Royal Palace

Every year, the Royal Palace in Brussels opens its doors to visitors, during summer. During that time you can visit the rooms of the palace, free of charge and admire the artwork exposed in them. Last year this started in August and since I was still in Brussels for the first couple of days of that month, I took the chance to go there. Pay attention to the dates this year and go there if you like, as it's definitely worth seeing!

Gentse Feesten

The festival of Gent started yesterday and will be ongoing until the 29th. I was there yesterday, as Gent is one of my favourite cities in Belgium and wanted to see how it looked like with its biggest party. It was great! The streets were crowded with people and a lot was going on (for free!): concerts, theatre, parades, individual performances, the shops were all open, lots of places to eat and drink, boat trips... you can really spend there a great day. Try to pass by there if you can!

Rock Werchter

Last week I was for a day in the Rock Werchter festival, one of the biggest music festivals in Europe. It is located in Werchter, a village close to Leuven and the festival-goers could use the trains and the bus that would go from Leuven to the festival site (and back) for free. We arrived shortly after the doors had opened and had the chance of touring around when it was still not so crowded. It was a great summer day and lots of people kept on coming (the organization estimated an attendance of around 85.000 visitors per day). Despite that, I thought everything worked very well for a festival with such a high number of participants (there were never queues to go to the toilets, to order drinks, to drink water, to buy merchandise, to withdraw money), so the organization deserves to be congratulated. At some point we found out that there was a recycling stand that allowed you to exchange 20 plastic bottles or cups for 1 coupon that was worthy a free drink... and as when the concerts were finished and people were moving from one stage to the other there were TONS of bottles and cups lying around, we were able to grab 12 coupons (=12 drinks for free!), which would had otherwise costed us 30 euros. So we ended up spending nothing on drinks the whole day and night! As for food, even though the selection around was also huge (but festival pricey), you could also bring your own sandwiches, so that was something one could also save some money on. This incentive on recycling really worked, as in the end there were no bottles or cups lying around on the grass! We saw plenty of good concerts on that day (the line-up was perfect to allow you to move between the 3 stages and see everything you wanted), stayed until the very end and finished our night waiting with other music-lovers in Leuven's train station for the first morning train to Brussels. In the middle of all this, I was even spotted out by Elle Belgium and ended up being featured in their street style article related to the 3rd day of the festival!

Portuguese party and cupcakes

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend I participated in the Portuguese party that took place in the Parc du Cinquantenaire. I had a little stand where I sold my cupcakes and I must say it was a huge success! I was kindly visited by several familiar faces and others that were not familiar yet, but who knew my blog, so they came. I was always busy between talking with the people who visited me, promoting my goodies to the other visitors, hanging out with the organization staff... that time flew so fast in both days and in the end I had sold all of my 100 cupcakes! If only I had made more... but creating a home made production of these delights takes its effort, especially with me alone doing them at night, so I was "only" able to make that amount. Here's some photos of how it was:

Cupcakes for day #1

Cupcakes for day #2

My stand at the fair

Kids are the best costumers!

My friend Filipa = happy costumer!

'Cause two sweets are always better than just one!

Parc du Cinquantenaire invaded by Portugal

I want to express a BIG thank you to everyone who stopped by to visit me and who helped me pursue my quest and tasted one (or more) of my cupcakes. You made this whole thing feel like I was just hanging out with friends and time flew by so quickly :) I was really happy I came - also a big thanks to the organization for having let me participate in this, especially when my request to do so was made with such short notice! - and had another great weekend in Brussels. Especially today, the party was so full of people, a lot of families strolling with their kids... lots of non-Portuguese attendants, which was great! All the other stands were selling typical products and I saw a lot of people buying them, so I hope they had two great days as well. Overall, it was just great!

Portuguese party and cupcakes

As my traineeship finishes in the end of July and with me already thinking of what to do next, I have applied for a summer school on regulation of local public services that will take place in Turin, Italy, in September, for 2 weeks. This week I received the confirmation saying I was accepted (among 500 candidates from 70 different countries, only 25 were accepted)! However, participating in this summer school has its costs, namely, 150€ for the participation fee (which includes accommodation) and 164€ for the flights (Lisbon-Turin-Lisbon). As at that moment I will not be working (transitioning from being a trainee here and finding a new job), I thought about using my time here to collect some funds that would help me participate in this summer course.

