"Buying bread from a man in Brussels..." or "I am a breathing time machine..." or "I think I'll have myself a beer..."

Belgium has never really been on my radar as a particularly attractive place to visit, and it never gets considered on my ever-changing “places to see before I die” list. However, I had a 5-day window of time between Paris and Amsterdam, so Belgium seemed like the natural choice. What I found was a completely understated country with awesome culture and charm.

I started in Brussels. In truth, there’s not a ton to do in that city. It’s the seat of the European Union, but I had little interest in doing sightseeing of diplomatic buildings. The center of the city surrounds Grand Place, a beautiful square lined with Gothic buildings. My stay happened to coincide with an annual jazz festival, so a great live blues/jazz band offered a soundtrack to my first night in Brussels. I met 3 guys (a father, his son, and his stepson) in my hostel. We all went out together, trading rounds of Belgian beer, eating Greek food (there are tons of pita places on a street just off the Grand Place), and listening to live music. The next day, I wandered around the city in daylight, taking in the tourist sights. Honestly, this does not take very long, as they’re mostly concentrated in an easily navigated central area. Nothing terribly noteworthy happened in Brussels, but I definitely enjoyed myself. Here are some photos:

The world-famous "piss" fountain in Brussels.

The start of the live music in the Grand Place, Brussels.

Grand Place.

Cool buildings in Grand Place.

Main square... again.

On my third day in Belgium, I hopped on a train to Bruges, the most-visited city in Belgium. I knew absolutely nothing about this city, and (until today) I had not even watched In Bruges, the recent Colin Farrell movie that takes place in the quaint city. Bruges is loaded with tourists, but (much like Paris) this is for good reason. The architecture and pace of Bruges feels totally lost in time, and it feels like it never made it out of the Middle Ages. The city almost looks like an Epcot exhibit. The whole town has cobblestone streets, medieval-looking facades, a series of Venice-style canals that runs through the whole city, and some beautiful churches to boot. As if that weren’t enough, there are actually age-old windmills on the edge of town. I stayed at the Snuffel Youth Hostel, which is the best hostel I’ve stayed in so far. It was extremely easy to meet people there, so the cast of characters with whom I explored the old town was constantly rearranging.

I won’t waste time going into too much detail, but here are the highlights of my visit to Bruges: the Basillica of the Holy Blood, a church that (supposedly) has a few drops of Christ’s blood as a religious relic; the aforementioned windmills, which were an awesome place to relax in the afternoon; Markt, the city’s center square, which is surrounded by cafes and amazing buildings; the Belfort, a medieval structure that towers over the Markt square and offers postcard-worthy views of the city; a boat ride on the canals; and Beginjhof, a centuries-old nunnery in a quiet garden with swans and flowers. On my final day in Bruges, I finally watched In Bruges. One of the characters summed up the city very well: “How can a f***ing fairy tale city not be your thing?!” After visiting this land that time seemingly forgot, it’s hard not to understand the character's point. I can’t imagine anyone not feeling impressed with the buildings, scenery, and atmosphere of Bruges. Even in spite of the hyper-polished, Epcot-esque feel of the town, it was still one of the more beautiful towns I’ve seen:

The canal.

Cool street in Bruges.

Nothing to do with Bruges, but how awesome is this dog I saw?

Tall buildings in the main square.

The canal again.

...And with the Belfort in the background.

Windmill!

Me atop the windmill.

The massive Belfort up close.

   

Tourists touching the (alleged) blood of Jesus.

The Belfort and pretty sky.

Swan at the nunnery.

The entrance to the nunnery.

The view of the Belfort.

A nearby church.

Not from this century.

Belgium is definitely a wonderful country architecturally, culturally, and scenically. Arguably, though, its best attribute is the food—or, more specifically, the beer and the sweets. All of the clichés and stereotypes are true about Belgium: you can get the most rich chocolate drizzled over an authentically sugared Belgian waffle, all while enjoying one of countless local beers. All of it was delicious, particularly the beers. I am not too much of a drinker, but the beer in Belgium really was—at the risk of sounding completely lame—a delight to drink. Belgium is a country that knows and appreciates good beer, and it shows. In fact, it’s infectious. I could almost feel myself becoming a beer snob, and it really doesn’t matter that I know very little about beer. Coupled with the sweets, my snack-time experiences here put Belgium near the top of my culinary list for this trip. As Kevin, always mindful of my diabetes, told me via Skype: “Belgium can literally kill you.” You only need to see the photos for proof:

I know.

