Belgium

This is one of the last shots of Munich I took before I left for Belgium. I’d often walk down this street in this direction to head to school near the center of town.

This will be my last entry from Germany. I just got back from Belgium. As I stated before, I went to catch up with a friend, Marc, who was an exchange student at my High School my senior year. When we graduated, I told him I’d visit him some day – I’m glad I had the chance to do so. It was great to see him again.

He had broken his leg several weeks ago (while chasing a cat), so his mobility was limited. Still, I met him and his father’s girlfriend in the train station in Aachen, Germany. I was sorta excited to go to Aachen, as it is the city that Charlemagne spent most of his time in. Marc ended up using the wheelchair for this portion of the trip - most of the time, he used his crutches. We eventually reached the cathedral in Aachen. Marc gave me a tour of the place.

From what I remember, the central parts of the church are still original (or, at least, the original site of the church. The church has been expanded over the past 1200 years, and various pieces of artwork and installations have been added and repaired).

Later, right before I caught my train back to Munich, I ended up taking a german-language tour throughout the cathedral. I did because the tour gets to enter places in the cathedral closed off to the public, and the English language tour started too late in the day. Anyway, you can see Jesus at the top. The Chandelier was installed by Barbarossa in the… 1100s, I think?

A suspended Mary and Jesus, surrounded by stained glass.

A shot from behind the Mary and Jesus.

The organ in the Cathedral.

A shot from the lecturn.

Close up of the stained glass. In the middle panel, you can clearly see part of Genesis: specifically, Adam and Eve. My german tour guide told me, in English, about how this cathedral somehow escaped much of the destruction visited upon Aachen in the world wars. Only the stained glass was destroyed from the shock of nearby explosions, and had to be replaced after the WW2.

After going around Aachen and having some Asian for dinner (him sushi, me Pad Thai), and narrowly escaping a downpour, we headed back to his apartment Eupen. Along the way, he took a small detour into the Netherlands just for fun (so, I can say I visited four countries on this trip). Eupen and Aachen are very close to the border of three countries.

I think it’d be fair to say that Eupen is a small town. I like seeing small towns in different countries –cities are often very tourist orients / uniform across cultures. I mean, the intersection the diner we had breakfast at could’ve fit into the area of ohio I’m from – there was a gas station on one corner, a greasy spoon on the other, with some fields fields and in the distance. However, on an amusing note, while we were having breakfast in a diner, apparently the people in the next table commented on our English conversation by remarking how international the area was becoming.

It turns out that Eupen was once a major pottery center in Europe. So, he took me to visit their pottery museum the next morning. The museum was neat – you could clearly see the evolution in the types of stoneware from uniform brown color to white with blue glazing. Afterward, he drove me around he town the pottery museum was in. Again, I marveled at how similar it is to rural Ohio: green hills and fields filled with cows as far as you could see. The houses were few and far between. Actually, there were often little clusters of houses. These clusters used to be the original hamlets that people settled in hundreds of years ago. The town essentially consisted of small groups of houses surrounded by acres of fields, and the former hamlets now connected by winding roads.

One of the small towns he took me to was Limburg. Marc hadn’t seen it, but had heard that the church on top of the hill was nice, and had watched some amusing 5-minute travel video created by a Chinese company that extolled the virtues of Limburg (it’s even funnier after you’ve seen the place).

It was a charming enough town once we found the road up the hill (though, it was difficult for him to get around on crutches). There was little more than a cobbled main street / square surrounded by houses.

The church we sought was closed. This was a slight disappointment, as it was the main objective of our visit. Here is a pic of one of the stained glass windows, taken from outside.

There was a single restaurant open (though, I thought I saw another that was currently closed). We had a couple of drinks, and relaxed for an hour.

On the way back to his town, he stopped at a dam. Marc told me how the reservoir provided much of the water for the region.

A shot of the dam from the bottom.

The next day, I chose to travel to Bruges. I had heard much about it from several of my friends, and wanted to see it more than any other city in Belgium. Marc was still recuperating, so I was on my own. Getting there took about 3 hours by train, which wasn't bad - I had a chance to read a book and relax a bit.

After I entered Bruges, I turned down a path adjacent to a canal.

A bridge over one of the canals in Bruges.

Shot along a canal in Bruges.

Another shot along a canal in Bruges. You can see one of the churches in the distance.

Geese in Bruges.

A street in Bruges.

Bruges has a lot of canals.

Cathedral in Bruges.

Simon Stevin square.

Belfry in the main square.

The town square in bruges. Once Bruges used to be a main center of commerce. Nowadays, it is very much a tourist city, and it shows. Every third shop is selling tourist trinkets of some sort, and the prices for things are much higher than in Belgium. One of those diners had a lunch meal that was at least 25 euros.

I chose to climb the Belfry, all 300 steps of it. This chest was located in the first landing. The chest contained important documents for the town, such as the town charter. It was locked behind nine (i think) doors. Any changes to the rules or regulations for the town had to be agreed to nine representatives, each of which had one key. All needed to be in agreement to amended the documents.

The cylinder drum at the top of the belfry caused the bells to play music.

View of bruges from the top of the belfry.

Bells in the belfry.

Basilica of the Holy Blood, in Bruges. This basilica holds a peculiar relic – a vial encased in gold, containing blood purported to have belonged to Jesus Christ.

I had a dinner at a place Marc recommended – Cambrinus. The place is named after the mythical “King of Beers.” I had a beef stew and a Westmalle beer. Both were quite good, and went well together.

...

So, this trip comes to a close. I want to add some succinct coda or summary, but I'm tired. I suppose it feels like its time to go back - many of the people I met in the past four weeks have already returned to their homes. The city feels empty without them.

This was a good program, though. I'm glad I did it. I learned a bit more about intellectual property, got to meet interesting people, and was able to spend a month away from the routine I have created for myself over the past couple of years. I increasingly think that it is important for a person to get away for an extended break every once in a while. Even though I am tired, I feel rested for the first time since last summer. I like to think that going on this trip has given me perspective in what I am doing with my life (though, admittedly, I think that is likely to happen whenever one breaks away from one's routine for a period of time). Whether this impetus to act and achieve will remain, I do not know; it's easy to fall back into comfortable monotony.

Anyway! I return, and am glad I am doing so. I will miss Munich, but there are plenty of people back home who I miss more and need to catch up with. And, once again, thanks for reading the blog! Hopefully I'll update it again, sooner rather than later, from another corner of the globe.