Skip to main content

Looking Back: A Long Weekend in Belgium

As a birthday gift for Else last year, Ilse planned and booked a trip to Belgium. So, mid-January, we got on our train (Else's first Thalys train ride!) to Brussels. Before our trip, Else, as a dedicated dinosaur lover, found out that the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels has an impressive dinosaur collection. So: off we were to meet our friends, the dinosaurs! The collection indeed was formidable, we probably killed a photo machine (we didn't do anything wrong!), and Else tentatively tried her French skills learned on Duolingo (unintentionally rude, but well ...).

Another quick train ride away, we reached Bruges a few hours later. Ilse had booked us a fantastic hotel (even with an outside swimming pool—we hope to be back there in summer!) in the city center. During that time, we both were quite tired and exhausted and Bruges was the perfect place to relax—the city center is rather small and we could reach everything within half an hour from our hotel. Although the city is beautiful, it didn't have too many sights we had to see so that we didn't even feel the pressure of a tight sight-seeing schedule. We visited the few sights we wanted to see, but we mostly roamed Bruges without an exact destination and lazed around at cafés, bars, and restaurants, drinking wine and beer, eating fantastic meals and Belgian waffles.

 We already knew that Belgium is one of the LGBTQ+ friendliest countries in the world before we started our trip: many queer people went to Belgium to get married long before Germany legalized same-sex marriages. In contrast to our trip to Portugal last year, we didn't even think about traveling as a lesbian couple. And that was perfectly okay! Not once did we feel judged, not accepted, or—and that happens almost everywhere at some point—sexualized (that might have been luck, though).
Labels:
Location: Belgium

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy birthday, Else!

Today is a very special day because it is Else's birthday! For me (Ilse) this is my favorite day of the year because I love surprising Else. I wish her birthday celebration could go on for days and weeks. Just make it an Else-year. I never thought that I would meet my soulmate on tinder when I started using the app about 2 years ago. Flash forward to November 9th 2020. Else is sitting next to me while I am writing this blog text. I never thought that I would be so happy in 2020. She makes me incredibly happy. She is the most caring and most funny person in the universe and she always manages to make me smile or laugh even when I'm in a really bad mood or even when the world seems to be going down. 2020 is a very challenging year for everyone. The pandemic is affecting the mood. It sometimes depresses me a lot and I start to worry or miss things so much. And then there is Else who never fails to cheer me up and to put me in a good mood. And now, more than ever, it is so importan...
Post a Comment
Read more

Happy Pride Month?

We were and are so excited for Pride Month! Although most Pride festivities are canceled this year (Cologne Pride is, for now, postponed, so we still have some hope ...), we couldn't wait for this month of visibility, of pride (not just Pride), of rainbow flags, of support, of loving each other. Then, George Floyd was brutally killed. And although we cannot imagine how it must feel to be Black or a person of color, we can't stand this injustice. We will do everything we can to stand with you. To fight with you. Pride started as a riot. And although we do not support violence, it doesn't seem likely that this injustice will end without another riot. We stand with you. We won't have queer equality if we don't have racial equality. Black lives matter. The lives of people of color matter. Remember those who died from police violence. Say their names and never forget.
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Intersectional Feminism Is Important to Us

As white persons born and raised in a Western European country, we are very privileged —more than most people in the world . But, at the same time, we are women and we are lesbians. We are from non-academic working/middle class blended families. We are not skinny. Still, we count ourselves lucky. We know that so many people struggle. Struggle with discrimination in so many ways, on so many levels. And we believe that society/societies should acknowledge these struggles. All of them are valid. Some struggle more, others less. Maybe, some people don't struggle at all. But we never know how severe a struggle is felt that we would disregard. We believe that it is important to share experiences of discrimination, that it is important to make these visible. Perpetrators should not be protected. Perpetrators should be called out. It should be normal to call them out. Both of us have experienced discrimination as a woman, as a lesbian, as a child from a non-academic working/middle...
Post a Comment
Read more