It took a while after the semester started, but I finally got a free weekend and booked a train ticket. I unfortunately picked the weekend Brussels almost floated away (more on that later), so the trains were late, but I arrived in Brussels on a cool and wet Friday night. Fatim and I wandered around a bit, checked out the Grand Place at night-beautiful, and had a nice dinner at a cute Italian place.
I also realized almost immediately that my French needs serious work. I took it for five years in high school, seven years ago, and haven't used it much since. Back then I was pretty good. Now though, while I could tell the French was in there somewhere, I was having a lot of trouble making sentences. My understanding was much better, but still rough. Fatim and her husband both speak English (each lived in the States for a year) but I tried to speak French with them. Unless of course, their cute four year old Elliott was listening and didn't need to understand! I did feel bad though, when he would talk to me in French and I couldn't understand. It usually wasn't too bad, as we would continue playing anyway, but I knew he wanted me to know what he was asking. Grr. Fatim reminded me though (sign of how long I've been away from young children) that at that age he wasn't using real words or sentences, which made me feel better.
It was nice though, to be in a (part of a) country where I could usually read signs and understand train announcements. They live in the southern French part of Belgium, but Brussels is French/Flemish (Dutch) and the northern half of the country is Flemish. And whoa is the split weird. Half the country speaks each language and in Brussels everything is in both languages. The weirdest part though, was that each half translates the names of cities in the other half. And they apparently literally translate them, not just change pronunciation or a few letters. What does that mean? Antwerpen (which English speakers call Antwerp) is called Anvers in the French part of the country. Lille=Rijsel, Tornai=Doornik, etc. And once you're in a certain part of the country, they only use their name for the city, so if you're looking for the "right" name, you'll never find it.
After diner Friday night, we made the 45 minute drive out to Fatim's house in the country (everything in Belgium is 45 minutes from Brussels). The house was so cool! It's from 1817 and is beautiful on the inside--exposed wooden beams, tile floors, great upstairs for the kids' rooms. Loved it. And a nice large yard I never set foot in. It was a holiday weekend in Belgium, and unfortunately absolutely poured from Thursday morning (start of the holiday) until Sunday night. Monday was gorgeous, Fatim told me later. The rain ended up being a huge problem, as Brussels just doesn't get rain like that and so is not designed to handle it. Lots of road and tunnel closures and accidents. And slow trains.
Anyway. Saturday morning after an awesome breakfast of croissants from the local baker, Fatim and I headed back into Brussels. The family didn't come because the parents knew the children would last about half an hour in the cold rain before being done with it all. Our first stop was the Atomium, a huge atom-looking thing that is a leftover from the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. It looks exactly like what was considered futuristic in the 1950s. So funny. But very cool-we got to climb inside it and look out for great view of Brussels.
After the Atomium we headed to the Renee Magritte museum, which was awesome. Google him, you'll recognize the stuff probably. A surrealist. It was a great collection, which we found out was because it was all loans from various collections and that the museum is only going to be open as long as people don't ask for the pieces back, which could be whenever, so I'm really excited we got to see it.
Saturday night was a nice dinner at home with the family. Good wine and cheese and conversation. And lots of playing savanna animals with the new lion toy Fatim had found Elliott since he couldn't come with us to Brussels. My favorite animal was the tiger that Elliott decided was "a lion made up as a tiger." He referred to it that way all weekend, without fail. Good memory! He also opened an imaginary restaurant where we tried his chocolate-carrot-coconut-something-else-really-odd soup. It was so much fun to be in a real house with a family again, instead of my impersonal dorm and with classmates around my age. The 10 month old was both teething and sick, so he wasn't happy, but the rest of us had a great time.
Sunday morning was crepes-delicious again! Then we got ready and headed off to Fatim's parents' house near Brussels. Her parents were really excited to finally get to meet someone from the family she had spent her year in the States with, and since they are Moroccan, they decided to show their excitement by feeding us. I've now learned that Moroccans do not feed you halfway. We ate skewers of meat with bread to dip in the juice, then couscous with chicken-vegetable sauce (and that you eat with sour milk, which was good), and then there was fruit and mint tea and cookies. But my descriptions aren't doing the meal any kind of justice. The food was amazing and the quantities were unreal. I'm pretty sure her parents could have eaten off the leftovers for a week. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Fatim's parents and a brother and sister. They were all very nice and understanding of my slow French. I'll also take it as a good sign that they kept talking at normal speed and I was following pretty well!
After stuffing ourselves to oblivion, it was goodbyes all around and then I was off to the train station. But my weekend in Belgium was fantastic and I'm looking forward to going back. I've discovered that there are cheap flights from my future French town of Montpellier to Brussels, so that will be fun. I have to go back to try what I learned is a Belgian specialty-fries and mussels. And more beer and chocolate.
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