icon of brussel
last weekend I went to antwerp and brussel together with rizky, tungky, and riris (new partner in crime), on the train I realize that their nick name makes rhyme, say if I called ‘ris’ riris and rizky will think that I called them, and if I said ‘ky’ tungky and rizky will recognize it, pretty funny..
My journey start in the early morning we catch thr 07.38 train from Delft and went to Rotterdam. On Rotterdam the hispeed train to brussel was late for 10 minutes (owww NS, no wonder they called it National Shame).
My journey started on Antwerpen as one of the dutch region in Belgium (in Belgium there are dutch part and french part), the central station seemed to be very impressing, it’s modern inside and classic outside. But we’re in the winter time and it’s very cloudy outside i didn’t catch good picture but it’s good enough. Antwerpen main attraction is the old city, the main square, the cathedral of Old lady, and also the harbour. eventhough Antwerp is the dutch part of Belgium I’m still able tho feel the french element, especially along the shopping line.
After spent 2 hours on Antwerp (including 1/2 hour lost due to the failure of our livin google earth) we took another train and went to Brussel, despite of it’s political status as the capital city of Belgium and also europe, the central station seemed more dirty and unmanaged. Perhaps due to the fact that Brussel has both Dutch and French part the citizen becomes more freely to express what’s on their mind, the graffiti and beggars are everywhere, the local government seemed to be ignored them, oh well c’est la vie.
Our trip starts from cinquatenaire, a horse shaped monument that built as commemoration of Belgium 15th anniversary, after taken dozen photo shots we continued to pray on great mosque of brussel where we mwt lots of indonesian family that lived in Brussel, and that’s where we met mba Lely, a mom with four sons whose invited us (me and riris) to stay over on her place, but let me keep the story for later on.
We continued our trip to Berlaymont, the EU building, but again before we reached Verlaymont our livin google earth got some failure, between the sound of our stomach and the urge to see of Victor Horta’s art nouveau building, we got lost again. Oh anyway it won’t take long time until we see Berlaymont, the next stop is lunch!yay! we took metro and went to the old city square and we met another indonesian on metro, he showed us the cheap kebab’s restaurant, well it’s not actually cheap but the portion is enormous.
After lunch we went to city square, grand place of Brussel it’s one of the beautiful square in europe, and then continued by manneken piss, holy mother statue, the gallery. Finally we spent night on the well-known Atomium, we explored the whole structure of Atomium including the exhibition, and then with sore feet we returned back to the city center where we stopped by on Mc Donalds and saw a beautiful christmas pret. By the time 8 PM riris and me are running to the supermarket to buy something to give to the host and rushed to the metro station to go to Mba Lely house.
Afore mention mba Lely is a mom that we met on the mosque, this is the first time that we met yet she’s invited us to her home. Mba Lely’s house in on the suburban area of brussel, the house is pretty big for a family with 4 sons, she’s already lived in Brussel for 1.5 years, before that she lived in Kingstown (Canada) for 7 years, she’s a really open and friendly woman, it’s very funny to listen about her children story and also her experience during her stay here and Canada. I learn from her that everyone made their own choice based on their priority and you don’t have to consider other people opinions about it.
The next morning mba Lely’s made us rice patty (and also for her children) and because one of her son is autism and develop allergy to gluten she used corn flake instead of bread crumb, once again she told us the story about when she was young, during her early marriage and so on. Such as fully energy mom, I wonder how’s my mom going (hiks!). Oh well in the afternoon we went to Koningsplein, it’s a street that filled by the
royal palce, small palace, royal park, everything Royal and fancy.
And my last stop is Comic Museum! It’s my favourite museum, I’ve been targeting this museum since the first time I went ti Netherland, inside there are the history of belgian comic artist, including Herge (the author of Tintin or Kuifje in dutch), franquin (the author of marsupilami and gaston) and also peyo (the author of smurf). I really love this museum, it seems that all my childhood dreams became true. But I’m still wondering whose the autor of Nina and ‘tiga cewek badung’ i thought they also belgian artist..
After comic Museum we decided to give up and, catch the train to return back to Netherland, ate patat on cold Rotterdam as dinner, oh well I’m ready to return to Delft.
