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Well Brussels was v much fun. And I even had Brussels Sprouts, which was appropriate. They arrived disguised as an ingredient in a middle-eastern wheat and lentil dish, so I’m not entirely sure they were authentic, although they were indeed yummy. It’s far too long since I last had them.

But it was also cold. On Friday night, our first night there, it snowed harder than I have seen it in many years. It was coming down thick and fast, and being blown sideways by the fierce wind that was cutting up the wide street on which we eventually found our hotel. We had been told it was about two steps from the Grand Place, but it was more accurately two stops on the metro.

We ate far too much of the typical Brussels diet (read: fatty and very sweet), one night sharing our table with a tiny little mouse who scurried around by our feet, looking up at the table as though begging for food. We should have pointed him out to the waiter, but the last time we did that was in Vienna and now, no doubt, we have the little rodents’ death on our hands.

So, it’s still there, in one of the little eateries on a corner in the Rue des Boucheries, where we shouldn’t have eaten on account of it being a shameless tourist trap, but ended up anyway because it was recommended.

We spent Sunday in Bruges, where the town was welcoming in Fr Christmas. He arrived on a boat, ploughing slowly up one of the canals with a TV camera crew in hot pursuit as he threw sweets to the kids on the canalside. In the big central square they had erected a skating rink that was rapidly starting to thaw, with the skaters finding themselves transitioning from hard ice to wet slush almost as quickly as they simultaneously transitioned from upright gliding to horizontal face scraping, much to the delight of the sadistic onlookers.

The Eurostar, as always, was fabulous, and the people, on the whole, friendly, although the drivers could do with watching out for the crossings now and then. Particularly when there are people on them.

It’s much too long since I was last there. I hope it won’t be so long again before I’m back.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 28th, 2005 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Europe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.