Wednesday we took off back to Brussels to first visit the European Parliament. The building isn't as impressive architecturally as I thought it would have been. It's tucked quietly in the city and apart from all of the propaganda-esque election posters you wouldn't be able to tell what it was. After we cleared through security we visited the chamber and listened to a lecture by a journalist? His job description wasn't quite clear but nonetheless it was interesting to hear about the system. Our lecture wasn't too long and overall the tour was very short. Short but enjoyable.
Usually the chamber is much more open. They recently had a debate (elections are this weekend) and screens were put up halfway through the room. I couldn't get it in the photo but the room is surrounded by glass boxes, similar to a stadium, that house the translators. There are 52 boxes. Also over 700 seats for parliament.
Becca and I outside the parliament building. The building that housed the chamber is what you see through the tunnel behind us.
After our lecture and tour of parliament we had an hour of free time before we had to be back on the bus. We weren't having lunch until 2:30 so a group of us took off to find a waffle store. All of our professors told us to wait till Brussels to get a real Belgian waffle so I had held out until then. FINALLY we found a waffle truck. This ended up being 2 euro and after wiping chocolate off my face for the next 10 minutes I can definitely say the wait was worth it. One of the best things I've ever eaten.
My first Belgian waffle!
Back on the bus we went!
Our next stop was a tour of Delvaux. The tour was absolutely incredible. After seeing the plant it is understandable why these purses are around 4,000 euro. Awesome.
The outside
It's hard to summarize all of the things that our guide told us. Delvaux is a family brand that started similar to Louis Vuitton, with luggage. They primarily use veal leather and one hide can only make one purse. They get their leather from France and it has already been treated and printed. They begin their crafting process by inspecting the leather for wrinkles, stains, scars and then cutting. Most of their purses are cut with scissors. It takes 10-16 hours to make one purse. They also do purse repairs and they hold all of the materials ever used to make their bags in the house so that they can repair any vintage bag. They are one of the only purse manufacturers in the world that will do this.
The people in the back of this photo were hand cutting the leather for the bags.
She was showing us their leather samples. The dark brown and light brown on the bottom are both veal with different stamped textures. The red is ostrich. They must first press down all of the buttons from the feathers so that they can sew the leather. On top of that are two different crocodile leathers.
Yuck. This is used only for accessory trims on the bags.
These mini purses are intended to be bought and then strapped on the larger purses to hold your keys. They start at 350 euro.
3,000 euro
4,000 euro. Gorgeous.
After Delvaux we were all starving. Lunch was at a restaurant on the same small street in Brussels we walked down on our first day in Belgium. I hate to say this but the meal was pretty bad. We had tomato soup, a sort of chicken and dumplings, white wine and mousse. Now the mousse was fantastic but overall Belgium let me down on this one.
I'm not sure why they created the schedule like they did but we had only 15 minutes of time to waste in Brussels before we were back on the bus so a few of us just wondered around the square.
We took a walk back to where the statue of the peeing boy was to show the others that hadn't been there yet.
In typical Brussels fashion it was quite dreary and drizzly.
A photo this time!
You can't see here but there was a huge crowd of people around this.
Back in the square, headed out of Brussels.
From there we went to our last site visit of the day. Het Anker in Mechelen. This may be obvious (it wasn't to me) but Mechelen is pronounced "Meck-land" with a strong "chk". This tour was great. The current brewer showed us around and was very informative. At the end of the tour we had a tasting with their chief marketer regarding their globalization and strategy.
Ingredients. Their triple uses orange peels and it definitely makes a difference in the taste. I've gotten pretty good at being able to pick out the difference in beers now!
View from the window...
View from the roof. We went up their to see their old-style of brewing.
This is where they are storing their whiskey. The company recently decided to produce a whiskey about 4 years ago. They did so in order to provide an extra option to the heavy Belgian beer market. The whiskey isn't doing as well as they thought it would.
Fun fact, whiskey has to be in a barrel for three years and a day in order to call it whiskey. Also if they were ever going to open the lock on the door, customs has to come and check every barrel as well as impose a tax. Each barrel has a 4,000 euro tax…
After the tour we listened to the lecture and got to try four different beers. The Goulden Carolus triple was my favorite and its also one of my favorites I've had so far.
After the tour and visiting the gift shop… They made up for the free beers after our gift shop raid. I picked up a bottle of the triple to bring back. Only 3 euro for a bottle!
After that it was back to the bus and on to Antwerp. I fell asleep immediately. It was a jam packed day but definitely a great one!
Emily
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