Such good beer.

Enjoying the best waffel of my life.

Still more good beer.

Tomorrow, I head to Amsterdam to meet my cousin Maggie and (hopefully) a few other people we know in the area. I am definitely eager to get to Amsterdam, and I think it will be the last city I hit in Western Europe. There will be a blog within a week about my experiences there. Until then, I look forward to hearing from everyone.

“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

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"Oh, Paris, you've really done something to me..." or "If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down..." or "With the roar of cars and the lulling of the cafe bars, the sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine..."

Paris is a city of clichés: the City of Light, the City of Love, a city of great wine and great cheese, a city of poets and painters, a city beloved by everyone from Humphrey Bogart (or at least Rick Blaine) to Earnest Hemingway, from Pablo Picasso to Woody Allen. With this type of notoriety, I don’t know what I can say about Paris that hasn’t been said in excess by others far more eloquent than I am. With that disclaimer on the record, here is what I’ve been doing the past few days.

My hostel in Paris was surprisingly nice. Located right by the St. Paul Metro station, I was never too far from any destination in the city. Armed with my three-day unlimited Metro Pass, I hit the major tourist attractions. First came Notre Dame, which is as beautiful as I had always imagined. Then I headed to the Eiffel Tower. Even after being inundated with romantic photos and films of the Eiffel Tower my entire life, I was still extremely impressed when I saw it up close. The next day, I hit the Catacombs, which was well worth the wait and entrance fee. The damp underground corridors were lined on all sides by human bones and skulls, which was a lot more “in-your-face” than I had imagined. Pretty creepy. I also visited the Louvre at sunset, though I did not actually go inside (the building was impressive enough for me). Here are some photos of all of these things:

Bridge over the Seine.

The Seine, cutting through the center of Paris.

Notre Dame.

High ceilings inside Notre Dame.

Inside Notre Dame again.

Stained glass window and sculpture inside Notre Dame.

Above the entrance to the Notre Dame.

The Seine... again. I just couldn't get over this river.

The Eiffel Tower. Obviously.

Me and the Eiffel Tower. Obviously.

Night on the Seine w/ wine and cheese. So French.

Skulls in the Catacombs.

More bones.

Creepy corridor in the Catacombs.

The next "Dying Fetus" album cover?

Down in the tunnels.

Near the Louvre.

The Louvre.

Approaching the entrance at sunset.

The pyramid at sunset.

I also visited a renowned cemetery in Paris that houses the tombs of important and famous people. The grounds were peaceful, and the ostentatious tombs were beautiful. When I arrived, I intended to see the final resting places of Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, both of whom are buried there. However, I did not find a map, so I failed. Initially, this bummed me out, but then I remembered two simple facts that made me feel better: (1) I’ve never read a word written by Oscar Wilde, and (2) the Doors are overrated. I left the graveyard without regret.

Pere Lachaise cemetary.

NOT Oscar Wilde's grave.

NOT Jim Morrison's grave.

Montmarte was my favorite area in Paris. On my last day, I went to check out the Salvador Dali museum, which houses over 300 lesser-known works by him. I have always loved Dali’s work, and the museum had loads of sketches, furniture, sculptures, and paintings by the quirky surrealist.

Art in the Dali Museum.

A sculpture adapted from "The Persistence of Memory."

Dali in Paris.

Dali with Communists on his mustache? I would kill to have this poster on my wall.

In addition to the Dali museum, Montmarte is home to the best site I visited in Paris: the Basilique du Sacre Coeur (the Basillica of the Sacred Heart), a towering, hilltop, white-domed church that offers an incredible view of Paris. On the inside of the church, the domed ceiling has an enormous devotional painting on it. There were plenty of tourists there, but not as many as this church deserves.

The view from the Basillica of the Sacred Heart.

The church itself.

The amazing art on the ceiling.

Paris also allowed me to fulfill my dream of visiting Shakespeare & Company, an English-language bookstore that has been frequented by great ex-pat writers of the past. City Lights Books of San Francisco, my favorite bookstore in the world, has a sister relationship with Shakespeare & Company. The bookstore is also featured in the first scene of Before Sunset, one of my favorite films. Furthermore, Shakespeare & Company was a hang-out for some of the best writers of the 20^th century: Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and more. The store is small and musty, and the walls are lined from top to bottom with books. However, it’s not organized the way a Borders is. In all honesty, Shakespeare & Company somehow only seems to stock books that people like me would be interested in reading. They’ve got everything, and the staff is extremely knowledgeable. This is a bookstore for people who truly love literature.

