One of the magical things about going to London this summer was that I felt like there wasn't a street or square or park I hadn't heard of, and I was kind of walking through a history that I knew something about, and a universe of fictional worlds (Shaw and Dickens at the head of a long list) that I knew something about. This is obviously not literally true, but for an old English major, London is full of echoes.
Brussels is different. I'm kind of ashamed to say that I know very little about either Brussels or Belgium. I know there are two major language groups here. One speaks French, one speaks "Flemish," which is, they tell me, essentially the same as Dutch. I also know that it's an uneasy partnership between these two versions of Belgians.
Brussels is the "capital of Europe" -- the home of the European Union's bureaucracy and governing bodies. Well, most of them. The part of the EU bureaucracy that AIRINC (the company I'm here to work for/with) deals with is actually based in Luxembourg, not Belgium.
Well, there's a lot to learn.
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