Contrary to the understandable belief that I write these posts to wax on about our travels to compete on some unseen stage crowded by like-minded vagabonds desperately seeking attention, even envy, that’s not actually the case. Or, its’ at the very least far from the complete story. Instead, the overriding point of these oftentimes seemingly aimless meanderings is to capture emotions stemming from impressions during travel in general and cultural immersion in particular.

With Belgium in the rear-view mirror, I can emphatically state it’s a country well worth visiting for reasons outlined in a little bit. At the same time it’s probably not going on our itinerary again any time soon. It is in many ways a slightly understated place that seems content to mind its own business. This probably would have worked if it weren’t for the Belgian beers that usually clock in around 6% to 12% ABT with the expected yet tiring result of hordes of briskly indulging tourists. If one were to generalize wildly after only scratching the surface of Belgium for at total of eleven days, through geographical proximity to colonially aspiring neighbours during 17th to 19th Century, perhaps immigration and likely many other factors, Belgium is so diverse and linguistically split it’s difficult to put your finger on something that Belgians are generally passionate about beyond the tourism tropes of waffles, beer and chocolate with moules frites as runner-ups.

None of this seems to bother the Belgians however. They appear quite content to run the figurative theme park that is Belgium and why shouldn’t they? We thoroughly enjoyed every single one of the eleven days we spent in Brussels with a small number of day trips. One might even venture as far as saying that Belgium has enough broad appeal that one might consider moving there before necessarily considering another brief visit there. I.e. we’ve seen enough that we know we like it enough to move there, but that also means that we’ve spent enough time there already we probably won’t be planning another trip there given how many other places there are to see. Again though, at no point did it feel like time wasn’t moving quickly enough so that we could get on with it and get to Paris where the real action is.