When you're showered with letters, you bathe in words

Unembarrassed Celebrations

Whilst one of the top 5 reasons I love Belgians has to be their unique enthusiasm for the Scouts, another has to be that neither the rain nor politics stop them getting on with their lives. Belgium recently beat Afghanistan as the country to go the longest without a government. It has also been at least three weeks since Brussels has seen longer than half an hour of uninterrupted sunshine. Yet the National Day of Belgium went ahead all the same on the 21st July.

Place Annessens is a square where nothing normally happens, unless you want to buy weed. It's only 10 minutes from the fancy old Grand Place and the chic Rue Dansaert full of their Flemish hipsters and Spanish tourists, where every weekend stages are erected and dismantled for jazz concerts, city-wide cleaning projects ("Grab your broom and join the fun!" was the advert for the hilarious Journée de la Propreté). There was even an installation involving two sheep set up on the Place Saint Catherine the other day for the Festival des Arts.

Place Annessens stands as a grand entrance to a district rich in languages, cultures and exciting smells that waft from the windows high up in the grey skyscrapers. As soon as Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa took to the stage for the B United concert, people came out of their houses in spite of the rain: I even saw people in sunglasses, ha. It was great therefore to see this part of town celebrating being Bruxellois and Brussels celebrating this part of town! We got taught songs in Arabic and Wolof (I think!) about some of the 1000 tricks you need to know if you ever fall in love and that you need to dance to music you love if you ever miss home.

I once did a Contemporary African Dance class and was told confidently by the teacher that it is a myth that only Africans who know how to dance: rhythm is an intimate part of being human, as long as your heart beats and you skin falls off periodically. He also made us walk around the room with our eyes closed at the beginning of the class and to do a warm-up which involved a motion he described as "peeling the banana" though, so I'm not 100% taking his word on this one. I felt a bit embarrassed getting down on the Place Annessens surrounded by people who were seriously cool dancers. I then realised though that everyone was getting down, even a dog at one point.

If nationalism can be this proud of multi-nationalism, then I might rethink my suspiciousness of it. If rain doesn't need to stop play, I want to keep dancing!

Project Zinneke: Phase 1

Partly in protest against the invasion of the cobbled streets of Brussels by the SUPER-SIZED WAFFLE (a sickly sweet distortion of a perfectly acceptable patisserie, favoured by the unwitting tourist); partly inspired by the discovery of a Belgian group called MuZiek de Singe, whose music has been discribed as Zinneke Swing, I have fallen even deeper for the Bruxellois (abstract: I wouldn't be talking about that on the internet now, would I?!).

Zinneke, if you want to practise your French:

"désigne en bruxellois à la fois la petite Senne, la rivière qui contournait Bruxelles pour éviter des inondations et un chien bâtard qui parfois terminait son existence dans la Senne. Par extension, le Zinneke est celui qui a des origines multiples, symbole du caractère cosmopolite et multiculturel de Bruxelles." (This is how the annual Zinneke parade organisers describe it)

Ok, so if French GCSE is only a distant memory to you, Zinneke is:

A word in brusseloise, describing the little river Senne, which winds its way around Brussels, as well as a type of mongrel (whose life sadly often ends in the river Senne). By extension, someone who is a Zinneke has multiple origins and it is this sense of multiculturalism that caracterises Brussels.

Come and visit us, if you can decode the pixels

Scathing criticism of the SUPER-SIZED WAFFLE, from the awesome Use-it Guide to Brussels

In Brussels, people communicate in any language they know. Sometimes this means that the two participants in the conversation may not be using the same one, which can often be confusing (in beer-related situations, the Flemish have overcome this by developing the genius system of holding up one's little finger to order one pintje). Often though, this means that people just find it more straightforward not to talk to each other.

I like writing letters, and I like receiving letters (anyone who wants to be penpals, let me know!). I like Brussels but I still have a lot to discover. I know that there are ugly things to see and strange stories to tell that only those people who live in each of the 18 communes (divided into over 100 districts) know about. 

With only a slight trepidation at the prospect of encouraging a return to the chain-mail letters that I used to receive on an almost weekly basis as a child (most of which seemed to be trying for a Guinness Book of Records feat), I plan to invite the Bruxellois to have a bit of a letter swap. I've got a poster, which I plan to stick around Brussels, once I have the time to go back to the National Bank Library, where you get free printing. 

The plan beyond this? tbc....

Here Comes the Sun!

According to a list compiled in a recent exhibition in the Halles de Saint-Géry, an old market turned into a swish café and exhibition space, this Beatles classic is one of the songs that "Bruxellois" believe best describe the city they live in. I have lived in Wales, where rain and sheep are the two unofficial national symbols and I don't really get what these guys are on about: it rains a LOT here.

I think I might be right in saying, though, that the summer is on its way here: the ice-cream vans ingeniously provided with winter trading by selling waffles have re-stocked their vans with the good stuff. There is even some competition hotting up between ice-cream vendors:

The sun seems to be having a good effect on every generation too; on my way home yesterday, I saw a granny tapping her feet and bopping her head along to dance music blaring from a passing car full of young whippersnappers. Genius.