A cool White Night....

This past weekend was Nuit Blanche in Brussels. Translated as "white night" or "all-nighter," Nuit Blanche is a late-night "reclamation" of urban space with music, art, dancing, clubbing, movies, etc. Most museums were open late and for free. A lot of other European cities have their own versions and, well, it's pretty neat.

I hit the town late with my flatmate, AS and his girlfriend and a couple of her friends from back home. AS is Pakistani and his girlfriend is Romanian. It's a mini United Nations here.

Anyway, we didn't have much of an agenda. Our attempt to meet up with some others failed, so we headed over to the Bourse (the old Stock Exchange) and encountered a group playing the drums and a guy playing a kazoo.

We wandered a bit, trying to find more events. Oddly enough, there was nothing going on Grand Place so we headed for another square, Albertine and there we found a small art exhibit and a lot of young Belgians hanging out drinking. (It seems that open container laws don't exist her.)

We wandered some more and happened upon a girl with a huge puppet spider "spinning" its web across a street and "attacking" passers-by.

Now, I was told I needed to go to a European techno-club. Well, I now have -- sort of. There is a big "gallerie" (or shopping arcade) called Ravenstein and there was a huge (and loud) techno dance party going on. We didn't join in, but we just hung around and watched and listened to the heavy bass beat do its thing and move the people on the floor to flail arms and make out. We left about about 15 minutes. I got my hearing back about 30 minutes later.

Then it was the the Royal Park and there was another dance party going on, so it was over to the Royal Palace (not much there) and then to BelVUE....

Now BelVUE is pretty cool. It's an old hotel right next to the Royal Palace. It's been turned into a museum of the history of Belgium. I spent about 2 hours in it earlier in the day on Saturday.

There is a restaurant on the ground floor and for Nuit Blanche it was turned into a ballroom dancing floor with a bunch of couples dancing to music.

We left there and continued to wander a bit and by this time it was late, around 1am and we decided to call it a night. One the way back I again stopped at Quick for a bite to eat and, of course, there was a problem with the order. There always is....and I got home around 1:30 and into bed around 2:30 or so.

All in all an enjoyable evening out with a nice and interesting group of people. Now it's back to the archive where I hope things pick up a bit. It's been slow going with boring records of corn imports and the like....