Shakespeare & Company.

A random scrawling inside the store.

Wall-to-wall books.

A shout-out to City Lights, my other favorite bookstore.

I could literally spend days in here.

I really enjoyed Paris, but I was initially a bit underwhelmed by it. After all of the hype, I expected to be swept off my feet in Paris. That didn’t happen. In addition to this, the city is crawling with tourists. Obviously, it’s ridiculous for me to complain about this, as I am part of the hoards of Americans who come here to take photos of the Notre Dame. Nevertheless, it’s hard to feel the magic of a city when you see as many camera-happy tour groups as you do genuine Parisians. As I said (and as should be obvious from my descriptions above), this did not affect how much I loved Paris. This is a world-class city if ever I have seen one.

That said, though, my trip got me thinking about the conluence of tourism, expectation, and memory in a city as famous and romanticized as Paris. For decades (even centuries), Paris has been described as a city for lovers and poets, winos and art lovers. Indeed, the city offers all of these things and more, but it has all been commercialized in the form of kitsch souvenirs and excessive entrance fees. There are literally tour buses on every corner, and the lines at the major attractions are out of control. I guess that's the problem with idealizing a place like Paris: it still retains all of the art and romance, but it now does so (at least partially) to feed the expectations of foreigners (like me). When Shakespeare & Company was founded, it was in a dodgy part of the city. Now, the area is extremely commercial and chic. This is the predestined trajectory of every Bohemian Mecca. From Greenwich Village to Haight-Ashbury to North Beach, neighborhoods that spawn great movements ultimately get changed and trampled beneath waves of artistic pilgrims and tourists (like me). It's uchangeable fate. Greenwich Village will never be as cool as it was in the 1940s. Haight-Ashbury is a commercialized shadow of what it must have been like in the summer of 1967. North Beach retains only a fraction of its Beatnik cool from 1956. Paris is much like these places. The painters have been displaced by caricature artists. Berets are a novelty. People did not seem to go to the Eiffel Tower because it's organically romantic; they seemed to go there because we all agree that the Eiffel Tower is the most romantic place on Earth. Unfortunately, there is a difference between these two motivations. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE all of the places I just mentioned. It's just that I have to approach them in the same way that I visit a museum. I love North Beach because it's where Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg drank and recited their poetry (past tense). I love Haight-Ashbury because it's a dying vestige of the earnest Summer of Love. However, if I expect to find genuine Beat poets in North Beach or the new Grateful Dead in Haight-Ashbury, then I think I'm in for some serious disappointment. When the socio-artistic movements gain popularity, the gentrification and "yuppification" (*I am coining this term) beings. Much to my dismay, I am fully aware that I am as much a part of this entropy as anybody else.

Damnit. I’ve made my blog negative again. Honestly, I don’t want those last two paragraphs to leave the wrong impression. I thoroughly enjoyed Paris. I would say it’s one of the best cities I’ve ever visited. At the end of the day, maybe it IS better to preserve the legacy of Hemingway’s Europe, even if we have to do that through miniature statues of the Eiffel Tower and “I <3 Paris” T-shirts. Even in spite of these negatives, Paris is an unbelievably romantic and beautiful city in its own right. Even if no one had heard of Paris—no hype, no cheesy souvenirs, no romantic films, etc.—I still would have loved it. I guess that’s my point: Paris is not about the hype. I was not swept off my feet. I did not fall in love beneath the Eiffel Tower. I did not even fall in love with the city of Paris. Nevertheless, maybe my expectations were a little unreasonable. I found my new favorite bookstore; I saw some of the most beautiful churches that I could ever imagine; I drank wine on the banks of the Seine; and I smoked hookah just off the Boulevard St. Michel. If that doesn’t indicate that Paris is a fantastic city, then nothing would. 

Tourists could never ruin this scene.

So that's it. I hope this blog didn't leave you thinking: "Ben is such a negative dick." Consider it one big backhanded compliment to Paris, which I really did love. It is a wonderful city, and I hope this blog didn't detract from that. To shamelessly rip off the film title: Paris, je t'amie.

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

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