Tomorrowland day 8 - Final Thoughts and a Little More Brussels

Details

Looking back at Tomorrowland now that it's over, I had a few thoughts that deserved to be shared. I mentioned before that there was a lot of support for the event from the local community, evidenced by all the Tomorrowland flags hanging everywhere. This was a real pleasant surprise after the ambivalence I've seen between other small-town fests and the people who live nearby. Back in Texas, Float Fest got almost-cancelled and saved at the last minute two years in a row, while Middle Lands only happened once because the people of Todd Mission, TX wouldn't tolerate any more drunk/stoned/[fill in the blank] outsiders tearing up their town. Tomorrowland was the opposite of that in every way.

It seems the organizers go out of their way to promote goodwill between the fest and the locals. I've heard that at the beginning of the year, when tickets go on sale, Belgians get priority; that is, for the first week or so only Belgians can buy tickets before sales are opened to the rest of the world. I've also heard that halfway between the two festival weekends, one of the stages was used to host a big party exclusively for Boom residents. Maybe US promoters like Insomiac should take a page out of their book.

I have already mentioned a few times that there was a lot of walking involved, and this is something anyone wanting to go should not forget. It's HUGE. Whatever festivals you are used to probably don't compare in size and scope to this one. Last year, Lightning in a Bottle had six stages, Electric Forest had seven, and Austin City Limits had eight. This year's Tomorrowland had no less than 17. There are a few, like Rave Cave and Cage, that I never even made it to. And on top of that, while most of those other festivals' stages typically had 30-to-60-minute gaps between sets, aligned with the performances on other stages so you can bounce around without missing much, and also usually only one or two stages active during the last hour, Tomorrowland had artists playing on every stage at almost all times. The list of artists was longer than I've ever seen. You really have to prioritize who you want to see, and decide who's worth missing, because there is no way you can see everyone you want to.

And because it's so huge, you are going to walk your ass off. I've already gone on enough about the long walk to the buses at the end of every night. According to my iPhone's Health app, I racked up 20,290 steps on Friday, 30,954 on Saturday, and 39,669 steps on Sunday! Usually I'm overly strict with what and how much I eat and drink, but I had to loosen up a bit that weekend just to keep myself going.

And now back to Brussels one more time. Monday, July 22: Tomorrowland may have been over, but the trip certainly wasn't! My first train would not leave until after lunch, so I had a few hours to bounce around downtown Brussels. I had my last breakfast at the Train Hostel, packed everything I had into my rollaround, checked out of the hostel, and then walked down to the train station.

Now, before I tell you what I did next, I'd just like to say that I'm in no way endorsing this kind of behavior. Most public transit trains run on an honor system and your chances of someone asking for your ticket are slim to none on any given trip. Still, though, I almost always get a ticket anyway just because it seems like the right thing to do. Nevertheless, when I stepped into the Schaerbeek station and looked at the informational board with the next few trains' arrival times on it, and saw that the next S-train to Bruxelles-Central would be rolling in in about a single minute, I knew I had no time to buy a ticket from a machine and so just walked upstairs to the platform and stepped onto the train. Yep, I'm a bad boy...

It was a pretty short train ride. The next stop after Schaerbeek was Bruxelles-Nord, with Central being the next one after that. I didn't have a very long list of places to see. The first place I found myself was Grand' Place, a.k.a. Grote Markt, a huge square in the center of the city. There were all the usual shops, picturesque restaurants, and such which I just passed up. But one place did catch my eye, which I resolved to come back to later after seeing one of Brussels' obligatory sights.

No trip to Brussels is complete without a look at their famous bizarre statue, Manneken Pis. Odds are, even if you've never heard its name before, or knew where in the world it was, you've probably seen a picture of it. It's not just a statue but a fountain, and it looks like a boy standing up and peeing into a pond. It's also one of those things that pictures tend to make look bigger, because when you see it in person for the first time, you'll be surprised at how small it really is.


I took this picture this far away just to give it the perspective that is lacking in most pictures of the statue. And not only is it about as tall as my forearm is long, it's tucked away in an otherwise insignificant street corner, not in a central square as I expected.

OK, that bucket list item was now checked off. Now back to Grand' Place for that one place that caught my eye earlier. Brewers' House (a.k.a. Het Brouwershuis, La Maison des Brasseurs) is a museum dedicated to beer. There's no way I'm going to pass that up. I carried my suitcase down the narrow spiral steps to the lobby where I paid a mere 5€ for entrance into the museum, and a free beer at the end as well.


The museum was easily the smallest museum I've ever seen. In fact, you could argue that there's only one exhibit, because everything was in a single hall in the building's basement. They have all the equipment--mash tuns and such--that one would find in a brewery, with signs explaining what they all do. There was a screen playing a short video in a loop, and benches to sit and watch on. And plus there's a tri-lingual (French/Dutch/English) book you get when you walk in that explains the brewing process in more detail. And that's it. You're probably not going to spend more than ten minutes looking at the exhibit before you claim your free beer. I can't really complain, though, or say I was disappointed, because after all it was only 5€ for that little exhibit AND a free abbey-brewed ale. I certainly got my money's worth!

By now it was getting late and I thought it would be a good time to get to the station to catch the ICE to Köln. I had a pretty good lunch at a restaurant at Central, to which I added one of my favorite fruits, a Bosc pear. I used to eat Boscs every day in San Antonio, but since moving, Brussels at that time had been the only place I've ever seen them. Three months later I found some in Roermond, Netherlands, but they never seem to make their way to southern Germany.

And then I did it again, became a freeloader riding the S-train from Central to Midi without a ticket.

And it was at Midi that I boarded an ICE to Köln. This train was packed, and even worse, there was no air conditioning which was a problem since it was pretty hot outside. It was, in fact, the beginning of a heat wave which turned out to be one of Europe's worst. I actually got to ride in what would've been the first class section, when it's in the front of the train, but was now second class since the train was moving the other way. So I got to see into one of the cockpits. But the novelty of this was somewhat lessened by the fact that I was sitting next to a window with the hot sun pouring in, on a train with no functioning AC.

At Köln I transferred to another ICE which I rode back to Stuttgart. Tomorrowland had now come to an end and I had to come back to Today.

Other articles in this series:

  • You are here:  
  • Home
  • Tomorrowland day 8 - Final Thoughts and a Little More Brussels