MIM - shut up and listen!

The MIM, Musical Instruments Museum of Brussels is my personal no. 1 among the museums I've been to so far! I'll try to explain why is it so...
First of all, I might be asked: what if somebody doesn't feel like entering the museum?
Well, I have great news! The museum's building, located on the Mont des Arts, is worth admiring even just from the outside. This XIXth century former department store is a magnificent example of the art nouveau style. Its neoclassical surrounding makes it look even more outstanding. But that's not enough! What would you say about getting into the building, picking up a free access ticket to the restaurant and having a coffee on the 5th - roof floor? Just imagine that view over the city.

In case somebody actually decides to check out the MIM's exhibition, just after paying the 5 euro admission fee (students - 4 euro, on Wednesdays free!) is given a pair of huge headphones, which dependently on the instrument, that the particular person is looking at, play the right piece of music. For example, in the picture below, Daniel is standing in front of the window that presents a couple of traditional Mexican instruments, on the spot which enables him to hear the Mexican music. By the way, this part was our favourite.

In comparison with the Traditional Musical Instruments Museum in Szydłowiec (Poland), I really appreciate this great collection of musical instruments from all around the world and the way how interactively presented they are. I believe that it would be even better if the visitors were given a chance to play the instruments, as they do in its Japanese equivalent in Hamamatsu. Anyway, if they get really inspired, they might get their own instruments in the museum's shop full of various musical stuff.

Bruges sweet Bruges

A couple of years ago, somebody told me that his favourite place among all places he visited is Belgian Bruges. It kept me very curious for a while until now. On the first Monday of July, I had a chance to see it by myself and indeed, Bruges is simply gorgeous!

As all gorgeous places it has all the necessary cheesy things such as: beautiful old houses with their windows ornamented from the outside and decorated from the inside, a church with a tower, little bridges above narrow canals, candy stores and boats! All this stuff makes the stay in Bruges very fairytalish.

I was a bit disappointed that even though it was Monday, there was quite a lot of tourists. However, in every crowded place there is always a hidden courtyard that gives a feeling of being in a secret garden and we managed to find it there as well!

Bruges is too good to be true... that's why God created tourists!

Mother's Day

When is Mother's Day in your country?

In Poland it is always on the 26th of May, which is not accidentally today.
Two weeks ago I've been to Istanbul, where one afternoon, my friend's aunt served a piece of cake after lunch and mentioned that it was left after Mother's Day. I asked immediately when do they celebrate it in Turkey and she told me that it's always the 2nd Sunday of May.

It reminded me, that in previous year, while I was in Portugal, it was even different - the 1st Sunday of May.
Because of my curiosity, I've made a small research (about the countries that are tagged on my blog) and it turned out that most of them celebrates Mother's Day on the same day as Turkey, for example Japan, Czech Republic, Ukraine or Belgium. Also, Spain celebrates it on the same day as Portugal but France is a bit odd and delays until the last Sunday of May.

The conclusion should be that, if someone travels too often and pays attention to local holidays, then that person's Mum, may start thinking that her child became crazy, if she was given wishes and presents over few times in May!

Brussels - very sweet

Just when I got to the city center of Brussels on Sunday afternoon, I went straight ahead to take the following picture. I couldn't take it 2 nights before and so I've planned to come back there. I know, I know, not very spontaneous! On the way back, I unexpectedly came across one AEGEE girl, which was quite a nice suprise.

XXIst century - such an old building and such a new advertisement

Before departing back to Poland, I was suppoused to see my Belgian friend Sabrina. Before getting to the meeting point I got myself some frites to eat, while waiting at the Grote Markt . It turned out to be a typical habit of having a quick lunch in Brussels.

Eating frites at the Grote Markt

Sabrina is a very talkative person, what results with socialising with strangers easily or even bringing some of them with her. This time it was an Itallian girl who needed help with booking a hostel. After solving the problem and giving Sabrina's sister phone number to the girl, we hanged around the streets for a while. We came across the most famous Brussels' sculpture - Manneken Pis (A Peeing Boy), Royal Galleries of Saint Hubert - XIXth century shopping arcades, the Bouchers street with fancy restaurants, tried Belgian truffles and chocolates in a Chocolaterie. I brought some of those Belgian specialties to Poland but I think, they tasted better in Brussels.

Colorful copies of Manneken Pis in the chocolate shop window

Manneken Pis shaped flavoured chocolates - apple, mint, orange

When you don't see a friend for a long time, many things may change and sometimes even too many... This time Sabrina shared with me her experiences about studying in Istanbul and stories about the family that hosts her there.

