Our second day in Brussels was going to be a walking day because we couldn’t take the Hop On – Hop Off Bus. Why? Because the city was locked down in preparation for President Donald Trump’s impending visit to Brussels where he was going to be addressing the European Parliament. When we heard the news, we wanted to puke. We live thirty miles from D.C. and listen to Trump’s insane nonsense every waking minute of every waking day, and then we travel across the globe to get away from all that foolishness and find out that he’s followed us.
The bus driver chuckled and said, “I guess you can’t get away from the guy.”
After sampling the tasty Belgian waffles at the incredibly popular Australian Waffle Shop off the Grand Place we went in search of some comic relief.
In addition to beer, chocolate, french fries, and waffles, the Belgians are noted for their comic books. They love their comics. So, we decided to see what all the fuss was about and paid a visit to the Belgian Comic Book Center where they featured all things Tintin, including his little red car. To be honest, we were less than impressed.
In a city that loves comics, graffiti street art is enthusiastically embraced. The artists don’t have to work in the dark, like in the States. It’s like their day job.
Brussels was in total lock-down the day The Donald came to town. We had the place essentially to ourselves. It was just us and the Belgian army. The streets were lined with what looked like shoreline defenses strung with razor wire, and at key intersections there were long lines of police cars and Humvee’s with sharpshooters scanning for trouble. It seemed weird to be the only people walking around, but the armed forces were polite and we were never prevented from continuing our stroll down the Rue Belliard which eventually led us to the European Parliament.
I figured that the Parliament would be closed because of Trump. And given the small number of visitors, I wasn’t the only one who thought that way. But it turned out the Parliamentarium was open for business. The Parliamentarium is the flashy, ultra-modern visitor center and it’s free. The multi-floored building is filled with amazing interactive exhibits that explain the European Parliament’s history and inner workings in great detail. We sat in a room that was made to look like a Committee Hearing Room wrapped in digital screens and watched an incredibly informative video about how a bill passes the European Union Parliament (EUP).
Essentially, the EUP is a bag of cats comprised of numerous parties – the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (#1), Freedom and Direct Democracy (#2), European Conservatives and Reformists (#3), Christian Democrats, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Greens/European Free Alliance, European United Green/Nordic Left, Europe of Nations and Freedom, and unattached – and to get these disparate groups, representing the 28 member countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden) – to agree on ANYTHING is a goddamn miracle. We can’t get anything accomplished in Congress and we only have two parties. Imagine!
My biggest takeaway from my visit to the EUP was this: the Brits are totally screwed. The EU is going to jack them up like there’s no tomorrow and the English are going to soon rue the day they voted in favor of Brexit – much as America is having buyer’s remorse after electing Donald Trump as our President.
We headed back toward the center of Uptown and decided to check out the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, which is really three museums: the Old Masters Museum, the Fin-de-Siecle Museum, and the Magritte Museum. Each museum costs 8 euro, or you can buy a combo ticket for all three for 13 euro. Unfortunately, the Magritte Museum was closed.
We began our visit with a stop at the patio cafe where we tried yet another frosty beverage.
The Old Masters Museum had some wild paintings by Hieronymus Bosch (my all time favorite).
And Salvador Dali
As we were heading for the Fin de Siecle Museum we were met by several Belgian army soldiers loaded for bear and blocking the stairs.
“The museum is closed,” they announced.
“But we bought tickets less than an hour ago,” I replied.
“It was unexpected,” replied the commanding officer. “A surprise visit from a visiting dignitary,” he said, sounding almost embarrassed.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Trump.”
The soldier nodded. “Apparently Ivanka and Melania Trump decided they wanted a break from the men and they picked this museum for their little getaway.”
To say we were livid would be an understatement.
“We’re getting our money back,” said Inna angrily. And we did. The guy who gave us our refund seemed madder than we were. The Belgians are not big fans of the Trumps.
