added brussels to mr-worldwide

_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md

@@ -117,3 +117,86 @@ so I tried my best to spend as little as possible on it.
 
 Having spent a few days in Munich, recuperating and figuring out my next steps,
 I continued on... to Brussels!
+
+## Brussels, Belgium
+
+The bus arrived in Brussels super late at night, and I woke up to the voice of
+the bus driver over the intercom: "Welcome to Brussels! Donald Trump says it is
+the shithole of Europe, and he has it right!" So it was a warm welcome. I only
+stayed in Brussels for two nights; it was more of a pit-stop on the way to
+Bruges than anything. My hostel was, apparently, on the site of one of Van
+Gogh's old studios, but that fact was played up in favor of actually making the
+hostel any good. But the city was nice enough, and despite the bitter cold I
+enjoyed myself.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="brussels-2018.jpg" width=556
+    descr="Comic murals like this can be find all over the city. Brussels, 2018"
+    float="right"
+    %}
+
+Besides being the capital of the E.U., Brussels is also famous for its history
+of comics. Not just superhero comics, but also political, children's, humor, and
+historical comics too. While wandering around I visited a number of comic stores
+with huge selections, almost entirely in not-English (Belgium has three
+official languages), and there were huge comic murals all over the city.
+Brussels' comic history would also provide me with my favorite museum experience
+of the entire trip.
+
+The majority of museums I went to in Europe were only loosely ordered. Large
+collection museums would organize be era, and maybe by year within the era, or
+perhaps by artist. Those museums are fine for wandering around, but the really
+good museums are those that tell a story. The Escher exhibit in Lisbon, the
+Picasso exhibit I went to in Barcelona, and the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam
+tell the story of a single person's life, and by having that focus can be really
+compelling for the visitor. Those with a more broad focus have more difficulty
+being as compelling, but the Belgian Comic Strip Center nailed it.
+
+The museum started with a walkthrough of how comics are actually made, from
+initial blocking, to pencil sketches, to coloring, and finally inking. It
+covered materials used in past and present, and how digital tools like
+Photoshop and 3D modeling, which allow the entire process to be done digitally
+and quickly, have changed the landscape.
+
+From there the museum opened up into different sections, some focusing on
+specific countries, others on a particular artist, others on a theme. Each had
+a series of wall texts guiding you through the section, not just by giving
+information on a specific piece, but giving overall information on context.
+There were sections on specific Belgian artists, famous comic characters, a
+whole section on comics in propaganda, chinese and japanese comics (_not_
+manga), and much more. There were sections on the different mediums that comics
+appeared, e.g. newspapers, comic books, and posters, and even a whole section on
+the Smurfs. Overall it was one of the most thought out, well designed museums
+I've ever been to, and it made the trip to Brussels worth it on its own.
+
+After the Comic Center I didn't have much else I wanted to do. I wandered
+through the tourist-y area, saw the statue of the peeing kid that's apparently
+famous, and ended up walking a long while to visit what is, according to _the
+internet_, the best belgian fries joint in the city. It was pretty good (though
+the best belgian fries I'd have would turn out to be in Amsterdam), and I sat
+down in a little plaza to eat them. While there I caught the eye, for better or
+worse, of a guy coming out of a bar, and he immediately bee-lined for me. His
+English was not solid, but that didn't slow him down in the least.
+
+He opened by telling me he was waiting for his taxi, and then immediately
+launched into a tirade against capitalism, in favor of communism. I told him I'm
+from the U.S. and we (mostly he) talked about consumer culture, the plight of
+the working man, and the like. After a few minutes his taxi showed up, he wished
+me a good trip, and we said goodbye. It was a fun but extremely odd interaction.
+"Are all Belgians so eager to espouse communism to random passerby?", I'd wonder
+to myself.
+
+After wandering a while longer I decided to just catch a bus back to my hostel.
+A woman walked by with her two kids while I was waiting at the stop, and turned
+back to tell me something, though she didn't have hardly any English to work
+with. After some struggle we managed to land on "no bus". Damn. So I walked down
+to the metro station to take the train instead. While waiting for the train I
+overheard on the intercom: "Train delay due to worker strike". Which explained
+everything instantly. The Brussels public transit workers were on strike, so
+there was no bus, and no train, and a man (I'm betting one of the workers) was
+drinking in the middle of the day, waiting for a taxi, and super primed to talk
+about worker's rights.
+
+While it was a funny situation, in a way, it did make my life quite a bit
+harder. Once I finally got back to the hostel I stayed in for the night, and the
+next day headed on to Bruges.