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.