It was another fine day in Brussels for us. My coworker and I took a bus/walking tour around the city and then proceeded to learn the nuances of the Brussels metro system. Brussels really is at the center of Europe. It seems you can get everywhere from here via train.
After our tour, we took the tram to the north side and went to a spanish festival they were having in the park where the Atomium is located. It was packed with people and reminded me a lot of the Taste of Chicago (except the spanish version). I’ve been trying every exotic food I can get my hands on (which will probably catch up to me after a while). But at the spanish festival I had something called Jumba which, as far as I could tell, was a certain kind of jumbalya. It was mixture of crawfish, rice, oysters, peppers. It was really pretty delicious. There were a ton of locals at this festival so I feel like we really had a chance to emerge ourselves in one of the many sub cultures of this city.
After the festival we tried to go to mini europe but sadly it closes during the week at 5:00. So we missed the closing time. Instead we wondered around the city for a while and stopped at an internet cafe. Then headed back to the main district where we were staying. We decided to chill out and hit up an Irish pub called O’Reily’s and we happened to come across a huge soccer game going on. Poland and Germany were playing in the first round of the Euro Cup and the Irish pub was packed with people. It reminded me a lot of the World Cup atmosphere that I experienced back at Brit’s a few summers ago. It was truly an insane envoirment. It’s amazing to see the sense of nationalism that europeans get rooting for their soccer team. I’ve never seen such passion for a sports team. It’s truly an electric enviornment that is just fun to be around.
After the bar cleared out, we hung out on the rooftop deck pretty much until bar close enjoying the fine weather and scenery. The rooftop of O’Reily’s was overlooking a monument in downtown Brussels which I’m pretty sure was older than our country. While we were there we struck up a fun conversation with our waitress. The waitress was a young thin blond with a pretty thick russian sounding accent. She happened to be Serbian but spoke very good English. Her name was Alena and she just finished her undergraduate in Political Affairs at a small college in Brussels. She was working at the pub to get some money so she could get her Master’s degree. She said her goal was to one day become the president of Serbia. Usually I would laugh at a comment like that, but she said it with a certain gravity that really captivated you. I really enjoy talking to people who still have the will power and fortitude to follow their dreams. We got to know her a little bit after talking to her off and on for a couple hours. I truly hope she is successful in her endeavor to become President.
