Christmas Comes in Chocolate

I finally got to go to Brussels!

I went there three years ago, though just for a day, most of it spent riding the bus around the city while lost on my way to the train station. The city struck me as gritty, gloomy, gray. I didn't have a real desire to go back. But, some of my students told me that Brussels around Christmas was a must-see, so I decided I'd give it a second chance.

Really, I wasn't going to see the city of Brussels, but rather the Christmas Market they have every year. For the month of December the city center becomes a village of shopping and food stalls flanked by winter-themed activities. A quick Google image search got me excited: Lights! Ferris wheel! Mini-luge!

I went up there on Saturday morning and spent the afternoon wandering the aforementioned village. It was cute. I bought a few things. I sampled the chocolate (and oh, what chocolate. . .). This wasn't the market of my Google dreams, however. For that, I had to wait.

The market came to life after sunset. The lights came on. The ferris wheel and ice skating rink went up. The food and drink stalls (many, many drink stalls) lit up and radiated heat and smells through the crowd. And crowd it was. Shoulder-to-shoulder. In fact, it was so packed that after a while we became one giant herd shuffling slowly in a U-turn through the village. If you wanted to look at something, you had to swim crosswise through the tide and jump out. After several U-turns, shopping bag weighing heavily on my shoulder, I'd had enough.

On Sunday, I felt like I'd pretty much exhausted the Christmas Market. (I visited the Rene Magritte museum instead-- more on that later.)

Nonetheless, apparently addicted to Christmas markets, I went to the city of Amiens on Tuesday to see what their market was like. It was basically a rip-off of the Brussels market on a smaller scale, but I had fun anyway. I'm posting pictures of this below, including a short video of an animatronic kids' ride. Maybe you'll get as much of a kick out of it as I did.

So the Amiens market was comparable, but not on par with the Belgian one. I'm really glad I decided to venture to Brussels a second time. Short as it may have been, it revised my memories of the city for the far better. And more chocolaty.

Green Tents for a Greener Life

Well, I was planning to blog about the Christmas market in Brussels this weekend. My travel plans, however, have been waylaid by snow. Even though it's only a couple of inches, the local bus system has been shut down since Thursday.

So I'm stuck in Péronne.

A pause in the snowfall allowed me to get out of the apartment earlier, which was good not only for me, but for the neighbors above me, whom I was ready to severely maim if they did not stop blaring bad techno and running power tools. (Really people, what are you building up there? An ark?) On my way home, I found something to write about.

Two green circus tents, like the kind you'd buy fireworks at in a parking lot, sat near the high school. They looked unoccupied. A sign explained, "Le Chapiteau Vert"(The Green Tent), and gave a website.

Le Chapiteau Vert, according to said website, hosts shows for children that illustrate the importance of recycling and reducing waste. The shows are called, "Welcome Inside My Trashcan." The website linked a couple of YouTube videos, which I'll post here. One features clips of a past show; if you want, you can skip to 3:30 and watch Poubelle-man battle the Trash Monster, put a kid in a trash can, and lead the 6-year-old audience in raising the roof. ("Poubelle" means "trashcan," FYI.) The other is a karaoke rap by MC Poubellos.

The Chapiteau Vert seems like a fun and effective way to teach kids the importance of green living. If I had kids, I'd make them go. . . or rather, I'd use them as an excuse to see the show for myself.