As Crazy as a Tiny Country Could Be

Found this cartoon quite entertaining...and surprisingly true. What do you think? Comment and let me know:)

You would not believe this, but in the past two days, two people have asked me if I was Spanish… What the heck? Is it my accent when I speak French? I don’t think so…it’s pretty obviously an American English accent. Is it the way I look? No again… I mean don’t most Spanish people have dark hair and tan skin? I just don’t get it…but alright.

Anyway, now onto a totally new topic. On Thursday night, I went to visit my Belgian friend Dries (the one who I met at a concert when I first arrived in Brussels and he taught me the Belgian hand signal for a beer at a bar). He lives in the small town of Mechelen, but has lived in almost every Belgian city possible. The past 6 weeks he spent snowboarding with his friends in Zillertal (yes, where I was! Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to meet up). One of the great things I find about Europe is that they really try to help out young people who don’t earn much money to be able to afford to travel. They have developed couch surfing (you sign up online and people offer to let you sleep on their couch if you allow the same thing for them), carpooling to different cities (people post times and routes online and you sign up to ride in the car with them, and split gas money). There are cheap hostels galore, in every city, and good discounts for train tickets. I think the US should definitely take up some of these ideas, because when you’re young, it’s the best time to travel!

Anyway, whenever Dries and I meet up, we always have the most interesting conversations. He loves talking about Belgium and how just “messed up crazy” it is. I arrived at the Mechelen train station (it’s only a 20 min train ride from Brussels) and we met up and he walked me through the center. There was a big bar party with a rock band and a bunch of young students dancing, and then we turned a corner and it was completely empty and silent, but it was beautiful. There was a canal running along the old Dutch houses, with a lit boardwalk over the water, going along the side of it, so you could basically follow the canal while walking over it. He pointed out the Fish Market, where he said all his friends and him used to hang out when he was younger. Apparently it’s a great place to drink and party..would have never guessed. 

Walking over the canal

The pretty center (with bikes of course! Cars are not even allowed in the center of Mechelen)

There was a cute bar with all its windows lit up and the light glittering on the water. People were sitting inside, drinking beer. Dries told me that this bar has over 1000 beers, and even the most strangest, hardest to get Belgian beers and that the guy who owns it is super old but knows everything there is to know about Belgian beer and takes it very seriously. He wants all of his customers to appreciate the flavor and love that went into the making of the beer. He takes sometimes a half hour just to bring your beer out. But you are not supposed to care, you are supposed to just take time and relax.

We walked into another bar that seemed a little bit livelier and had a younger crowed. We sat down and Dries ordered us the special beer of Mechelen, called “golden” something or another. Of course, it was a strong one. I asked Dries if he knew why Belgians made their beers so strong. Immediately he said, “Well, it is definitely not because we want to get drunk off of it, as some people falsely assume. If we want to get drunk, we drink lots of normal beer. Strong beer is supposed to be drunk slowly and enjoyed. You have to savor the taste and drink it with love, because it was made with love. Lots of care goes into the making of it, to make sure it has the perfect taste.” Hm, maybe that is why they call this beer we were drinking “golden”…because it’s like gold for the Belgians. I laughed and told Dries about how the concept of drinking a strong drink just for the flavor would never be comprehended by people my age back in the States. They drink to get drunk, and that’s it. When I told them about how strong the beer is here, they immediately asked me to bring them back some bottles because it was “so hard for them to get strong alcohol”. Dries told me how he learned about the importance of treating Belgian beer with care and savoring the flavor when he was only 13 years old. He said he would sit at a bar with his dad, each of them drinking a Duvel (one of Belgium’s strongest beers..8.5% alcohol).

What I also find quite funny here in Belgium is that some of the strongest, most sought after beers made here are brewed by monks right inside their monasteries. They take great pride in their beer, and only make it in small batches. If you want a pack, you have to order it many months in advance, and then go to the monastery at a specific time to pick it up. But apparently, the time, effort and money is worth it, for this “liquid gold.”

 As the picture above is trying to hint, we also got on the subject of Belgian politics, which is something Dries loves to talk about. I asked him if the King of Belgium (yes, Belgium still has a king) actually does anything. He said honestly, no, but that he did do one thing, when Belgium spent 249 days (more than 8 months) with no government. Yes, two years ago, Belgium had no government ruling it. You may ask, how did not all hell break lose and the country go into total mayhem? Well, because of Belgians. Belgians and their attitude of, let’s role with it, no one cares, just go on with life. Belgians. They really don’t care about important stuff like a government. Then they wonder why one man can lead 310 million Americans quite fine, but they can’t manage with their 60 people leading this country of 10 million. They just can’t do anything and have done nothing, in terms of creating laws or making changes. I think there are two reasons for this 1. Because people in the states actually care about politics. Here, you never hear anyone say one peep about the government. 2. 60 people trying to agree on one decision, without one leader to make the final one, just doesn’t work. It’s just taking Belgium a longer time to figure that one out. Maybe going another 9 months without a government could do them well…

For example, the Belgian government had immense amount of trouble trying to decide where the boundaries of Brussels was and where the signs would stop having to be both in French and Flemish. I agree, these are difficult decisions, but come on...in the end, who  cares about a few meters different between where Brussels ends and Wallonia begins? No one in Belgium, I can assure you that.

The period of no government in Belgium is sometimes referred to as
"The Revolution of Belgian Fries." Just goes to show you how proud Belgians are of their fries...you'd only hope that they would also have a bit more pride for more important things in their country, like their government.

Europe doesn’t think of itself as one continent. Dries said that it is really funny every time I refer to this place as “Europe”. He said no European ever calls themselves “European” or says “I’m from Europe” simply because, Europe is not a unified place. Yes, they have the EU of which the majority of the countries are a part of, and share the same currency, but that is pretty much all that they have in common. And just 10 years ago, this place didn’t even have the same currency. Every single country had a completely different one, and the exchange rate was completely wacko.  Dries said he remembers when all the currencies were different (he was 12 years old when it changed) and that he actually never left Belgium, just like pretty much every other person never traveled out of their own country back then.  No one thought a need to. They were from their country and the other ones sharing the continent were not of importance to them.

He also told me this sauna story which I found quite amusing. He and his friends went to the sauna together in Zillertal. I asked in surprise, “And you were all naked together??” Dries, “Um yeah…it’s normal.” I just could not comprehend that. All I could picture was 6 naked guys sitting in a hot room on a bench together, staring at each other. Maybe it was the little bit of American prudeness that has influenced me after living there the past couple of years, but all I could think about was how “gay” my friends back home would find that. But honestly, that is just silly. And what am I even talking about, I even did it myself. Jeez, Europe is influencing me even more than I thought it would…

Well...at least I'm not on the total other extreme, like this typical American tourist: