First impressions of Brussels

I have been in Brussels before, twice. Once for an afternoon, then shortly after for a whole weekend. And I still have the impression that all is very, very new to me. And that's because it really is. The first time I had Brazilian friends showing me around by car. The second time I had local company and advice, so I didn't pay too much attention to how things work around here.

For me, the most striking feature of this city is the plurality of languages. Arriving at the Noord Station (Gare du Nord), the train announcements where done in four languages: French, Dutch, German and English. You don't get always the four-language-menu, but in most situations you see the French-Dutch combination. Restaurant menues, party flyers, product packages, promotion material, advertising, maps, etc. And this is not bad. Because I speak both Portuguese and German, I usually can understand more than 50% of the French and Dutch written material I get in my hands. So, when something isn't clear in one of the languages, I just turn to the other and am, usually, able to fill the gaps. Curiously enough, I am observing that I prefer to start with French.

But even if you don't have the advantage of my two mother tongues, you usually can get by with English in Brussels. It is not always easy, but it certainly is not a problem. People are very open to foreigners and try to help where possible. I guess they have to, after all, we are in the European capital and internationality is a strong part of reality.

The other thing I noticed here was the German railway system. Sounds strange, but, although the Belgium system is very good by any standards, the comparison just shows how incredibly advanced, well organized, tidy and even pretty the German transportation system is, starting with the websites. To get around in Brussels, you use www.stib.be. To get around in Germany, very often you can use the national rail website, even for city connections: www.bahn.de. Otherwise, you use the regional websites, like http://www.rnv-online.de. And I even found out that it is sometimes easier to use the www.bahn.de site for connections in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Another practical aspect I dedicated some time yesterday to was mobile telephony. While in the US I had the worst conditions, followed closely by Canada and at a greater distance by Britain, in Belgium it is very easy to get a prepaid SIM card with a simple prices overview. I am paying 20 cents per minute anytime, any Belgium line and 10 cents per SMS. And I might get interne for 50 cents a Megabyte, if I figure out how. That is certainly not bad, but, in Germany, I was paying 9 cents per minute or SMS and 24 cents per Megabyte. Again, going abroad (whatever abroad means in my case) is a good exercise to put things into perspective.

And now I'll go down for some breakfast. I spent some hours in Vilvoorde yesterday and took many pictures. I'll try to post them in the weekend, I am curious to see the results.