After lunch, I headed off to the Museum of Musical Instruments that he recommended, which was amazing. It was cool to see some of the really ancient instruments I had studied in my music history class last year, and also to see some instruments I had never heard of. I spent quite a while there, then was off on a mission to find the European Commission where European Union is headquartered.
I was particularly interested in going there because when the Czech country got the presidency of the EU in January, the president commissioned a Czech artist to make a piece of art celebrating this. Well…the artwork is there, as is much controversy. The artist created a piece depicting each of the 27 EU countries with a symbol, most of them uncomplimentary stereotypes. For instance, there’s Germany with the autobahn very much in a shape resembling a swastika, there’s Romania with a Dracula, and there’s France with a huge sign across it saying “Greve” which, in French, means “strike”. Some of the countries had already been removed, and some covered up they were so offensive to those countries. It took me forever to find it, because I kept being directed wrong, but it was worth it.
Afterwards, I wandered through a park Dallin had recommended and ended up at some arches commemorating WWII. It was there in the park where I decided to rest my weary feet and have my first Belgian waffle. And yes, they were all they were cracked up to be; they were amazing. We then met up for dinner, which was at the house of one of his classmate’s host family. Apparently Dutch people are really into Indonesian food, so that’s what we had for dinner. It was cool, the two major languages in Belgium are French and Dutch, but I happen to spend almost my entire time in the Dutch speaking section of the country, so I learned a few Dutch words, as well as a ton about the culture, history, and politics of the region from my amazingly knowledgeable guide Dallin.
The next morning got off to a rather chilly start. Dallin’s host family had graciously allowed me to stay at their house, but Dallin warned me they did have a bit of a problem with hot water. So that morning when I went to shower and couldn’t get any hot water, I was kind of expecting it. I was a little disappointed; I thought maybe I could get warm or at least temperate water, but no. It was ice cold. So I took the fastest shower on record and when I got out said to Dallin, “wow, you really weren’t kidding about that hot water”. He kind of hung his head and replied asking me why I didn’t come get him for help because apparently it was supposed to be warmer than that, all you had to do was fiddle with the knobs for the pilot light. Who knew.
We then joined up with his school group to go on a short day trip to a little town called Bruges. After being the last ones on the train and worrying his director, we then had a fairly uneventful day. It was a cute touristy little town, so we did the touristy things. We stopped at an old hospital, went to an old church were there resided the only work of Michelangelo outside of Italy, took a boat ride and a carriage ride, and climbed 366 steps of a belfry to see an incredible view of Bruges. His director was really nice and whenever we were off on our carriage ride or something, she would go off and find us the local specialty, like a specific kind of chocolate or cookie or cheese and let us all try some.
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