International Love, Europeans in Union

A full week and a half under my belt in Brussels. Here's what I've been up to in the past few days, a nice little read before the weekend begins.

Last weekend was my first in town so on Saturday afternoon I joined the family on an afternoon trip into the city centre. First, we went to Bozar, an arts centre, museum and classical music venue where we got a bit creative ourselves. There was a campaign event on for Childrens' Charity UNICEF in which you had to build your own large blue lego brick then write your name on it or do some kind of design before adding it to large blue wall made of lego in support of the charity and their partner Montblanc (small donation optional). The event was to raise awareness and money for educational equipment for African schools and was great fun to participate in. I took the opportunity to make my very own Fraser On Tour! brick for the wall (yes, I can confirm that FOT! does indeed support children learning in Africa) before browsing the others which included interesting designs and messages such as a brick from Manchester and a drawing of the inside of Bag End-Frodo's house in Lord Of The Rings!

Welcome to my world-me on Mont des Arts

Lego brick building

The FOT! brick

Louise and her brick

'All in all you're just another brick in the wall'

Manchester Na Na Na

Cheeky

Frodo travelled along way from Middle Earth to make this brick

Clément being a lego brick layer hammering my brick into the wall

Finished

Before wandering around the city for the rest of the day (including a trip to Waterstones), we also went to the Musée Magritte on the nearby Mont des arts, an art museum based around the work of famous Belgian Surrealist Artist René Magritte who is probably most famous for his iconic painting 'The Son of Man'-a man in a suit and bowler hat with a green apple covering his face. I don't hesitate to admit that art isn't really my cup of tea but for under 10 euro a ticket it is good value and worth seeing some pieces of rather bizarre art.

Inside Musée Magritte in the section before the exhibitions (you can't bring any cameras with you into the exhibitions)

FOOD OF THE WEEK: Belgian waffle, so much nicer than the Belgian waffles you get in the UK

Me, Clément and Louise with some statue that I fail to recognise

Love this

Native American musicians playing in the city centre

Now, some of you may not have guessed this but I am, weird. I'd like to think I'm quirky or outgoing rather than the w word though. Sunday's activity was something that many people would probably class as weird, maybe even mad. On Sunday I went Hashing. If this were a conversation rather than an online monologue I'd expect you to say something along the lines of "What on earth is that Fraser? sounds pretty dodgy". Well, Hash House Harriers or H3/Hashing for short is something that I can only describe as a mixture of cross country running, orienteering, beer and general silliness. A group of runners attempt to follow a pre-set trail without getting lost on the way using marking in chalk or flour to find the correct route. At the end of the run, the group then drinks lots of beer (a common description of H3 groups is "a drinking club with a running problem") and sing traditional hashing songs that are often quite lude yet humourous at the same time. Hashing is a worldwide craze but it is especially popular among expat Brits so being from Hong Kong-a major expat community, I have been involved with it from the age of 2 onwards and still run with the Cheshire H3 and Manchester H3 groups at home when I've got the time. You can read more into Hashing and its roots and traditions on this wikipedia page here or on the UK H3 Page (I also did a kick-ass presentation on this as part of my GCSE English course that got me an A* so I may stick a link to that on here when I get home).

Anyway, back to Sunday. I suspected there would be a Hashing group in Brussels so before arriving here I did a web search and found one I did, Brussels Manneken Pis H3, so I decided to join them on one of their weekly runs. Sunday's run started in a small village called Céroux-Mousty 45 minutes by car out of Brussels and it wasn't just my first run with this group but Renaud also decided to join me for what would be his first ever Hash-losing his hashing virginity. The run was everything I love about hashing with lovely rolling Belgian countryside similar to that of which I run on in Cheshire, cold weather, muddy and slippery paths, a bit of trespassing on private farm land (something I've never come across before but certainly made it much more interesting) and a mid-run beer stop. The group were particularly friendly towards us as most were either British or American expats or French speaking natives so after the customary post-run drinking circle and sing-song I joined them for a curry in the evening to celebrate one of the member's birthday. I had a great time chatting with some like-minded people outside of my host family which included a fellow Norwich City fan, an interpreter working for the EU and a hasher who I'd actually met on a previous hash in Manchester! I really feel welcome with this group and considering that Renaud thoroughly enjoyed his first hash, we will be going again this weekend and perhaps a few more times while I'm here.

Group Photo of the Brussels Manneken Pis Hash House Harriers

Private property sign on trail

Renaud and I receiving our 'Down Downs' in the circle

"Drink it down down down down down down down down"

More action from the circle

Much of this week has been rather uneventful as we've got into the daily routine of things but part of my new routine is the return of regular Swimming sessions. I go for a 1  hour public swim at the local pool whenever I like during late mornings/early afternoons while the kids are at school which is great as come November it was something that was seriously lacking in my Mallorcan lifestyle. The pool is a bit odd as it's 33 Metres long (normal pools are either 25 or 50 Metres) which takes a fair bit of in-head calculation to get used to but now I'm more comfortable with the distance. Another exciting feature of my routine is that due to the kids having English lessons after school on Thursdays, I am granted the day-off to be used in whatever way I fancy.This Thursday after a later start, I headed into the centre of Brussels for another day of wandering and sightseeing. This time, I went to the Bel-vue museum across the street from the Magritte which is a museum all about the history of Belgium. I generally prefer history museums to art galleries so this was much more my bag and I especially enjoyed the sections on the First and Second World Wars as I studied elements of both for GCSE and AS Level History so I could relate to it quite well. It's yet another cheap museum to visit (I paid 4 euro entry) so I'd say it's worth a visit. After that, I wandered into the European quarter of the city where, not surprisingly, the European Parliament is based as is various embassies, hotels and parks and ironically some of the poorest housing areas in the whole of Belgium (though I didn't see any of them). While studying AS Government & Politics at college, our teacher Will promised us a trip to the European Parliament but it never materialised for various reasons so I was glad to finally go there and let the nerdy political side of me loose. The whole area is very impressive and with all the foreign languages being spoken within earshot and all the flags around; you do feel like you're in a very international environment which is something I really cherish. Brussels is often described as the 'capital of Europe' and I now understand why. Just walking around the various buildings was really inspiring for me as someone both interested in languages and politics. Perhaps a future career at the EU is something I would consider pursuing.

A garden I found while I was walking to Bel-Vue

Bel-Vue Museum

European Parliament

Selfie time 

A street of restaurants in the centre of Brussels near the Grand Place

That's it for now, hopefully I can shake this sore throat I've been having lately and make the most of another action packed weekend. Ta ra!

#FraserOnTour

FP