Window views

For the next five months, I will see the world’s ugliest square every day as the “Free map for young travellers” just informed me. It’s called Schuhmann and it has the European Commission on the one side and the Council on the other. It’s truly not a beauty, plus it’s under construction. All Brussels seems to be.

Europe’s capital is not pretty. It doesn’t have much style, it’s not cool, nor fancy, nor does it have a nice river or a Colosseum. But I think I like it. People seem to be relaxed. I wouldn’t be able to say Belgians are relaxed because probably I don’t see many. Back in 1991 already 36.3% of inhabitants said they were not Belgians born in Belgium. And since then 15 more countries entered the union. So the folks I see might be Belgians from Congo, or British from Greece ;-), or half-Chinese from anywhere. They might have a grandma in France, a cousin in the Netherlands or they might belong to the German speaking minority.

So you don’t feel like a stranger, it’s great. And when you walk around in my neighborhood, you see stuff like this in windows:

and as always, the greatest view is the one out of my office ....