A Cultural Guide to Brussels

The Usual Suspects

One of the most pleasing aspects of a visit to Brussels is the opportunity to visit the many historical buildings and museums in the city often referred to as “The Capital of Europe”. On Friday last a group of 17 left Shannon for the historical city and our agenda included:
· A guided architectural tour of the 13th century Grand’ Place.
· A meal on the “Rue des Bouchers", (Butcher street).
· A visit to NATO headquarters to pay respects to these guardians of western civilization.
· A stop off at the European Commission to see democracy in action.
· Visit the world famous “Manneken Pis” (a sculpture of a young fella having a slash)
· A peruse around the Royal Musea of Ancient and Modern Art (with a special section on the well-known Belgian surrealist Magritte).
· A visit to the The Cathedral of Saint Michel.
· The stop off at the Atomium.
· A visit to the Bruparck Amusement Park, where among other things are scale models of famous European landmarks.


Although, it was primarily a cultural tour it just so happened that Sean is getting married soon, and we thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the event by having a metaphorical passing over from the old life of debauchery and drink, to the new more refined lifestyle. This new lifestyle which was more appropriate for a man in his mid-thirties, the world of museums, theater and dirty nappies…

We were aware setting out that this was indeed an ambitious program but we are nothing if not motivated and enthusiastic. We met up in Shannon airport on Friday evening and it became apparent that the former civilian airport has recently been taken over by the US military. This coup took place almost unnoticed as the guardians of the airport, The Sixmilebridge Gardai, are obviously still out celebrating Clare winning the All Ireland back in 1995, (no doubt still driving up and down O’Connell street in Limerick while barking like dogs…)

I don’t thing the military will stay too long though, as they are charging 4 euro for an orange juice and Sergeant Brown was fairly unimpressed when he realized that after queuing for 15 minutes for some juice that he was going to have to sell the wheels off his “trailer” back home to fund breakfast in Shannon on his way to I-rak.

As there were some nervous flyers among us we decided that a pint or two would be required to settle the nerves. It was at this stage O’Leary Air decided to tell us that our flight would be delayed for a couple of hours. Needless to say by the time we boarded the plane there wasn’t a nerve in sight and there were even a few of the former nervous flyers volunteering to pilot the plane “if they didn’t hurry the fu*k up…”

On the way over on the plane there was another group who had obviously only recently discovered alcohol. It was the first time I fully understood the phrase “mental with the drink”. They were truly out of control… one of them even decided to relieve the air hostess of money from the drink trolley. It has been said that no amount of learning can cure stupidity, but did they really think they were going to get away taking the money in front of 160 witnesses. And even the most logically challenged air hostess would have worked out that if she had the container while serving row 10 and she was now at row 12, the culprit must be in row 11.

I wouldn’t object normally to relieving O’Leary Air of a few quid as they have more than enough money, the fact is that if the till didn’t balance at the end of the flight I have no doubt that O’Leary would have the air hostesses fingers chopped off, or some other appropriate punishment…

When we eventually landed in the wrong airport a crack squad of troops invaded the flight. They had been tipped off about the incident on board and when they checked the passenger list and saw Barry’s name they obviously put two and two together. Once I explained to them that Barry --------- CENSORED---------- he couldn’t make the flight as he was overseeing things at the ------------CENSORED------------, they arrested the other guy, although you could see the disappointment in their faces that Barry hadn’t made it.

Once we got off the plane and got on the bus to Charleroi, there were several members of the squad who were “tired and emotional”. Some of the guys were clearly missing their girlfriends as they took an unhealthy interest in the blow-up doll that I had provided for Sean. I’d rather not speculate as to where she got a puncture hole 3” deep and ½ an inch across…. We had a bus change in Charleroi and in the process of getting off one bus and onto another we managed to pick up three additional punters.
By this stage we had driven across half of Belgium and visited the historical city of Waterloo, which owes its fame to the Duke of Wellington and to the battle which took place on the 18th of June 1815. As we passed the famous site we got a real sense of the historical significance of the area and although we couldn’t actually see the fields while driving past at 100km/h in the pitch dark, we did pause for a moment of reflection. Not.
On arrival in Brussels we checked into our hotels, half of the group staying in the 5 Star Marriott Hotel, and the rest in the sub-five star Hotel St. Nicolas. The sensible crew went off to dine in a Turkish restaurant. The particular establishment had a rustic charm and the ambience was helped by the site of the lamb and chicken roasting on the spit and the pleasant aroma of the east. I can’t be sure of the name but if you are ever in Brussels and want the authentic taste of turkey (or chicken or lamb) just look for “The Sultan of Kebab”, just opposite “Uncle Ronald’s Burger Emporium”.

Home, sweet home

As we sampled the local tipples fatigue began to set in again and Jarlath, the man who put the “LEE” in sLEEp, took it upon himself to save everybody a few quid and guard the coats by lying motionless on them with his eyes closed. Darren meanwhile was doing his bests for international relations by buying drinks for all the foreigners in the bar, very uncharacteristic behavior indeed.

