My anticipation towards Brussels has been mounting in the coming weeks. Before leaving I did a lot of research on the best cities to celebrate holiday festivities in- because.. well YAY HOLIDAYS, and Brussels was at the top (right after Paris, of course!). So for the past week, I've had my sights set on Brussels imagining myself frolicking with candy canes and holiday ham through the well light streets of Europe's capital.
And Brussels.. you brought your A game.
Yesterday Erik and I got in and it was freezing. The kind of cold where snot drips from your nose, and you're so cold you don't even feel it. You couldn't have sniffled, because you didn't even know it was there. We arrived at our hostel and were almost afraid to venture back out. No worries! We put on another 3 layers and figured we were more than ready to battle the weather.
The pay off was HUGE. Brussels is a really unique city. It has a modern metropolitan feel. Being the capital of Europe and all.. it has a lot to show off. There are sky scrapers and important buildings everywhere, this is really the mecca of all westernized countries in Europe. It has the feeling of Chicago or New York. Your swept up in its class and importance that hangs in the air like your breath. Just when your neck starts to hurt from being tilted upward, you come across a building that is.. oh 500 years old! Reality check! Still in Europe. Still in a city that existed hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Statues mingle with tram stops, old light posts with state of the art buildings.. it's quite a unique pairing.
All of this was great, but I was in search of their holiday market. It is said to be the largest in the world, with ferris wheels, carousels, and light shows. The first market we found had the light show. The square, still perfectly intact, holds Brussels best buildings. All of their charm and ornate statue work on display, garland up, and lights ready. All of the sudden everything was dark, and music that sounded like the American Beauty soundtrack came on. Beautiful, yet kind of unnerving, it was as if it was setting the stage for the phantom of the opera to sweet down out of a 7th story parliment window.
And just like that. Light. Light. Light. MIX UP. HOLLA. The music was infused with new Christmas meets techno fabulousness. I'm normally for traditional Christmas music, but this was nuts. All of the windows in the largest most castle-like building in the square had grates over them. These grates were actually used for the lights, so a series of different shapes and patterns cascaded through the hundreds of windows of this building, in perfect rhythm with the music. You've got to be kidding me. Reds, greens, blues, perfectly coordinated. It was absolutely memorizing.
The show lasted for roughly a half an hour. Which in total is probably one of the stillest 30 minute periods of my life. They have perfected the art of stealing the show.
We wanted to explore further, but we knew we wanted to save some for the day time and the next few nights. On our cold walk home we came across an authentic Peruvian flute festival, with hundreds of Peruvians in this small tented area, listening, laughing, and dancing. I loved it. We stopped and enjoyed this music too, before heading home and heating up our now frozen toes.
Anyway- I'm sorry if this seems slightly carelessly written. The internet here is horrible. Plus, we have to pay an outrageous sum for it. So, my fingers are tapping quite quickly.
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