We awoke again early in the morning, but seeing as there was free coffee I didn't mind. We packed our backpacks with food and water for our all-day trek through Brussels to get the feel of the city that would be our home for the next 3 days. Grandplatz, Royalplatz, the Manneken Pis, and the comic book museum, a long day even for this seasoned traveler.
The comic book museum was by far the most interesting. Comic creators from the beginnings of the craft to now had relics of their masterpieces next to biographies on the walls, and I found out exactly how they put a comic book together. Artists, inkers and scriptwriters all have their special place in creating one of these moralistic and oftentimes archetypical renditions of fantasy lands and talents. The scriptwriter was the most fascinating since he/she writes the story the others simply illustrate. The concept has to be good for the finished product to be good, because no matter how many explosions or creative images of sexy ladies you have there's still an absolute need for a coherent story, and without one the future of the comic will be bleak and uninteresting. This is the charge of the scriptwriter. If he writes a compelling story that is honest and truthful, then the illustrators take it to the next level by depicting the action on paper with help of crayons, colored pencils and markers.
The Mannequin Pis was wholly disappointing, mainly because our expectations had been lifted each time we passed a picture of it on the street. In all honesty we tried to find it last night after one bar visit and before the next, but to no avail. Today we found out why the thing was so hard to find, and that's because of its size. The thing is two feet tall and is hardly anything to get excited about. Sure it's a kid peeing, but really? Why not a twenty-foot kid peeing? Then people'd have a waterfall to videotape instead of just a tiny trickle. We ended up taking a picture of the chocolate rendition across the street because it was more impressive than the real thing.
We went to dinner where I ordered wine pizza and chicken wings in broken French. We talked about the petty arguments people get in and laughed at ourselves for having one earlier when a gum-smacking contest deteriorated to shouting and name-calling and door-slamming. Too long with the same company and it's bound to happen - we were no exception. But the wonderful thing about my relationship with my sister is that we can laugh about it later, both knowing what we said was a result of blood-red anger and a situational causality.
Then we walked and walked and walked some more before finding a suitable bar to drink at. We sat down and not two minutes after we ordered our first drink a man came out from inside the bar. He was dressed as someone of reasonable resource would: silk shirt, fitted jeans, and patent leather shoes. He walked up to me, and without speaking took my hand and shook it. I asked him if I could help him and he held out a piece of paper. The message was written in French, and said something about being hungry and poor, all the while he's motioning to his mouth in the universal sign of hunger. I said I don't speak French in French, and he walked away scowling at me. We decided to leave right then, after finishing our drinks, to find a new place where our luck was better and the atmosphere welcomed us.
No comments:
Post a Comment