Brussels come down

Weve been back a week and things are quietening down - back into the rut again not helped by acting up for my boss next week. It looks like travel plans are on hold for the time being - I guess we'll wait and see but I think that a staycation is on the cards for the late summer and that'll be it for 2012. Hey ho.
We both enjoyed Brussels (slightly to my suprise I think)and its quirkiness. I hope that well be back in Belgium at some point - maybe the battlefields of Flanders or Bruges which is supposed to be very nice. I think because of its make up, its divided ethnicity that there will be very little language problems - everyone already speaks french and Flemish and I suspect that the French would rather speak English that Flemish and the Phlegms wuld rather speak English that French. There really is very little love lost between the two communities - I cant help but think of Kurt who I met a few years back in Tunisia who distained all things Francophile.
There were a couple od monuments (last weeks entry being a standout example) but it is a young country - A lot of the city streets are bilingual but in addition some of those in the city centre also have a second road sign based on the Belgian BD (Band Desinee) culture - particularly liked the Professor Calculus one on Rue Charles Bul. I managed to find three books in the local Brussels patois - although again theres a French version of the dialect and a Flemish one as well. We also visited the Belgian BD museum housed in a beautiful Horta Art Nouveau building - a wonderful exhibition space with plenty of light from its expanse of glass. We got the Brussels card which gave us free access to many of the city museums so we spent a bit of time in the company of Bruegal at the Royal Art Museum and then the Halle Gate and the Far East museum and then Autoworld and the national museum - not up to the british museum but a couple of the exhibits and Incan mummy and a statuette inspired Herge when writing the Broken Ear. Herge didnt leave belgium for a lot of his life so he wrote a lot from researach - it was rather special to see the things and the places that inspired him.