Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 66: Brussels

Before I begin, a happy milestone birthday to Mark, who I have known for longer than just about any human being still alive.  We met in kindergarten, if I’m not mistaken, were roommates in college and in Los Angeles, I was one of the only people at his wedding, and through it all we have somehow managed to not kill each other (although I think it was thought of a few times). 

He turned 30 today because if that’s true then I also turn 30 in a few weeks on my birthday since we’re the same age.

Brussels made it up to me with a lovely day.  Perfect weather, some good food, and a couple of delightfully offbeat museums.

I wandered a bit to start the day.  Central Brussels is darned pretty, very clean, and almost stately if you will.

I went to take the obligatory picture of Mannequin Pis, the statue of the little boy peeing into a fountain that has become one of the most photographed things in the entire city.  It was first erected (pardon the word) in the 1400s, redesigned in 1619, and then finally replaced with a replica in 1965 because people kept damaging it and stealing it.  The 1619 original is in a museum.

Apparently, they dress him up throughout the year and he currently has more than 1,000 different costumes.  He was nekkid today and if you don’t know the difference between naked and nekkid, I refer you to an episode of “Designing Women.”  Naked means you ain’t got no clothes on.  Nekkid means you ain’t got no clothes on and you’re up to something.

It was a short walk from there to the first oddball museum of the day, the FrietMuseum or Fry Museum.  There are actually two museums dedicated to Belgian Fries, but the other one is closed temporarily.  And yes, I would’ve gone to both.

In case you’re not aware – I wasn’t – a Belgian fry is a French fry that has been cooked, then cooled, then cooked again.  This gives it a soft interior and a crunchy exterior.

It’s a pretty complete experience from an educational standpoint with a lot of info on potatoes, where they came from, the potato famine, how fries were created, and more, but the thing that I loved about it is that it knows how stupid it is.  There were dumb interactive games including a digital pinball machine that pings the balls of potatoes, fries and sauces and another where you shoot at bugs trying to attack the crop; a jukebox filled with songs about potatoes and fries; and even an animatronic cabaret with singing fries and potatoes.  It laughed my ass off the entire time.

Oh, and you can get your picture taken with digital add-ons of fries, potatoes, and more.

And of course at the every end, you get fries with that.  They cook them on site and you get your choice of sauces.  I forgot to get a picture, but they were good.

Right across the street is the ChocoStory Museum, run by the same people (you can get a discount if you buy a combo-ticket).  It isn’t as wacky as the fry museum – chocolate is nothing to joke about – but still amusing.  They had the history of the cacao bean dating back to Amazonian days with a run through to how chocolate was developed, how it is made, and even “smelling stations,” where you can sniff various ingredients, additives, and flavors of chocolate.  Along the way are silly games, quizzes, and interactive elements like a place where you get to try your hand at virtual chocolate churning.

At the end is a chocolate tasting and demonstration on how to make pralines.  In the “you learn something new every damn day of your life category,” I now know that pralines here means something different than it does back home.  Here, a praline is chocolate stuffed with something – nuts, fruit, ganache, fondant, or whatever.  Unfortunately, the chocolatier today was making pralines stuffed with a hazelnut ganache so I couldn’t have any, but it was still interesting to see how it was created.

While we were waiting for the demonstration to begin, I struck up a conversation with a young woman who was visiting from Italy.  She asked what I did and I told her and, much to my amazement, she had heard of the Hallmark Channel.  Most people in Europe aren’t familiar with it.  Even more amazing, she says she had seen the movie I wrote entitled “Love, Romance, and Chocolate” with Lacey Chabert, set amongst the world of chocolate in Belgium.  I have a weird life.

And yes, they have a similar wacky photo station.

I picked up a couple of magnets from the museums to add to my collection.

Afterwards, I needed to have some food so I went to Hashtag, a restaurant that specializes in off kilter twists on Belgian waffles.  I got the OG sandwich – a grilled chicken breast with a zesty sauce, gouda, tomatoes, caramelized onions, and lettuce on two waffles.  I ate almost all of it, which tells you how good it was.

I did a bit more wandering around, stumbling on a food hall that had some interesting-looking stalls but most of them weren’t operating yet.

Then I went back to the hotel and got some work done – a Christmas movie that will be on this year, probably, so there is some urgency to it.

For dinner, I went downstairs to the restaurant in the hotel, Rotisse.  You can probably guess from the name what I had – rotisserie cooked chicken with garlic and rosemary, plus a side of truffled mac and cheese, and a huge loaf of bread soaked in garlic and butter.  I brought a lot of it back to my room.

It’s hard to believe, but tomorrow is the final day of driving as I turn in a VERY dirty PluckyMobile 2 to the airport in Amsterdam.  By the time it is all done I will have traveled nearly 7,000 miles or the rough equivalent of Savannah to Los Angeles then back to Savannah then back to about Phoenix.  Have I mentioned how ready I am to sit still for a minute?

But I still have several days of walking in Amsterdam to do before I head home on Tuesday.  We’re not quite done, yet!