In true “D’unbelievables” style several people managed to get breakfast on the way home so that they could have a good run at the next day, like, thus saving valuable drinking time. Rob even got lunch as he cleverly stocked up on muffins just in case he got peckish in the lift back to his hotel room. The Asian waitress looked slightly bemused when he also requested a doggie bag for his scrambled egg, "do you have a waterproof one" he said "these eggs are soggy"....

The next morning we met up for a walking tour of the city, and after viewing the amazing architecture for about 6 minutes we found that dehydration was beginning to take its toll. Unfortunately the water cannot be trusted in Brussels so we did the only sensible thing and opted for a 9% beer which had an alcohol content sufficient to kill all know bacteria. After the light refreshments, the group split up so that we could cover more ground as we had set ourselves an ambitious schedule.

The Anglo-Saxon members of the group decided to go and look at two English soccer teams kick seven shades of sh*te out of each other. The rest of the group continued the walking tour. However due to an unfortunate mis-communication while looking for the Royal Museum of Modern Art, we found ourselves in the knocking-shop district.

The unreliability of our maps caused us to ditch them and we decided to go into a local shop to get further directions. At first it seemed at first to be some kind of uniform shop where you could purchase nurses, maids or police-woman’s uniforms. Upon closer inspection we discovered that they also had a large collection of DVD’s and magazines as well as novelty plastic toys, they were a sort of plastic wrinkly batton and I suspect they wouldn’t be the kind of toy you’d give a child, unless your name was Gary Glitter that is.

In one of the literature sections there was an entire section focused on “Urology”, many of the titles there proposed the oral collection method of urine samples, which seems a bit unhygienic to me. They also had a rather less extensive “fartology” section which was the same as the “urology” section except it was for gas samples.

To be honest it seemed that many of the females taking these samples seemed to be gaining an amount of pleasure from these activities, and some of them looked to be just a little bit young to be medical professionals. It is a shame there aren’t more women like these out there, because if this was what turned girls on, our group would be at the Brad Pitt end of that particular scale, especially on Sunday in the airport where there was what can only be described as biological warfare in the departure lounge.

Once we got some good directions (that took about an hour), we set off in search of that darn museum again. Unfortunately as the light was quickly fading we decided that the best thing was to meet up in some convenient location to get the group together and plan the evening activities. It just so happened that the only location available was selling “Mice” at 2euro a pint. I wouldn’t be a big “Mice” man myself but at 2 euro a go you’d be a fool not to partake. After an extensive five hour discussion we decided that all this thinking was pointless on an empty stomach and that we’d had better find some nourishment.

Again the large group proved difficult to corral, and two separate expeditions went in search of sustenance. One group decided to go Turkish while the other went native. We rendezvoused (we were starting to pick up some of the language at this stage) back in the bar again despite some of the more geographically challenged getting lost in the “San Francisco” district. It is interesting to note that the so called “wide boys” failed to notice that they were in unfamiliar territory until a guy with a “Fu*k me” sleeveless top wandered over, if ignorance is bliss, these guys must be ecstatic.

We also managed to pick another couple of female groupies at this stage. The two women were cunning as like any game animal on the prowl, they preyed on the weak. As Jim fell into their trap you couldn’t help but think about yet another lost opportunity for the young fella to lose the IV.

The beds were comfortable in the Mariott

Later in the evening we returned to Celtica but some of the group decided to have one last look for the Museum. They even knocked on doors trying to see if they could find the elusive treasure; alas, they were unsuccessful, allegedly....

Back in Celtica the group was beginning to feel the effects of the aggressive schedule. Although Daragh still managed to retain enough strength to fight off the fat chick from Cork. There was one final attempt to see that bloody Museum. Unfortunately the taxi driver had difficulty understanding my French, even though I drew a little map for him so you’d think he’d understand. We returned to the hotel for breakfast, again. Later in the evening I was struck down with a mysterious bout of food poisoning, that caused me to vomit, several other members of our group were similarly afflicted. Somebody must have slipped some of that dodgy tap water into my beer.

The next morning, as the group checked out of our hotels we gathered one more time to plan an excursion, but we didn’t bother. Some of the group actually went to a museum, and that seemed to be as exciting as it sounds. The rest decided to watch life pass-by from the beer garden in O’Reillys. We discussed such intellectual topics as rimming, felching, snowballing and bestiality. The intellectual banter was flowing as well as the Duvel. In then end we had to rush over to Uncle Ronalds for a burger and our cultural tour came to an end. We bid adieu to the city of culture and look forward to returning some day to visit the sites we just couldn’t get to this time, they include:

· A guided architectural tour of the 13th century Grand’ Place.
· A meal on the “Rue des Bouchers", (Butcher street). (We did this but we just didn’t know it!!!!)
· A visit to NATO headquarters to pay respects to these guardians of western civilization.
· A stop off at the European Commission to see democracy in action.
· Visit the world famous “Manneken Pis”
· A peruse around the Royal Musea of Ancient and Modern Art (with a special section on the well-known Belgian surrealist Magritte).
· A visit to the The Cathedral of Saint Michel.
· The stop off at the Atomium.
· A visit to the Bruparck amusement park, where among other things are scale models of famous European landmarks.

Time

No time to blog lately!