Thursday, May 18, 2006

Yesterday I failed to go to the sewer museum (Le Musee des Egouts). Sadly, it's been closed since January for renovations. No expected date of completion was given, but having wandered inside I suspect they have a ways to go. Yes, there was no one to prevent me from going into this active construction site; the one guy who was there was leaving as I entered, probably for his lunch break, and he had left the door open. I could've taken all the drywall I could carry! Being the honest person I am, however, I just went back down and sulked.

The route there is a pretty good cross section of the city as a whole, and it is a direct shot from our neighborhood to the museum. Starting at fashionable upper Avenue Louise, you proceed past the very intimidating Palace of Justice (located on 4 Bras Street), take the elevator down to gentrifying Marolles, and then through the quarter where much of the immigrant population shops and lives. All this while essentially staying on a straight path, although the street has 6 names over the course of about a mile. This particular stretch didn't include any peeing statues, though, and no tour of Brussels can be complete without at least one of those.

I then headed over to the Botanical Garden on the north side of the downtown area. It has some nice outdoor gardens but the greenhouses have been turned into a performing arts venue. It was a decent respite from the business end of the city, although it was surrounded by large buildings on all sides and one of the city's major arteries runs next to it, so you really couldn't lose yourself in it like some of the other larger parks.

Today I continued on my quest to find Afternoon in Paris tea. No place I've been to that's carried Fauchon has had it, for some reason, outside of their only US store in New York. There was a place not too far away that carried Fauchon goods so I went to check it out. The new loose-tea tins are super cool and do a totally radical job of keeping your tea fresh (as the proprieter explained to me in French--or at least that's what I presume he was saying). Alas, no Afternoon in Paris. So I bought something else and told him I'd be back, and he gave me a frequent buyer card! That was after we had switched to English, though; no way would I have been able to figure that out in French. They had some fantastic-looking jarred homemade soups that I need to check out once I get situated. Maybe once we are bosom buddies I can suggest that he get some of my tea.

Tomorrow we move. Jack has secured the car of a woman he works with, which was very generous of her. And then everything's going to be different from the vantage point of 4 blocks SSE of here. I'm sure of it.

-s

Today at work my boss showed up with a new haircut. It made him seem like a little boy.

--Jack

No comments: