Brussels Nov 2001

nickjenkins Wyświetlono: 471 razy 2003-11-20 15:49:49

Ocena:3.50 (4 głosy)

Korpewelten and Waffles
I spent a weekend in Brussels on a work social trip and I went with no particular expectations which was just as well. The little I know about Belgium and it's culture didn't particular recommend Brussels as a top-ten must see capital. Chocolates, beer, Jean Claude Van-Damm and the EU commission hardly make me break out into a sweat of enthusiastic desire, well except for the first two.

We left Waterloo early on Friday evening with a predicted arrival time just before midnight in Brussels. Eurostar started out with its customary composed and efficient service and in its all too frequent fashion chucked it all away about 40 minutes from the entrance to the Tunnel. For admittedly prudent reasons (sercurity) the train was delayed for two and half hours while the police boarded to perform some mysterious unspecified task. My offer of £20 to anyone who would run hysterically screaming from the cabin the moment the police entered was sadly not put to the test since we never saw them at our end of the train.

During our sojourn I retired to the bar where I discovered the South American game of Perudo. Perudo is a liar's dice game which involves equal amounts of logic and bravado and, hopefully, large quantities of alcohol. Initially players seem to think that the game revolve around statistical prediction of the outcome and spend ages agonising over whether to call "five-fours" or "six-sixes". As you progress however you realise that the dice are more or less ancillary to the game and all you really require is a poker face and balls the size of a planet. You then bluff your way through successive rounds until you end up in a hombre-a-hombre battle with someone who has balls the size of Jupiter and go down in a blaze of glory. It was a pleasant enough way to while away a couple of hours.

So we trailed into Brussels sometime around two in the morning and proceeded through customs to await a taxi, all other forms of transport having ceased some hours earlier. In a scene which someone remarked "would never have happened in Britain" a string of taxis materialised as if by magic (or radio) and the two hundred odd people left waiting evaporated in a matter of minutes.

After check-in a few people hit the town in search of night life but I headed for bed with the avowed intention of getting up to see something of Brussels the next day.

Arising reasonably late the next day I still managed to drift downstairs in time to catch an indescribably horrible breakfast and some coffee to kick start me for the day. First on the agenda was a quick orientation tour of the city centre taking in a few of the parks, the major cathedral and finally the Grand Plaz in the centre of the city.

The parks were lovely but a little sterile and were populated with grand statuary and elegant fountains.

Strona: 1, 2, 3, 4

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