Last Sunday, Brian and I flew into Brussels for my friend Giulia's wedding. Giulia is my only friend who has the same name that I do, and she's also one of my oldest friends. I lived in Waterloo, Belgium with my parents when I was 16 and 17. For just one year I went to the international school there, and met Giulia. She was the rare student who had stayed in Waterloo from kindergarten through high school. Now living in L.A. and working in the film industry, she was coming home to get married.
My parents were there too. They'd wanted to visit Brian and me and also have a European vacation. So they joined the party and got caught up in some reminiscing along the way. It was funny going back to a place I lived 17 years ago. Mom and Dad had more 'remember when' moments than I did, more stories about getting lost and meeting the other expats and making cultural missteps. I had some memories of my year in Waterloo, but they came without much emotional attached. It was like remembering a place because I'd seen photos of it many times. I must have been so caught up in being a teenager that the world outside of my house and my school and my friends wasn't so important.
I did realize during this trip that Waterloo is a suburb that's a lot like an American suburb. It has subdivisions with street names that all fit under a theme, big lawns and homes with attached garages, a McDonald's and a Pizza Hut. It seemed odd to me now - why would we go to the trouble of moving to another country, and just to live in the same sort of place we'd left? But maybe my parents had chosen it for that very reason. Maybe picking up a suburb and putting it in Europe was change enough.
I also realized that Belgium is the headquarters for the European Union, NATO and various multinational corporations because it is centrally located mostly unremarkable. It's a country made from two halves stitched together, with a French culture and a Dutch culture but not a strong culture of its own. It's a place where foreigners are welcome and not completely out of place.
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| Manneken Pis, Brussels |
Paris has the famous symbol of the Eiffel Tower. Rome has the Colloseum, London has the bridge, and Brussels has a statue of a little boy peeing. The Mannekin Pis is the major tourist draw in town. Belgium's other big landmarks are a giant chrome atom with mini-golf-course sized Europe at its base, and of course the Butte du Lion in Waterloo. When you say it in French it sounds fancier, but the Butte is a big mound with a lion statue on top, built to commemorate the site of Napoleon's defeat in 1815. It's kind of weird - just a little beyond the Pizza Hut are some fields where the
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| Butte du Lion, Waterloo |
What I liked about Belgium this time around were those less famous places. I liked the winding streets in Brussels and the ruined abbey we visited. I liked the spring flowers and the old step-roofed buildings.
I probably would have liked Pizza Hut too, but we never made it there.
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| Grand Place, Brussels |
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| Grand Place, Brussels |
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| Brussels |
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| Dinant |
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| Villers a Ville Abbey |
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