With words like these, this advertisement certainly caught my attention!
PRINCESS BECKY, HER TWINS AND 2 MAIDS AND I WENT TO BRUSSELS AND BRUGES IN BELGIUM WITHOUT MICHAEL MANTZ AND DANIEL AS THEY DUO WANTED TO GO TO THE BEACH IN THE HAGUE AND A THEME PARK.
God forbid Princess Becky and I would drive the 9-seater vehicle so we hired a driver for RM 1,000 excluding meals for the entire day.
We started around 10pm and returned around 10pm so it was quite a hectic day though we did nothing more than shopped, ate, drank, consumed Haagen-Dasz ice cream and slept on and off in the Ford.
Brussels, despite being the de facto capital of the entire Europen Union, looks like a poor cousin of Paris. The buildings are similar but lack the elegant flourishes and elaborate iron wrought railings that add so much class and beauty to Paris. Some buildings have mansard roofs ala the French capital but again, the embellishments are inadequate.
This could be due to the Dutch sensibility as we all know how thrifty (some say plain stingy and parsimonious) the Dutch are. At the height of Amsterdam's glory, the city fathers decided to build a City Hall but the building was so modest it looked like a warehouse compared to Paris City Hall which resembled a palace!
The buildings in Brussels appear to be torn between the economical Dutch and extravagant French and the end results make for insipid architecture that is neither here nor there! In Holland, most buildings are prim, proper and decidedly sturdy without excessive ornamentation. They possess clean lines and sleek if understated style.
By contrast, Brussels' buildings seem like they cannot make up their mind to go French with all the frills, flounces and flourishes or the sedate, no-nonsense and functional structures favoured by the Dutch and German.
Actually it is very easy. All Roman Catholic countries revel in ostentatious, lavish and extravagant displays when it comes to architecture, churches, public buildings, monuments, statues and gardens. Think France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Luxembourg and of course Italy.
The northern European nations of Holland, Germany, Scandinavia and Finland are Protestant or Calvinist or Methodist and their churches are as Spartan and minimalist as Mother Hubbard's cupboard is bare. The natives here also do not place Virgin Mary highly and do not venerate her and the pantheon of saints as devotedly as the Catholics who believe such enlightened beings have the power of intercession between human petitioners and God.
Brussels is also the headquarters of NATO and is supposed to be very important relative to its small population of over a million. Belgium's politics are also messy as it was without a working government for months on end at one time.
Politicians piss each other all the time and this is best reflected in the world famous Manneken Pis----a statue of a boy peeing into a fountain! The word 'piss' comes from the name of this little mannikin!
Founded by a descendant of Charlemagne in 950 AD, Brussels was Dutch speaking till recently when French became dominant. In those days, the Dutch language was considered socially inferior to the flowery and expressive French and many Dutch became bi-lingual to be socially and upwardly mobile. Today, Brussels is officially bi-lingual and both languages are used on official documents and road signs.
The kings and queens of Europe used to converse in French with each other which is quite ridiculous as France is a republic and has banished all titles from its phone books. Of course these days all the royals speak English and French is used only by the oldies in their eighties.
Of course there are plenty of grand palaces, plazas and princely buildings but Waterloo, the main shopping avenue, looks very faintly like Champs Elysees in Paris but in reality it looks a wee downtrodden and dog-eared.
Avenue Montaigne or rue Fauborg St Honore it is not! But Princess Becky bought a sleeveless fur coat at Louis Vuitton and a ton of Leonidas chocolates at Brughes.
The stately Grand Place
This highclass, aristocratic section of Brussels could be in Paris
Linda, Raphael, Gloria and Angie enjoying Haagen-Dasz ice cream
The biggest hotel in Brussels is The Hotel, how original is that?
This is Waterloo, the main shopping district of Brussels
The birdman statue
The Volkswagen is my favourite non-luxurious car. Whether new like this one or the old, original model, I like them all!
I also like these two cars!
2 comments:
The dutch language is one of the top ten searched for languages in the world. It is the language spoken in the Netherlands (Holland), as well as several other countries around the planet. Over 22 million people in the world speak Dutch.
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Don't stop posting such articles. I like to read blogs like this.
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