Belgian beer tastings

We arrived in the late evening in Brussels, and walked a ways over cobblestones to get to our hotel. Since it was late, we didn't really go to dinner, but instead had “beer for dinner,” or went to a bar for beer and light sandwiches. It was a beautiful old bar, one we had visited last year. After that, we went to a bar closer to our hotel with hundreds of beers on the menu and almost all Americans as patrons (or at least on a Tuesday night). It was a cool bar, but don't go for the locals.

In the morning the next day, the group had a visit to NATO headquarters, where we had two briefings. One on NATO in general, and how it has changed since the end of the Cold War required a different mandate, and one on the NATO mission to Afghanistan. They were both really fascinating. NATO is an organization I know less about, given that it's not really a human rights institution, but it was really a cool site visit.

After the meeting, Darick and I went to the comic strip museum. It was a really great museum, but it was all in French, with a particular focus on Belgian artists. It was still great to look at all the incredible art. And there was a special exhibit on the Smurfs! I used to love the Smurfs, so I thought it was thrilling to see them in their original language...French!

After comics, and keeping Darick from buying out the gift shop, we met my mom's former French teacher, Nicole, for a drink at Roy d'Espagne, which is a cool little bar on the Grand Place. It feels a bit like Pirates might have drunk there, but I doubt it. After a lovely drink with Nicole, we walked, a long way, to the restaurant for our last group meal as a study abroad program, Ultime Hallucinatie. It was a beautiful place, with art nouveau decorations and a lovely green tint. The staff was also very friendly and helpful, particularly to an obnoxious group of Americans. The food, however, did not live up to the price. Darick had a perch filet served cold (unintentionally) and my coq au vin was good, but not great.

The next day was our last day as a group, but for us it was our last day in Europe, essentially. We slept in and then headed for a very Belgian lunch of moules frites, or mussels and fries. We walked into one of the multiple restaurants on the Grande Place, I couldn't tell you which. Darick had fried scampi as an appetizer, deliciously breaded, and then helped me eat a giant container of mussels in white wine. It was super delicious. Darick drank a Warsteller, in his effort to try dark beers, and he liked it as much as the Leffe. After lunch, we wandered around looking for the Mannquin Pis.

We then went to a mediocre exhibition of Dali prints and met some of the group members to take a tour of Cantillon, the last remaining brewery in Brussels. It's a family-owned brewery which uses all organic ingredients and does all the brewing the way it used to be done one hundred years ago when the brewery started. They make lambic beer, using spontaneous fermentation, and then use the lambic, or flat, beer to create geuze and fruit beers. After the self-guided tour we had a tasting, and it was really delicious! Even I, the non-beer drinker, enjoyed this beer. It was really sour, with many flavors. It was great. We visited one more bar on the way back to the hotel, and Darick tried another geuze beer, the Mort Subite, and it was perfect...just as flavorful as the Cantillon, but less sour. Lovely.

Train ride back to Paris, and the group disbanded. A successful study abroad program concluded. And tomorrow off to Morocco...wait till you hear the travel story...