I spent a week in Brussels last month–the first time I’d been there since I was about 12. I’m not sure which came first–Brussels being the home of most of the major European Union institutions, or the city’s pan-European character. But it’s something I could not get over. Walk down one street, and it feels like Paris, what with the French in the air and the chocolate stores everywhere. Turn a corner, and you’re in a pedestrian shopping mall that looks just like what you see in any German city. Walk a few more blocks and you’re in the government and business district that feels a bit like the City of London. Then you turn into a side street with little kids playing football in the street–could be in Spain or Italy. Indeed, throw in the crazy drivers and notoriously inefficient government and you have what has been called the northernmost Southern European city.
I also learned in Brussels that the country of Belgium is falling apart at the seams. This is not something that gets much press coverage in the States, but there is practically a nonviolent civil war going on between the Dutch-speaking Flemish region in the north and the French-speaking Wallonie in the south. Apparently neither region wants to continue to form a nation with the other–they are barely on speaking terms, being held together in one nation only by the City of Brussels itself, which is French-speaking but lies within the Flemish territory. One solution that has been proposed is turning Brussels into an independent EU territory, and allowing the two regions to become their own countries. But neither one is willing to let Brussels go.
Incidentally, the fact that Brussels is technically a two-language city (French and Flemish, though apparently English is spoken more widely than Flemish) makes for some absurd signage. Every street sign and subway stop is written in the two languages, and for absolute equality, the order of the two alternates. I saw the most absurd example of this in the hotel gym. The treadmill I was on had all of its text written in French. Whew, I thought, at least they didn’t go to the trouble of double-labeling exercise equipment! But then I took a glance at the treadmills to the left and right of me, and sure enough, their labels were in Flemish. Looking down the line of about eight treadmills I saw that they, like the subway stop signage, alternated between Flemish and French. Perfect equality, even in the gym.
