My opportunistic and eventful visit to Belgium

Isn’t a visit to the old Europe dreamy? Well I have always found it that way, until the last one. I have been to the western part of the continent many times, but always left this tiny piece of land sandwiched between the Netherlands and France out. I even overstayed in Amsterdam and dropped the plan of sweeping by the southern neighbour once. So I was quite happy to get a chance to tick that off from my list last summer, as a sudden opportunity had been presented in the form of an academic presentation at the Université catholique de Louvain (UC Louvain), just 30 km away from Brussels, the nation’s capital.

Well, Brussels is not only a nation’s capital but also hosts the many of the European Union offices, making it the de-facto capital of the “Altes Europa”, binding the continent once used to be riddled with tension and wars. But little did I know that this tiny country itself is being torn between two tongues for what seems like forever. And I was supposed to go to an institution that was born out of this feud. Belgium, as we know it today, has been created by the Belgian Revolution in 1830 that results in its secession from the United Kingdom of Netherlands. The interesting part: the seceded southern provinces as it used to be called before, housed a large population of Dutch speaking Flemish people along with the French Walloons. But, but, isn’t that what people in the Netherlands speak? Definitely, but the Flemish people were largely catholic in contrast to the Dutch reformed protestants of the North. This seems to be one of those innumerable turns in the history where the ethno-lingual identity has been trumped over by the religion. But the Flemish people soon became unhappy with the Francophone upper-class and clergymen. The French bourgeoise, with their pride in the French cultural superiority, used to look down upon their Flemish counterpart much to the latter’s dismay. Surprisingly, Dutch wasn’t even a state language until the 20th century. The clear demarcation between the Flemish Flanders and the French speaking Wallonia also didn’t help to reduce the tension.

Coming back to the UC Louvain, what seems to be a quiet university campus built in a custom-made town, is actually born out of this rift that runs deep in the country. The university is housed in the town of “Louvain-la-Neuve“, or the new Louvain. Naturally the question arises: where is the “old Louvain”? Turned out that the old town is fashioned as Leuven in dutch, deep inside the Flanders, and houses the Flemish descendant of the same university, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. That used to be the original Catholic University of Leuven where the French language ruled supreme until 1930 in-spite of the town itself being predominantly Flemish. Introducing a Dutch language section didn’t really alleviate the problem. The dispute resulted in a widespread student unrest in 1960s resulting into the Dutch section being separated as the new KU Leuven which remained in the city. However, people in both the universities speak English well, and that comes to the rescue of this poor soul who doesn’t know the single word of French or Dutch. But the restaurants can be a real pain sometimes.

Although the country is officially bilingual, the clear demarcation between the regions of Flanders and Wallonia means that one sees the use of a single language, specially in relatively rural area. I didn’t get a chance to explore Flanders except the town of Bruges. But most establishments and business there serve in Dutch. The reverse seemed true in Namur and Louvain-la-Neuve, the towns of Wallonia. On a side note, I do recommend visiting Bruges which is only a couple of hours of train ride away from Brussels. The canals and the medieval vibe of the town along with the graceful swans on the waterways make it a photographer’s dream.

The city of Brussels, being the capital, but inside the Flanders region, is in a little weird situation in this tug-of-war. Huge Francophone immigration and the elite French ruling class have made Brussels a French island inside the Flemish ocean. Although the street signs are bilingual, few people speak Dutch. I still have a police report in French after I reported the theft of my belongings (yes, you heard that right, and that needs another post). However, the tensions flare up in the towns near the language watershed, as the road-signs in the unfavourable language routinely get vandalised by the opposing groups.

Overall, there seems to be no national story for Belgium, barring the royal palace and King Albert II. It is always Flanders and Wallonia, trapped in a marriage that neither is interested in anymore, but can’t part due to the high cost of separation. But if it really comes to that, I sincerely hope that there won’t be another Yugoslavia, but more like the Velvet break-up we saw in Czechoslovakia.

Not all those who wander are lost.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Hello everyone, this is my first post. And I hope to have many more in the coming months. I got my hands into blogging, as many do, after graduating from high school. But that enthusiasm died down after merely three posts with the dreary undergraduate days coming up. However, I hope that this time the bug will persist and the frequency of my posts will reach a steady state soon.

From the homepage, by now, it is probably clear that this blog will be dedicated to the unprecedented and sometimes unfortunate, but always eventful voyages I have made over the past few years; and I believe that I will continue to have more as my time and job permits. Speaking of that, I am currently a PhD candidate in the University of Maryland, and hope to graduate soon. I know, I know what you are thinking. I am the last person whom anyone can think as a travel blogger. Aren’t the grad students meant to be piss poor, sleep deprived, and indoor creatures? Well, certainly there are times when we are, but who doesn’t want to have some finer tastes even with all these predicaments? And I tend to exhibit that by travelling, capturing moments, and of course, writing about those experiences.

But, but, aren’t there thousands of blogs available on the all-encompassing web? Certainly there are, but what harm will another one do? Jokes apart, I felt that there is a need for travel stories by people who are not dedicated travelers or travel-writers, specially people like me who are slogging in the school and still want to get out of the lab and the dorm sometimes to enjoy what is out there with their meagre bank balance. Hopefully they will get something out of this page, and it will motivate them to go out more often.

As an international student in the USA, and hailing from a country with a fairly weak passport, traveling is not always fun unlike the stories perpetuated by the social media. I used to be an opportunistic traveller for the past years, and went out of country only when my career took me somewhere. But that did instill in me a certain thirst for soaking in different cultures and travel intentionally to know the world. During these (mis)adventures, I was scammed by a local in Salzburg, spent night on the streets in a near freezing temperature in Oslo, apprehended by thugs in the streets of Rome, and lost my passport to a thief in Brussels. But I also got to know some of the nicest persons who, even with the language barrier, helped me to find my ways around an alien land, to repair my photographic gear in a time of the utmost need, and to get me a quick first-aid when I fell and badly bruised my knees and nothing else was available. All these have inspired me to connect with the people I would have never met otherwise and made me to realise that the world is truly a family, and the home is often found by sailing through many harbours. In a nutshell, this blog is meant to be both a cautionary tale and an ode to the wonderful humanity all over the globe. And last but not the least, I would love to share the moments that I have seen through the viewfinder of my cameras, and engage in the discussions to improve their quality.

So, stay tuned for the photos, stories, and adventures. Sailing through the Ganges, Rhine, Danube, and Mississippi, we’ll visit the Black Forest of Hansel and Gretel, cringe at the darkness of the concentration camps, look over the Langelinie where the Little Mermaid is still looking at the eastern sky, and be mesmerised by the splendour of the fall colours at Shenandoah valley.