Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Boring, boring Brussels

Emily and I went to Brussels for a romantic getaway over the Bank Holiday weekend. Yeah, I know – I used the words ‘Brussels’ and ‘romantic getaway’ in the same sentence. Whatever will I being doing next? Organising a stag-do in Auschwitz?

Well, I really didn’t know how dour Brussels is. I’d never been there and, as Emily is pregnant and can’t fly, the fact you can get there via Eurostar is most convenient. However, Brussels itself is expensive, boring and unfriendly. The food is of a consistently low standard, every restaurant has the same menu (let’s hope you like steak and mussels, otherwise you’re fucked) and similarly miserable waiters. Mind you, if I lived in Brussels, I’d be pretty fucked off too.

The whole experience reminded me of working with a hotel client at my previous agency. Month after month, I had the miserable task of selling in desperately uninspiring locations to lucky punters in sales emails. Every email sold in a vision of an ‘escape’ to hotels in places like glamorous Droitwich (the hotel’s actual name is DROITWICH M5, JCT.5) or beautiful Frankfurt (FRANKFURT CITY-SOUTH, CONF CTR). I didn’t know whether to weep or laugh as I desperately tried to find something entertaining to do in Droitwich. I think the lowest point was trying to sell in a trip to Coventry (COVENTRY M6, JCT.2) on the basis that Warwick Castle was vaguely near-by.

Actually, by comparison, Brussels isn’t too bad!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a great time in Brussels. Most of all I enjoyed not feeling under pressure to "see the sights", because you see the one "sight" the pissing boy on the way from the station to the hotel... job done. I wish Paris was more like that.

Anonymous said...

Super color scheme, I like it! Good job. Go on.
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