I traveled very little in my teenage years. Not because I didn't want to. On the contrary, my favorite comic series is exactly "The Adventures of Tintin". I fancied all the exotic places Tintin went to and hoped I could be there someday. A trip to Bruxelles could not be complete for me without a visit to the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée (Belgian Comic Strip Center).
I was greeted by a statue of Tintin along with a picture of his creator, Hergé.
As expected, the Tintin exhibition is the most popular of all, even though the Center is not only about Tintin.
I indulged myself in the exhibition. Memories of my childhood kept coming back. I remembered that I had a special box under the bed for all my Tintin books. Whenever I felt down, I would take out one of them to read and become better.
Captain Haddock is the funniest and the most likable character in the series.
How could I miss the chance of taking a picture as the legendary Sir Francis Haddock from "The Secret of the Unicorn".
From the exhibition, I learned that Hergé did a great amount of research to make his story as real as possible, down to every detail. He would visit the flea markets to find a piece of inspiration, such as an African idol on which his creation in "The Broken Ear" would be based.
A warming picture of Tintin and Captain Haddock walking to Marlinspike ended the exhibition.
Then I visited the rest of the museum. There were many other famous Franco-Belgian comics, like Asterix and The Smurfs.
Along with the numerous comics, many of which were original drafts of the final printed version, there were objects like model ships once sold as collectables.
It is worth mentioning that the building itself is a piece of art by the famous Belgian architect Victor Horta. We have encountered his another building when we started this journey in Antwerpen, by the way.
There was even one section about adult comics in the Franco-Belgian tradition, as opposed to the Japanese tradition. I was glad to see that the curators of this museum kept it because the presentation of Belgian comics wouldn't be complete without it.
Another interesting exhibition was called "Europeans Look At Europeans: 100 International Clichés in Comic Strips".
I wouldn't miss the gift shop of this museum for the world. There was a whole wall of action figures from Tintin comics. Could have been an exhibition by itself!
Look at this cute Tintin in a big jar from the story of "The Blue Lotus". I couldn't resist the temptation and bought a T-shirt and many postcards.
Having left the Center, where I spent more than four hours, I walked toward the Grand Place. This time for the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, a beautiful shopping mall that is even older than the one we saw in Milano.
There were many chocolatiers inside the Galleries, as expected. Having no idea which one to buy, I finally trusted my instinct and picked Neuhaus. I ordered piece by piece for the ultimate freshness. How did they taste? Well, how can I say? Let me just say that they completely raised my bar of chocolate-eating. I especially liked one named "Cerisette": It looks like a nut from the animation "Ice Age" but is in fact "cherry with stem and stone dipped in alcohol". Imagine that! (Sorry, Godiva lovers. Trust me: Try Neuhaus and you'll never look back.)
Last but not least, I visited the Royal Palace, also because it was free on Sunday. The Palace was magnificent inside but no pictures allowed. They even gave out free postcards. Thanks for the generosity, the Royal Family!
As the night fell, I knew that my great journey was coming to an end. I didn't feel like eating alone so I started to look for company. A group of young people in the hostel were talking about going out for dinner, I overheard. I started talking to one of them, a beautiful girl of course, and asked whether I could join them for dinner. They said yes and we went out together. Along the way I talked to many of them and learned that they were Finnish students studying hospitality in Amsterdam and they came to Bruxelles for the F1Belgian Grand Prix in the coming weekend. As you would expect from people who would serve others as a profession, they all behaved very nicely. But Susanna, the girl I first talked to, stood out as the maturest, most sociable and most fluent in English. She would actively seek conversation topics that interest both them and me.
We had pizza in a restaurant near the Grand Place and saw the lights of the Town Hall dancing to organ music. I thanked them for their company and gave my blessings for Finnish racers. (For the record, Kimi Räikkönen won the race and went on to become the 2007 World Champion!)
I left Bruxelles at 05:00 and arrived at Baltimore at 5:13 pm, Mon Sep 17, 2007.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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1 comments:
Cute!Cute!^_^
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