{"id":3803,"date":"2022-11-29T06:26:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T05:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3803"},"modified":"2022-11-29T07:14:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T06:14:27","slug":"week-45-from-copenhagen-to-brussels","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3803","title":{"rendered":"Week 45: from Copenhagen to Brussels"},"content":{"rendered":"

After my brief holiday in Denmark, I started my working week in Brussels, where I had a presentation at the European Parliament Tuesday morning. So on Monday I flew from Copenhagen to Brussels, and in the evening I had a working dinner with a couple of people with whom I was presenting the next day. But I did have some free time Monday afternoon, and again Tuesday afternoon, before heading to the airport for my flight home.<\/p>\n

45_1<\/strong>
\nArriving in the EU quarter from Brussels airport, I stopped to photograph this iconic view of Berlaymont, the headquarters of the European Commission:
\n\"DSF4052\"<\/p>\n

45_2<\/strong>
\nOn a street corner near Berlaymont I have always liked the statues of European citizens. But this time there was a pleasant surprise on the pavement:
\n\"DSF4021\"<\/p>\n

45_3<\/strong>
\nAnd it continued all the way around the big building:
\n\"DSF4126\"<\/p>\n

45_4<\/strong>
\nAfter checking in at my hotel, hanging the suit in the closet so it would not be too wrinkled next morning etc., I made my way to the centre, starting with Place Ste-Catherine. We lived in Brussels from 1995 to 2000, and I have many happy memories and certain favourite places like this restaurant, where I used to take my son (then 9-10 years old) for Belgian food like stoemp<\/em> and boudin noir<\/em>. We still jokingly refer to it as a light snack; in reality it was serious face-stuffing:
\n\"DSF4030\"<\/p>\n

45_5<\/strong>
\nAnother favourite spot on Place Ste-Catherine is the Monk bar, with great beer selection and nice snacks:
\n\"DSF4030\"<\/p>\n

45_6<\/strong>
\nAs darkness fell, I walked back towards Grand’ Place, passing this nice spot on Boulevard Anspach:
\n\"DSF4037\"<\/p>\n

45_7<\/strong>
\nGrand’ Place at dusk, glorious as always:
\n\"DSF4041\"<\/p>\n

45_8<\/strong>
\nNear Grand’ Place is Galerie St-Hubert, a beautiful shopping area with luxury goods and chocolate being the main wares on offer. This is why I was there, to buy some Pierre Marcolini chocolate for my son who is coming to visit in early January and will take it with him home to New Jersey:
\n\"DSF4043\"<\/p>\n

45_9<\/strong>
\nWalking towards the Central Station metro, I passed Place d’Espagne, where cartoon-themed decorations were waiting to be installed for the holidays:
\n\"DSF4048\"<\/p>\n

45_10<\/strong>
\nOn Tuesday morning I walked from my hotel near Berlaymont to the European Parliament, a walk of less than 1 km, as always on the lookout for pictures. Here, some serious window-washing:
\n\"DSF4054\"<\/p>\n

45_11<\/strong>
\nRue de la Loi, the main thoroughfare leading into central Brussels from the EU quarter, with heavy traffic at all times of day:
\n\"DSF4057\"<\/p>\n

45_12<\/strong>
\nThere are always some interesting exhibitions or installations in the European Parliament, like this one, put on by Taiwan flower growers:
\n\"DSF4061\"<\/p>\n

45_13<\/strong>
\nThen it was time for work. I spent the morning in this meeting room in the European Parliament:
\n\"DSF4068\"<\/p>\n

45_14<\/strong>
\nI was going to present later, but in the beginning I was in the cheap seats:
\n\"DSF4066\"<\/p>\n

45_15<\/strong>
\nWhen my time came, I moved down to the podium (no photos of me, sadly, selfies are not comme il faut<\/em> in this setting):
\n\"DSF4067\"<\/p>\n

45_16<\/strong>
\nAfterwards, I had a few hours to kill before heading to the airport, so I went for a walk and slowly made my way back to my hotel to pick up my luggage. Every time I am in Brussels, I discover details in the urban landscape, like this small memorial to French diplomat and poet Paul Claudel:
\n\"DSF4099\"<\/p>\n

45_17<\/strong>
\nI also stopped by the curiously named Church of Our Lady of Victories:
\n\"DSF4100\"<\/p>\n

45_18<\/strong>
\n\"DSF4101\"<\/p>\n

45_19<\/strong>
\nFurther on, an interesting event on Place Poelaert. A campaign called In My Name<\/a> has been running in Belgium, collecting signatures to force a parliamentary debate about regularisation of illegal immigrants. Having collected the required 35,000 signatures, people had gathered to watch the debate on a big screen:
\n\"DSF4105\"<\/p>\n

45_20<\/strong>
\n\"DSF4113\"<\/p>\n

45_21<\/strong>
\nBack home in Alicante, we continued the celebration of the 10th anniversary of our department with a lunch at a restaurant on the waterfront. As luck would have it, it was a cold and rainy day, the first such weather we have had this autumn. But we still had a good time, and someone even took a photo of me, with my Bulgarian colleague Yasen:
\n\"DSF4150\"<\/p>\n

45_22<\/strong>
\nOur Polish secretary, Kasia:
\n\"DSF4131\"<\/p>\n

45_23<\/strong>
\nLila (Greek) and Ana (Spanish):
\n\"DSF4136\"<\/p>\n

45_24<\/strong>
\nThree of our six trainees:
\n\"DSF4144\"<\/p>\n

45_25<\/strong>
\nMy usual favourite, Eri:
\n\"DSF4153\"<\/p>\n

45_26<\/strong>
\nTwo random photos from home to finish the week. First, a man and his friend waiting (presumably for his wife) in the supermarket parking lot:
\n\"R007544\"<\/p>\n

45_27<\/strong>
\nSome nice-looking food at the house. We were going for dinner at some friends’ Saturday night. In our circle it is customary to bring a side dish and some wine, so my wife made this concoction of stuff we happened to have in the fridge, a quiche-like thing with a flower of courgette on top. It looked good and tasted great:
\n\"R007545\"<\/p>\n

A complete gallary from my 3 trips to Brussels in the autumn of 2022 can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After my brief holiday in Denmark, I started my working week in Brussels, where I had a presentation at the European Parliament Tuesday morning. So on Monday I flew from Copenhagen to Brussels, and in the evening I had a working dinner with a couple of people with whom I was presenting the next day. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3513,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3803"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3803"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3812,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3803\/revisions\/3812"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}