Burssels Is a Nice City Because of You

I arrived Brussels on a dismal drenching day. I did not know why I left a weatherly emtional city for another. I was on my way to Milano, Italy. "This is a stop before paradise," I whispered to myself apologetically, while the intercity train entered the capital of chocolate land, in dripping rain.

Brussels must have sensed my discontent, and avenged me right away. I thought I heard the broadcasting, "Bruxelles-Central / Brussel-Centraal," but the train sank into underground, a glooming, squalid stop. I was hesitated and imagining central station should have been glowing like a palace. I did not get off until the next stop, "Bruxelles-Midi / Brussel-Zuid." I, with my bag, walked back to where I was supposed to meet with Enrico, in drizzle.

Here I was, treated with the best beer and mussels. I forgave moody Brussels, and merci to Enrico. The restaurant was hidden in the touristic seafood eatery street, right on the T intersection. It was crowdedly packed on both floors, with more locals than visitors.

Brussels is a nice place, because of Enrico. I am convinced.

Way to Meg's Office

Good morning. We are heading to Meg's office each day at eight. It is roughly forty minutes dashing for me, twenty minutes sprinting for Meg. We generally hustle, to arrive the finishing line (not on time) slightly earlier than others. (A quiet morning is always pleasing.)

Here is the route:


And the building on the left, aside of the canal. On the right, the library and canteen.
The glittering lobby. The information desk on the left.The office unit, which is quite unfortunately beneath the water level.

And the unusually grotesque bird dutifully awaits, on our way home.

A quarter of my walking route:

Kinds of Bicycles

I miss my bike, badyly. I have been striding on cobble-stoned streets, lanes, alleys. In oder to keep up locals' high speed, my crura have been growing strong. I am losing bicycle muscles faster than I thought.

I have been watching cyclists whirling by, riding in the wind. They are on kinds of bicycles with each unique persona. Just take a look at their saddle bages, and you would probably have enough idea of the rider might-be. Daisy-flowery bags come with a fair-skined cutesy blondy in dainty dress. Plaid-patterned, with a glasses-wearing brunette in olive-green beret and having pashmina scarf wrapping around her faminine shoulders. Leather saddle bags, can belong to an amber-colour-curly-haired fine-looking mid-twenty, male rider. Saddle bags, tell everything.





Meg notes: if you ever forget or lose the key of the heavy locks to your bicycle, don't bother going to a locksmith. They will not help, with a fairly reasonable explanation of the overflowing bike thieves in this town. The only thing you can do, is to walk away and mourn for the lost. Or forget right away about the old, and hunt for the new.

Walking in Snowy Shower, in Hails

I must have been converted too completely. I was quite amused this morning, thinking to myself, "What a lovely day!" in zero degree. (Please don't laugh at me, people from North! While I have a better deal to live in a much amicable warmer climax, why should I suffer myself in this cold?!)

A common example of my city:
So you see. (I have been keen on introducing myself as "a girl from a tropical island." A couple of days ago, I finally met the first confrontation with this illogical get-away to a much emotionally-weather-changing country. "So why did you leave that tropical island?" My answer to the provocative inquiry simply was, "So to be productive. Less distraction from the inviting sunlight shining through windows.")

Back to this morning. What happened here outside of the window was:

I woke up in a beam of sunshine, and was very excited to get ready for biking to the library. At the moment I was ready, the sky shifted from cloudy to dripping rain. When I got downstairs with my raincoat on, it started snowing. I dropped the idea of cycling and decided to walk. It punched hails. So I gave up. I gave up cycling, and deserted the tenuous hope for the good weather.

Within ten minutes:
Oh, hail.

Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, OBA

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. ~Jorge Luis Borges

Meg's personal favorite "tourist" spot in this cheerful rough-cut mariner city, is, da-lah, city library. This is probably in the family blood: we tend to feeling home when we smell books, wherever we go.

Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam was beautifully open on 07/07/07, in American term: July 7th, 2007. It is scented modernly young and rather fresh. The towering building is set between Amsterdam Centraal and a musical academy, only 5 minutes on foot from the station. (Warning: 5 minutes in scurry Amsterdamians' standard, more scampering for a person with relatively short legs.)

So you walk past the sliding door, and enter the lofty five-star-hotel like hall room. Everything is shining, and smells... coffee. Coffee? A stylishly cozy Italian coffe shop resides on the ground floor. (What can one ask for more?!)

CD/DVD collection

Single Study Unit (If you are claustrophobic, do avoid.)
Or you can just hide yourself on the sofa facing to the river-view window.

Borges was right: I must be in Paradise. My way of rating a city is purely based on its delicacy of bookstores and libraries. I have to say, by far, Amsterdam scores very high.

Dutch Diet

What happened to me?! I am hungry all the time, really, ALL THE TIME.

I tend to follow the Dutch diet here, but still maintain a vegetarian, of course. So I wake up in the morning and start my day with ginger tea. (Sorry, this is my personal touch to the diet. I need it for much colder weather on Netherlands, to prevent Dutch cold.) Since I am here, a land famous for its dairy products, I have added milk to my spicy hot drink. And after, I have a banana with a bowl of plain yogurt, and sometimes one more mug with soar milk. (Who would have known this drink can actually sell!) And after, I consume a grand pot of coffeeine, tea or coffee, with a lot of milk of course. And after, here comes my morning sandwich, consisted of two slices of toast, salad, three slices of Gouda, and pasted in mayonaise, mustard, and ketchup.

Even binging like this early of the day, I can start feeling famine at 10:30 in the morning...

As for my luch sandwich, it is exactly the same as my morning one.

So of course I get hungry at 3:30 in the afternoon again. I usually hunt for hot chocolate with a lot of milk, of course.


Dutch is mostly unlike the sounthern west European, for they dine between 5 to 7 for dinner. (My Italian friends were in shock and excalimed right away, "Come to Italy, now, Katie!!!" They are the people enjoy two-hour-to-forever-long dinner fiesta, and refuse to sacrifice their lunch hours for any task.) Restaurants are genuinely rushed in the food-craving crowd right after the office hour, so dining places get to close really early here. For the rest of European's standard, a bistro's not taking order after 8:30 is unacceptably early. But who can blame these sandwich munching people? Certainly they are desperately for food early in the afternoon. The petit sandwich with paper-thin salami does not keep one alive for long.

However, with all this dairy consuming, I am very concerned that I might return home a cattle. Let's finger-cross for Kat is never spelled as calf.

canals, many many

Everybody would tell you the same thing here, "You can look over the water from our living room windows. " This is definately a common statement in Am*dam. (Don't be fooled by any real estate agent, new comers.)

The canals indeed make the city lovely. Strolling through Am*dam is quite pleasant in any time of the year, even in this unusually cold winter (the coldese in the past 20 years). You can choose to walk across bridges from one canal to another, or simply choose one canal and leisurely walk along it. There would be hard to find a up-right building here; houses are leaning against each other and packed tightly one to another, just like the way they park bicycles.


According to Meg, Amsterdam city office has made an official (maybe proudly) announcement that, "Weekly, there is one car falling into canal, on average." Be careful on parking. Water is everywhere.