BrusselsNannyy Diaries: Off the Beaten Path

On Sunday, Sarah and I attempted (the key word here) to find the infamous Tour & Taxis area of Brussels. Tour & Taxis is basically an exhibition center, where they host art fairs, concerts, restaurant tastings and much more, and it is HUGE. It is spread out over a large area with buildings and beautiful architecture.

I was there once already about a month ago for concert (techno, of course, with the famous Swedish DJ Sven Väth). So, you would think this place would be easy to find, right? It’s big, famous, with a popular art exhibition going on at the moment… But you would be wrong. We got off at the metro stop that was mentioned on the T & T website, and then I knew we had to walk about 10 minutes to get the actual place. I figured there would be a sign or something pointing us in the right direction. I even remember to bring a map this time, and knew the address of the place so I could put it in my GPS on my phone. First, we followed the direction the map showed us, but could not find the street. Then, we asked a nice looking lady coming out of a grocery store (so we were guessing she probably lived in this area and would know about the famous Tour and Taxis), if she could kindly direct us toward Tour and Taxis. The only thing we got from her was “Non, je ne sais pas.” Okay, cool. You shop and probably live here, but you have never heard of this famous exhibition center just a 10 minute walk away. But we were not giving up just yet. We kept looking for the street, until we passed another young girl who seemed like she would know this place. I try in my deeply American accented French (I’m sorry, I really can’t help it! I’m working on fixing that..) to ask here where it is. I forgot to pronounce Tour & Taxis the French way though, and at first, the girl had no idea what I was talking about. Then her friend said, “Ahh! Tooor eeee Tahxees!” Um yeah, that. Whoops. Gotta remember to pronounce it better next time. They seemed to know exactly where it was, and told us to take out next right and then straight, then right, then left (I thought..). So, we followed their directions, and kept walking. At first, we were hesitant because the street she told us to turn on was one of the smallest side-street around, and seemed to be leading us into the poorer quarter of the city, with tattered laundry hanging out the windows and the streets laden with even more gum, garbage and dog poop than usual. A few minutes later, we saw a man ahead of us getting on to his motorcycle (Random comment here…motorcycles and mop heads are quite popular here. Everyone rides them, and I mean everyone, no matter the age or gender. Yesterday, I saw a 65-70 year old lady in a periwinkle blue house dress and apron, little felt slippers and a shawl, heaving herself onto her giant white moped, smiling at me and then roaring away. It was just the funniest thing I’d ever seen).

Anyway, we asked this guy if we were on the right track. He said yes, just take a right up a hill and then it will be on your left. Good, we thought. We are going to make it! But this is when it all went downhill… We followed the street. Then came the place where I figured we were supposed to take the right…the problem was, there were two rights. One more to our right, and then one straight but still slightly right. The one more straight went up hill, so I figured we’d just try that one. We kept walking (poor Sarah at this time was getting a little worried about getting lost in this smelly, dirty place… I didn’t blame her), looking for something that could lead us to T & T. Instead, the all the store signs began to change…and all the people...and the houses...and the voices we heard… The French was gone, everything was suddenly in Arabic, only darker skinned people with men wearing turbans and long silk dressed and women wearing scarfs wrapped around their heads, people were yelling across the street at each other in a language I’d never heard before. Pigs and chickens were roasting outside the meat markets, the clothing stores had models wearing colorful beaded gowns and headdresses, and all the store signs were in Arabic. The streets were insanely crowded with people all the sudden, shouting at each other. Cars sped through the tiny street once in a while, barley passing people without hitting them. It felt like we had stepped out of Belgium, no, out of Europe, and into a completely different country in the Middle East. Now, I was sure of it...we were not only lost, we were lost in the Muslim Quarter of Brussels.

At this point, we really didn’t know what to do, considering that the people here seemed to not be able to speak French, let alone English. I tried using the GPS on my phone to guide us in the right direction, and we pushed out way through the crowds trying to ignore the stairs from the men who were probably not very used to seeing non-fully-covered girls in their quarter. Suddenly, the GPS signal was lost, and at this point, we just wanted to find a tram to get us back home. Standing in the middle of the street, another old man in a turban trudging by us and giving us a stare, then smell of roasting pig wafting through the air, Sarah and I look at each other...and then burst out laughing. What did we get ourselves into? Sarah, always trying to be positive said, “Well, at least I got to see a part of Brussels that not many tourists get to see!” This was true. We laughed and laughed, standing there on the street. Finally, we decided to just keep following what seemed to be the main shopping street of the quarter, and it should end up somewhere outside of the quarter. Thankfully, we found ourselves a few minutes later by the canal with all the big, colorful pinwheels. I knew where we were! We gave each other a big hug. What an adventure:)

Here are some picture I snapped while touring the Muslim Quarter (good thing the shop keeper didn't see me take that picture of the store sign like they talked about in the article...)

While I was writing this post, I did some research about the Muslim population in Brussels. Apparently Muslims make up one-quarter of the population of Brussels. And I found this interesting article from the Israeli News that another blogger translated from Ynet. It describes the Muslim Quarter here in Brussels very well:
http://islamineurope.blogspot.be/2006/06/middle-east-in-heart-of-brussels.html

On the tram home, Sarah, as she always does, made an interesting observation about the people here in Brussels. She said, “You know Margot, I’m looking at the faces of the people sitting here on the tram, and I notice that they have such different expressions than people who live in the country or a small town, or even a small city like Dresden. Here, they seem liked they’ve aged faster, like they look older than they really are, like they have already experienced so much in life and feel no need to experience anymore. It’s kind of sad in a way.” I could agree with her. The people on the tram did look kind of fed up with life, like they’ve seen enough. I guess when you live in a city, especially one like Brussels, there is so much to see everyday, so much going on, that you must, someday, get to the point where you feel you can’t take it anymore. Personally, I can’t believe how much I have done and how many new, crazy, fascinating things I have seen in just the past 5 weeks I’ve been here.. But honestly, I really hope I don’t end up like those people on the tram. I want to keep experiencing new things for the rest of my life. Is it really possible to get tired of it? I don’t know… What do you think?

Here are some pictures from the city tour Sarah and I did on her first day in Brussels (Last Thursday):

The typical white-haired old lady captured in her daily 4 o'clock coffee-and-cake-time spot:)

At the famous Wittamer Patisserie. Mostly old ladies go here around four to eat cake and tea, but we wanted to try it too!

This chocolate delight is called "Sablon", named after the church right near the patisserie.

Every Thursday until December, Brussels has a museum open at night until 10pm (this on-going festival is called Nocturnes). We went to the Medieval tower in Porte de Hal, where you got a full 360 degree view if Brussels at night.