So, given the fact that I love baking, I proposed to sell cupcakes in the Portuguese party that is going to take place this weekend in the Parc du Cinquantenaire, which was indeed kindly accepted by the organization. So, during all day on Saturday and Sunday, I invite you to pass by my little stand and maybe help me with this initiative (or just to say "hi") :) looking forward to see you there!

(this is the image of my city's University – Coimbra – which was declared last weekend as part of UNESCO's heritage and which is also part of the World Guinness Record book for having baked the biggest cupcake ever made!)

Waterloo battle re-enactment

Yesterday I have been to Waterloo. Or, actually, to be more precise, I have been to the Butte du Lion and adjacent battlefields, which are located between Waterloo and Braine-l'Alleud. Yesterday it was a special day as, similar to what happens every year, the anniversary of the battle is celebrated in a weekend in June and special events take place. Indeed, there were the 14th Napoleonic Bivoacs, which means that, in addition to what you can normally see in that area, you can watch a recreation of the environment lived at the time before the battle, the actual happening of the battle and the functioning of a war hospital (which is happening today).

First of all, after arrival, I entered the visitor's center and watched two movies (approximately 20 minutes each) about the battle. After, I climbed all the way up the Butte du Lion and got this sight of the battlefields.

Afterwards, I walked along the battlefields and moved towards the Hougoumont Farm, where the camping of the Allies was being recreated. It is a 15 minutes walk until you reach the place.

There you could see all kinds of people dressed up as the several Allies troops (UK, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Prussia) and their families.

This one had an earring!

Cute pompom :)

From there you could also get a nice view of the Butte du Lion.

There were people shooting rifles from time to time.

An important element to fight Napoleon!

There were pirates infiltrated?

Even the toys were dressed up! Action Men circa 1815...

In the end I went back to the Butte du Lion area and visited the Panorama (where you can see a 360º scenery of the battlefield) and the Wax Museum (not so cool after having seen real recreations of the people at the time). Afterwards, at 20h, there was going to take place the battle re-enactment, where the actors would recreate what happened during the battle (with horses and cannons and all that is required!). Unfortunately, the place where that was going to happen was 5km away from the Butte du Lion and I don't have a car, so having to walk 5km there and then back again to catch the train to Brussels in the middle of the night, didn't seem to be such a good idea. It was a pity because I really wanted to see it, but I asked for information on whether there was a bus to take us there and was told it was only reachable by car. If it was scheduled for a more proper time, like during the day, I wouldn't have minded to walk there and back, but at night it was everything but convenient. The camping of the French troops was also located on that area, so I didn't get to see it as well. During the day they had some events, like at lunch time you could see the meals being prepared like they did at the time and lunch being served to Napoleon. I think that if you have a car and can go on a next time, you can have a lot to see for the whole day! I thought the camping was really well made, as everyone was really into character (they were having dinner when I visited and they were cooking and using objects as at the time, like it was part of their routine and never minding the tourists). They were really acting as they were before a battle and there were way more actors than visitors, so you really could feel like you were back then. The costumes were really well made, with attention to lots of little details. I really loved it and hope I can comeback (with a car this time!) in 2015, when it will be celebrated the 200th anniversary of the battle and I am sure a big set of events would take place (in 2010, when the 195th anniversary was celebrated, the re-enactment took place at noon, which I believe is much more suitable!). I didn't find it too crowded (as I mentioned, there were more actors than visitors!), as I would have expected from a day like this, so you could perfectly move around, take all the photos you wanted and not wait to get to things.

As for visiting it on a normal day, it can be interesting too as you can access all the stuff I have mentioned before, minus the camping and the re-enactment of the battle. But I think that the time when it's really worth a visit is at this time of the year, otherwise the only most impressive thing is the Butte du Lion, which is indeed a magnificent monument. How to get there? From Brussels, take the train (direction Charleroi) to Braine-l'Alleud (just one stop away from Brussels, only 20 minutes of traveling, two trains per hour). There you have two options: either take the W bus to the Butte du Lion (attention for the fact that, on weekends, there's only 2 per hour) or walk there (I did that both ways and it only took me 20 minutes each, just ask someone at the station which direction you should take and then it's always straight ahead with signs indicating you the Butte du Lion).