Sweets, biscuits, chocolates, strangers and Sabrina

When Sabrina left, not to miss her train, Klaudia took me over and leaded to a romantic place. At least that's what she promised it to be like. The place turned out to be a few storey garage that has amazing views in all directions of Brussels. It reminded us of a movie Reality Bites, that we used to be crazy about as teenagers. The first scenes of it, take place on such roof and people are also taking pictures of themselves there.

Brussels just after sunset

As I still had some time to caught the bus, we stopped at Häagen-Dazs and Klaudia ordered those posh ice-cream for us in French. Obviously, as it usually happens, they didn't have the flavour she picked, so it took a while to decide about the other one.

Do you know that feeling, when just before the goodbye it doesn't feel as if it was a goodbye and you don't feel like going home? That was it.

Brussels - don't leave me

After quite a long delay I arrived in Belgium exactly at 9:00pm. As soon as I got to the Charleroi airport's building I walked as fast as I could to the bus tickets selling office, where it turned out that the bus to Brussels leaves in 1 minute! I was praying for a boy, who was just in front of me in the queue, to find the freaking 2 euro coin, pay it to the cash-desk lady and let me buy my ticket! As I consider myself a quite lucky person in general, I was reeeaally lucky this time! When I got on the bus it was about to leave and I took the last seat left. 45 minutes later I got off next to the Bruxelles-Midi station where my high-school friend Klaudia was supposed to meet me. The drop off place of Charleroi airport's shuttle buses is kind of weird and actually doesn't seem to be what it is at all. At the end we met each other nearby the Tourist office.
It may sound boring but to me it was a big deal to make it right on time!

Klaudia is doing Erasmus in Brussels (she gave up Santander for Brussels) so she has many different impressions of this city, which she started telling me about right away, including story about amazing Belgian second-hand shops and how she found her lovely red bag, with a small sock hidden inside it, in one of them.
Meanwhile, just when we got on the train, 2 Irish guys interrupted us and asked if we spoke English - as we were speaking Polish, not French like every other person around, it was quite probable that we might also know the most useful language in the world. The guys told us a story of their friend who is married to a Polish girl (what Klaudia ostentatiously commented "how typical!") and they were very proud of themselves because they knew 2 polish words: "hello" (Polish: cześć) and the polish equivalent to the English F-word. They also informed us that the 2nd word is being constantly repeated by their friend and his wife... And finally the time came for us to leave the train at the Bourse station!

The Grote Markt's (Main Square's) area was exactly as it is usually thought to be on Friday evening in every large size city. Nevertheless, we didn't have problems with finding Rue de la Violette and Goupil Le Fol, the bar where board members of AEGEE Culture Working Group were supposed to be waiting for me.

Goupil Le Fol is a bit eccentric, 3-storey bar filled with old furniture, pictures and different kinds of vintage things including sewing machine. When I got there my friends were having this bar's specialty - fruit wine. Before ordering I've tried a bit of cherry, strawberry and raspberry... and finally decided to order the last one. What I found really cute was the sentence 'Ne me quitte pas...' (French: 'Don't leave me...') printed on each glass. If I had to recommend a similar bar in Warsaw, it would be W Oparach Absurdu (Polish: In the Fumes of Absurd).

CWG board members who made all the long ways to meet Brussels:
Michele, me, Michael, Anya & Olimpia

After 2 glasses of the fruit wine I was desperately looking forward to going to sleep or at least eating some Belgian Frites...
My 2nd wish came true and we all headed to the most famous place to eat frites in Brussels, which is FRITLAND at Rue Henri Maus, across the street from the Bourse. As the portions were quite big, I shared mine with Anya. Despite a wide variety of sauces, we decided to make it the most authentic and ate our frites with the mayonnaise sauce. The other sauces I've tried during following days were garlic and Andalusian. I guess it won't be a fas paux if I say there were all exquisite!

Later on, we've tried to find some famous party place with very poor results and so decided to take a night bus to the CD House, which is a kind of home of all AEGEE members. Even though, we didn't go to sleep before 6am, I was already awake at 9am and did breakfast shopping before we officially started the board meeting around 11:30. We had long, fruitful brainstorming in the basement until 4pm, when we needed a break. We also took the opportunity of doing shopping for the evening dinner that we were supposed to prepare for over 18 people. After very long discussions in the middle of Lidl, we decided to cook a huge pot of rice with vegetables, mushrooms and fried chicken.

It's been a well done teamwork that was continued by trying drinks mostly from all around Europe but also from Beyond Europe.

Sunday morning was spent on applying changes to the CWG budget. Around noon, Anya had to leave to catch the bus to the airport and I've joined her on the way to the city center...

(I deeply apologise,
all photos that appear in this post
were not taken by me.)