After getting thrown out of the Fin de Siecle Museum we walked around Upper Town. At that point, we had covered over ten miles and we were tired and hot. On the way back to our hotel, we encountered spectacles galore. Like the Place de Palais.
The Royal Palace
The Coudenberg Palace
Spectacular views of Lower Town
Public gardens and statuary
Monuments
Castles
Churches
Weird shit
Public art
Stately buildings
The Musical Instruments Museum in a building inexplicably called Old England.
Chocopolis
After resting in our hotel room for about an hour, we ventured out for dinner. We headed for the Rue De L’Infante Isabelle which is lined with an amazing assortment of fine dining cafes and we got a table at Aux Paves de Bruxelles where we sampled a delicious assortment of charcoal-broiled meats that were simply out of this world!
Street musicians serenaded us with Frank Sinatra tunes as we ate.
Just down the street, we noticed a place called Au Brasseur where most of the people were ordering planks of Belgian beer – six different brews in their designer glasses for 20 euro.
And that’s about the time things got crazy. We were drinking our plank of tasty beers when two young women walked by carrying protest signs against Trump. I got up to snap a photo and remarked that they looked like they were going to a protest.
“You bet,” replied the smiling girl. “There’s a march down at the Bourse in fifteen minutes.”
Inna and I were like, “Yeah, buddy!”
A few minutes later we were standing in front of the granite Marriott Hotel in the middle of one of Brussels’ most popular hangouts, the pedestrian-only, Boulevard Anspach.
The march came down Rue Antoine Dansaert, the city’s upscale shopping street, and then banged a left on the Boulevard Anspach in front of the white-columned Bourse, the city’s first stock exchange, and the place where throughout history, protests have always erupted. Green Peace climbers scaled the marble columns and draped a “Make PEACE Great Again” banner while a drum line group of about fifty badass women performed drum songs as they danced on the steps. The mood was almost primal.
There were well over 10,000 people of every color, age, and economic strata in the festive parade. And there were lots of soldiers who seemed to be genuinely amused by the whole scene. One of them told me the problem with the world today was the “big banks”.
The protest seemed to mirror the European Parliament in that it embraced a myriad of special interests – women’s rights groups wearing pussy hats, peaceniks, anti-NATO and anti-EU factions, socialists and communists, greenies, and all shades of “We Hate Trump” – they were all there in full regalia.
The Donald even marched in the parade.
We talked to many of the protesters and they were unanimous in their dislike for Trump. But it was really more like they think he’s just a clown. I knew from my previous visits to Europe in the early 2000’s that most Europeans viscerally hated Bush II, but they didn’t think he was crazy. They don’t respect Trump enough to hate him. They do, however, fear him because of America’s vast nuclear arsenal – just like they fear Trump’s buddy Putin.
The good news is this: Europeans still love Americans.
Trump had referred to Belgium at one of his redneck rallies as a “hellhole” for allowing terrorism, which obviously was not too well received by the Belgians.
We heard time and time again, “America is irrelevant. Angela Merkle is now the leader of the Free World.” And I’m good with that, but I was left to wonder, almost in awe, how this could happen in just the brief five months of Trump’s presidency?
And as we stood there in front of the Bourse, watching this passionate outpouring of sanity and lunacy, I started to cry. Americans might not get it, but the people of Europe do.
The most disheartening thing about the Brussels protest was the way it was covered by the American press – or wasn’t. While the protest march received major coverage in Europe, only a handful of U.S. news providers gave it a mention. Most people in the U.S. got something along the lines of, “Queen Mathilde gave President Trump a warm reception at the Royal Palace when he came to Brussels to address the European Parliament.” And that was true because, when all is said and done, the Belgians are nothing if not gracious hosts. But to give the American people the impression that the Belgians respect Trump in any way is pure propaganda. They respect AMERICA, but not a con man bully like Donald Trump who, as usual, grabbed the headlines almost immediately by being captured on video thuggishly shoving the Prime Minister of Montenegro aside so he could stand at the front of some EU dignitaries. And that, friends and neighbors, is not putting America’s best foot forward.