No Sleep 'Til....Belgium!

Editor's note: the events described here actually happened May 26 and 27, 2010.  Oops.

When I was planning my trip to Paris, my newfound Belgian friend Sophie piped up, and started helping me plan my trip.  This inevitably lead to me stopping to visit her in Antwerp before going on to Paris.  Here are the few things that I knew about Belgium prior to visiting:

1. They have good beer there!
2. They have good chocolate there!
3. They have a secret neighborhood there with all the diamond merchants!
4. The guy who created the Smurfs is from there!
5. I do not understand the difference between Dutch and Flemish!

So of course I wanted to try to experience those stereotypically Belgian things, along with whatever else Sophie recommended.



BELGIAN THING #1: THE GOOD BEER



I like my beer.  But I would not really consider myself a beer snob.  I'll drink anything.  (Including Natural Light.)  As we went on our walk around Antwerp, we periodically stopped in little cafes and pubs to have a sampling.  And I discovered there is a reason Belgian beer has such a good reputation: because, well, it's good.  The Leffe was great, the De Koninck was great...but it was the La Chouffe that won my heart.  "A golden blonde ale whose freshness and fruity taste really make it stand out."  Mmmmmm....and the cute little dwarf/troll/elf mascot doesn't hurt, either.  That beer and that dwarf could possibly turn me into a beer snob.



BELGIAN THING #2: THE GOOD CHOCOLATE



I also like my chocolate.  But I'm used to truck stop chocolate.  Sophie took me to a place that could only be described as a fancy chocolate...salon?  We stopped in to the very stylish, shiny black store and asked to look at their selection.  They invited us to the secret upstairs chocolate chamber, where all the chocolates were kept on display in velvet-lined boxes, and the chocolate steward handled everything wearing little white gloves.  It was so very, very fancy.  This chocolate was so pure.  Being raised on Hershey's milk chocolate, I'm used to the main ingredient of my chocolate being sugar.  But Belgian chocolate is less sugary and more chocolately.  It just tastes real.



BELGIAN THING #3: THE DIAMONDS



My whole perception of the Diamond District is based on the movie "Snatch" and this article from Wired magazine about The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist.  The area I saw was much less like that, and much more like one of those "Cash 4 Gold" commercials.  But I did keep seeing examples where they were clever enough to combine the diamonds and the chocolate into chocolate diamonds.



BELGIAN THING #4: THE SMURFS



You remember Peyo, right?  He was Belgian!  But when he made the Smurfs, they were really called Les Schtroumpfs.  Which morphed (smurfed?) into "Smurfs" in English, "Puffi" in Italian, "Strumparnir" in Icelandic, "Sumaafu" in Japanese, "Pitufos"in Spanish, etc.  And when we were shopping around in some antique shops, I found ol' Grumpy Schtroumpf standing around, haating de Golf.



BELGIAN THING #5: DUTCH VS. FLEMISH

I still have no idea what's going on.  I'm so confused.  But Dutch is very English-ish, so it was a nice change of pace to be able to walk around and sort-of know what the signs said.  And if you just said things in English fast and slurred, it might even sound like Dutch.  For example, "thank you" in Dutch is "dank u."


So in conclusion, everything that Belgium is known for it deserves to be known for.  Now they just need to figure out how to make a chocolate-flavored, Smurf-branded beer and they'll be all set!

P.S. Huge dank u to Sophie for being such an awesome hostess and cook and tour guide!  Please come visit me in Texas someday, so you can try the Natural Light beer and truck stop chocolate so you'll know what you're not missing!