Belgium

I took an Intercity train from Muenchen for Brussels to meet Nuno. He now works at the European Commission. He is involved in some work to improve agricultural policy standards in the countries which intend to enter European Unions, such as Cyprus and Rumania.
When I had called him from Isaac’s apartment a few days ago, he had been traveling to Cyprus to attend a business meeting. As he was scheduled to be back on the same day after my arrival, we had planed meet a cafeteria in front of the cinema close to his new apartment in Brussels.
After the train entered Belgium, the landscape and buildings completely changed, beautiful rural scenery and neat German houses were gone, a frock of dark gloomy brick buildings appeared. The trained stopped for several minutes in a southern Belgian town. This is the first Belgian town that I have seen and my impression was not so wonderful. The city looked like an abandoned ghost town. As it was an early evening, streets were deserted. Before arriving Brussels, I was already regretting to leave Germany.
The train arrived in Brussels before dark. I took subway to the meeting point.
Belgium is located between France and Holland. Official languages are therefore French and one of Dutch languages. However, the majority of places where tourists go there is no problem to communicate in English.
In the first few hours of my stay in Brussels, I was amazed how cosmopolitan Brussels is. There are a lot of African immigrants who speak French. I also saw many Spanish in a subway station. Young Spanish girls were talking aloud: “Venga!!!!…….Vamos!!!”
While slipping coffee at a cafeteria, I also overheard conversations in different languages. The table to my right was occupied with young African couples who were speaking a beautiful French language. In the next table, a native English speaker was chatting in his language with someone with a slight German accent. On my left, African men were talking aloud in English with his broken accent. Although I haven’t seen them yet, there were a lot of Portuguese immigrants as well.
The clock has already ticked eleven p.m. long ago, the Portuguese migrating bird from Massama has not appeared yet. I wondered if I misunderstood his instruction in the email where to meet. But soon I realized it is not unusual for him to be late.
“Well, he knows that I do not feel unease to be left in a foreign city. And it was likely that the flight from Cyprus can delay. ”
After the half past eleven or so, I saw Nuno walking toward the cafeteria and looking for an unusual species of the Japanese fish in the ponds of Belgian cafeterias. I waved my arm.
“About one hour ago, I and a Spanish colleague passed the cafeteria in a cab trying to find you but we couldn’t. So, I went home first to leave my luggage ” he explained.



We took a bus to his new apartment. The building is similar to the one which we used to see in Newcastle, a brick building. At the time I visited him there, his apartment had not redecorated inside. There seems to be a lot of work for Nuno and Lu after starting to live together. The wallpaper was torn and the shower hose was broken. His cosmetics items were randomly placed on the shelves.
“I just moved in this apartment before going to Cyprus.”, he said.
As he explained many things were not properly placed. However, in the living room, all his books were put aside in the bookshelf. It seems to show that things related to his work and study is in order. There were two Chinese textbooks which he bought in Shanghai. It looks untouched. I found Sydney Sheldon’s paperback too and took it from there.
“ Lu likes Sydney Sheldon” Nuno explained with a slight hint of his disapproval in the voice.
“Ah, ok.” I gave him a short response. When I started to study English in Australia about twelve years ago, my host mother gave some of Sheldon’s books for my reading practices. I was fascinated his storytelling. So, in next few years I read half of his books in English. Therefore, I did not give Nuno any negative comment on reading them.





“ So, Nuno, you said you have Portuguese cable TV.” I asked him.
“Yes, I have asked a man to set it up but I have not paid him yet.”
According to Nuno, he is not sure how to pay him because the man left after he set it up. Probably, he will drop by Nuno’s apartment a few weeks later to collect money. I suppose, in a Portuguese immigrant community, some work seems to be done in a casual manner by trust and little contract.
I heard that from the 1960s, a number of Portuguese immigrated to France, Belgium and Luxemburg to find work there. Many of them were engaged in hard blue color labour such as construction and steeling. In the middle of the 1980s, the entry of ECC motivated some Portuguese people to move to those countries where they can possibly earn higher income. For example, there are about 50,000 Portuguese living in a small country of Luxemburg.
Like in Luxemburg, there are some Portuguese communities in Brussels. There is one near Nuno’s apartment. We went there to have some coffee and talk about football
“Nuno, I was quite disappointed. Germany beat Portugal with 3-1. In Munich, that night was a nightmare. And they almost got to the final! IF, if there was no penalty for France.” I started.
“But Yasu. We, Portuguese have never been to be so successful in the World Cup for 40 years. I am quite content. ”, he said.
“Ok, that is true.” I was discouraged to continue an argument.
“What I don’t understand is the English. You know, they don’t realize that they play horrible football.” Nuno tried to lead our conversation to a positive part. In the round Eight in the tournament, Portugal has beaten England miraculously and English fans were in disbelief. He continued an episode of meeting an English man in the European Commission. The man seemed to be narrow-minded and had an “incredible” theory like: such a small and poor country never beats big and rich England. In this event, we were happy to show that he was wrong.

Next day, Nuno took me to a Belgian restaurant to taste mussel. Mussel is the best-known dish in Brussels. The most traditional mussel recipe is one in green sauce. The mystery is why it becomes Brussels’ specialty because the majority of mussels are imported from Holland.
The restaurant we went is specialized in mussel. The method of cooking is very simple: It is cooked in white wine. A large saucepan is used to simmer mussel. The pan is as large as one to feed a big dog!



Although the method is plain and simple, there are a variety of flavors to choose from: one with white wine, tomato, blue cheese and even curry. The atmosphere was good and a waitress is friendly. So, I enjoyed the dinner. But to be honest, the dish itself was not so impressive. Maybe it is because I still remember the taste of mussel in a tomato sauce that I had in Italy.
Several years ago, I visited Mihoko, a friend of mine who married with an Italian lawyer. They bought a kilo of mussels at fishmongers near the beach. We almost finished them all in that night.
Well, it can be wrong to compare Belgian cooking with Italian….Actually, I can say that Belgian cuisine is not so distinctive compared to ones like French, Italian or Spanish.
According to Nuno, there is very few PDOs (Protected Designation of Origin) in this country. Only a ham and butter.
“How impressive…”


Nuno is cooking Chorizo (Portuguese sausage)


Nuno is acting like Zidane!

So far, I gave only negative comments about Belgium. But there are, of course, some good aspects: For example, services in shops and restaurants are in high standard. When you go to shops, they salute with a friendly manner and addressed you with Mr. or Miss. When I bought a pair of trousers, a shop assistant had it made ready by next morning.
Belgian cooking is not so impressive but it is not such a bad place for sweet teeth. The most popular ones are waffle and chocolate. A box of assorted chocolates is a perfect souvenir.

In my last day, Nuno recommended me joining a bus tour. The most interesting spot was Peeing boy statue and fountain. To describe, the shameless kid is usually completely naked and pissing to the fountain in front of the public. He has a rather naughty to embarrass national guests from overseas by wearing their national flags. (Nuno, please exhibit some pictures if you have).

The tour bus took us around major tourists’ spots such as historical buildings, monuments, and museum. When the bus went past the European Commissions, Nuno said “Yasu, when you come to Brussels again, I will arrange a visit to the European Commissions. Sorry but this time, I was busy…”
“Yeah, ok. Promise me to meet Mr. Barrozo. ”





A stinky French cheese which was melt and spread its smell all over the fridge at Nuno's....