hurriedly) and go right back down to where you started. Then you take lifts as you go through information about the worlds fair and then the light show. Then of course there’s also the extortionately priced gift shop, but that’s a given isn’t it.

The whole place reeks of longing for a recent gone era. It feels like a temple to an event from 55 years ago that hasn’t even firmly struck itself into the history books. Then there’s the fact it was refurbished in the early 2000s. It feels like a 2000s building. Again, I can’t quite describe exactly what I mean by this. But it’s certainly there. The whole vibe of it is life in the 50s through the lenses of the 00s. This review makes it seem like I didn’t enjoy it, because I did. I just found it slightly interesting since it seemed so detached.

We hurried back to the centre to find some food. As it turns out, Belgian fries are always fried in beef fat. Flora and I went round roughly 4 vendors in the heart of the city trying to find a smidgen of food we could eat but no luck. We very nearly missed our train as a result – however that is completely and entirely our fault. We made it in the end though thankfully (I think Chris would have actually murdered me if we missed it).

This culminated in me and Flora’s mad dash in Lille station to find food. A 10 minute stop seemed like a long time to be able to find something to eat – it is not. I didn’t even save that much money compared to the dining car. Funny story though anyway. Off to Lyon now.