Belgium

When I asked my friend which country I should write about next, he said “why don’t you write about your own country, Belgium?”. I didn’t expect it to become the most difficult one to write.

For such a small country, Belgium is incredibly complicated and simple at the same time.
We have 3 official languages, 7 governments, 3 regions, 3 communities, a bilingual capital city and even though we produce the best chocolate and the best beer in the world, we have amazing food and enchanting cities – nobody will know, because Belgians don’t care about marketing themselves.
In fact, Belgians can be best described as “as long as the grass in my garden stays nice, I’m not gonna be bothered with this”.
We will watch the news, shake our heads about the politics and continue ironing our laundry. Belgians might be the chillest people in Europe. As long as you don’t call their fries “french fries” or say that the Dutch have better beer.

1. “The Belgians are the bravest of them all”
   Belgium was mentioned by the Roman emperor Cesar, he called them the “the bravest warriors of them all” –  every Belgian knows this. Strangely, we don’t hear anything anymore about Belgium until it was founded in 1831, so the country is only about 200 years old. We then got a king – he was Austrian. Until today, Belgium is a kingdom, even though the parliament has most of the power.
2. Belgium spent 589 days without a federal government. That’s almost 2 years. Another example of why Belgians are the chillest people ever. A few years ago we spent 589 days without a federal government – and nothing special happened.
   How did this happen? Well, in total, Belgium has 7 governments:
   – 1 federal government
   – 3 regional governments
   – 3 communital governmentsThere are 3 regions in Belgium:
   – Flanders: the dutch-speaking part
   – Wallonia: the french and german speaking part
   – Brussels: the bilingual capital Then there are 3 communities:
   – Flemish community
   – French community
   – German community==> Just watch this video to understand it.How did we end up without a federal government?
   The party elected in the french-speaking part & the party elected in the dutch-speaking part have to form a government together. Since a few years, in the french part the left party wins and in the dutch part, the right party wins.
   So they literally had to form a government that was half left, half right.

3. We don’t speak (only) French!!
Actually, 60% of us speak Flemish/Dutch and only 40% speaks French. A small population also speaks German.
Belgium has 10 million inhabitants (comparison: the city of London has 8.5 million) and 3 official languages: Dutch, French & German.

4. What the hell is Flemish?
Dutch is our official language. It’s what we write, read and learn at school. Flemish is the Belgian Dutch – like you have British English, American English, …
If you learn Dutch, you will be able to read a book or watch the news in Belgium, but you will only understand half of our daily conversations or texts.
The flemish dialect also changes depending on the region:
– In my hometown, close to Brussels, we use a lot of French words in our dialect.
– West-Flemish is almost a language on itself – it’s impossible to understand if you didn’t grow up there.

Examples of Flemish:

5. If you don’t speak at least 3 languages – are you even Belgian?
Everyone in Belgium has to learn French, Dutch and English at school. In High school you can also choose to learn Latin, ancient Greek, Spanish or German.
Knowing 3 languages in Belgium is basic. Knowing 4 is good. Knowing 5 is great, but still not something that makes the world stop turning.
BUT don’t try to speak French in the Dutch part of Belgium or the other way around – despite our extensive language knowledge, we suddenly might not even understand “Bonjour” if you try to say it in the dutch part of Belgium.

6. English?
In Belgium, you can get everywhere with English. In fact, we even use a lot of English words in our daily language ‘”geupdate, gedownload, geshared” – all dutch forms of english words. Our music is mainly English, we don’t have a lot music in Dutch. In the dutch part of Belgium, the English movies (except those for small children) are not dubbed, but always have subtitles. If you go see them in the cinema, they’re even subtitled in both Dutch and French at the same time!

7. Fries are NOT French.
There is nothing Belgians can get as passionate about as their fries. We do NOT understand why they’re called “french fries”, because they’re NOT FRENCH. Belgians are the inventors and makers of the best fries in the world. Don’t try to argue about this in Belgium – you might not survive it.

8. We have the best chocolate in the world.
The Swiss might have the most famous chocolate in the world – but we definitely have the BEST. I’ve lived in Switzerland for almost two years, so I can confirm this. Belgians are, like I said, just really bad at marketing.

9. “Sugar beans” & Waffles
I don’t even know if this is the official translating, but its some kind of chocolate sweets, similar to smarties/M&Ms. When you’re expecting a baby, the parents prepare little bags or boxes with these, to hand out to the visitors at the hospital when the baby is born. I have no idea why we do this, but I love those things!
And then the Belgian waffles – at least one thing we’re known for & for a good reason!

10. We have more than 1600 kinds of beer
Everyone knows “Heineken” and even though Belgium produces the most and best beer in the world – only few people know this. Again: someone step up the marketing!

11. Our landmark is a 60 cm statue of a urinating boy.
I am dead serious.

12. Our other landmark is called the “Atomium” and consists of 9 steel balls. 
It probably stands for something, but nobody knows what.

13. The highest point in Belgium is 694 meters. 
That means, there are no actual mountains in Belgium.

14. Everyone can attend university.
As long as you got a high school diploma, you can start at any university in Belgium. Only for options such as medicine you have to take an exam – not for the rest.
University is not very expensive (800 euros a year) and if you can not pay for it, the government pays it for you.

15. ‘Op kot’ during the weekend.
As in most countries, university students leave their parents’ home and rent a room (called, a “kot” in flemish) in the city of their university – at least during the week. Belgian students have the weird habit of returning home every friday evening, only to come back to their dorm room on sunday evening. This goes accompanied with taking home bags of dirty laundry and coming back with pre-prepared food by their parents. In fact, in the biggest student city of Belgium, Leuven, on sunday evening the whole city is filled with the noise of the wheels from the bags being dragged to the dorms. I am not kidding.

16. So what places should you visit in Belgium?
– Brussels: the bilingual capital city. I like to think of Brussels as “the whole world in one place”. It’s the most culturally mixed city I know and it’s amazing.
– Leuven: a small, but gorgeous city with an amazing night life
– Gent: same as Leuven, but a bit bigger
– Antwerp: one of the bigger cities, haven’t been there many times myself, but very good for shopping
– Brugge: The Venice of Belgium