Brussels, part the first.

I've been told by several people that most visitors are disappointed by Brussels. I suppose I might be able to see why. The city is, for one, filthy. On my first day in Dublin, I noticed something distressing: the pigeons were clean. They were so clean that I was actually embarrassed for Philadelphia's pigeons. I know that my town has a reputation for being, among other things, a bit slovenly, but having spent most of my life there I'm afraid that I'm less blind to it than I am actually perversely proud of our efforts. Encountering pigeons that looked as if they had better taste in cufflinks than I do, however, provided a new standard by which to judge. Pigeons across Europe are cleaner than Philadelphian pigeons. The only exception I've yet found to this rule is Brussels. The entire city is covered in a thick layer of grime. Following a blizzard, my city becomes coated in a slushy dust, black and thick, that has always reminded me of what one might have found coughed into the sleeve of an eight year old chimney sweep in London in 1842. Brussels was crusted with the stuff in the warm part of September. Due to my intense pride in my own dirty city, however, rather than judging Brussels for its scuffs and stains, I found that I was all the more endeared to it.

The other reason to dislike Brussels is that the city's mascot is a tiny statue of a urinating child. This is meant to express something about the city's rebellious spirit, but actually demonstrates what most of us already know: that most tourists are willing to stand in a crowd to take bad photographs of an ugly fountain.

My feelings about the place, however, can be explained thusly. As soon as I crawled out of the Central Train Station and onto the Metro, before I even had time to worry about whether or not I'd be able to find my host's house with my extremely limited vocabulary in either of the city's two official languages, I found this:

Might I present Orchestre International du Vetex.





Not only did I get surprise Balkan music, but the accordion player was wearing a hat that made him look like a bear. I dare you to name something that could please me more than accordions and bear hats. Furthermore, the adorably self-conscious shuffling dances were often made even better when during one member's solo the other musicians would surround him or her, fall to one knee, and reach to them with one hand while placing their other hand longingly on their hearts. I bought their CD immediately, and you should too.

Apparently this sort of thing is quite typical of Brussels: the city is famous for fantastic public events that were only ever halfway planned, were never advertised, and cannot really be sought out, but are delightful things to stumble upon.