Believe it or not, I had a surreal moment in Brussels. Let me tell you about it.

I had it all planned. The goal for my week-long trip to Belgium was simple: fill up the mornings with some high culture, so that I could justify spending the afternoons and evenings with trying and drinking Belgium beer, mussels, waffles and french fries. I figured every hour spent in a museum was worth five in a pub. My surreal day was to be no different. First, I would visit the Comic Strip Museum. As I said, high culture. Afterwards, it would be time for lunch and I would eat. Next, I would mosy over to the Magritte Museum to learn a thing or two about Surrealism before—and here is where the fun begins—I walked down to marinate in the drinking establishment well-known as the headquarters of Magritte and Surrealism, the hub of art and culture in Belgium in the twenties, thirties, and beyond, a bar called La Fleur en Papier Doré. Or if you prefer the Dutch, Het Goudblonnmeke in Papier.

I prefer neither, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

It started well. The comic museum was très bon. Really good stuff. To start, they explore the comic as an extension of primitive forms of communication, all pre-writing, moving on to show how church manuscript illuminators set up the groundwork for the modern day comic, with their illustrations and blocking. In another section they displayed the stages involved in the making of a comic with examples of each: the idea, the story, the sketches, storyboard, and ink, all the way to publication. This I found fascinating because it laid bare some of the different modes of the creative process. Almost last, there were three prominent sections devoted to Belgium’s best and brightest: the comic Boerke and artist Pieter De Poortere; TinTin and artist Hergé; the Smurfs and artist Peyo. Really strong.

The only negative in the whole experience was that the museum folks spent quite a bit of time talking about themselves. They are awfully proud of their little museum, let me tell you. It is beautiful, no doubt. A very good example of Art Nouveau architecture, all glass and air and light and ironworks, but Dai, come on. Let’s make the museum curation be about the subject, shall we? Especially since there are so many other comics out there! You all did a great job, but give over the studio space.

Leaving the Comic Museum I ambled along ancient cobbles, between the most imposing three story buildings ever devised to wander past the Place de Martyrs, a wide open space littered with monuments and statues. I assumed it was tribute to those lost in the 1830 revolution from King William and Holland, but let’s face it, there are many martyrs in the world; maybe it’s for them.

Where was I?

Oh yes, ambling through martyrdom, I ducked into an old fashioned sort of joint called Le Corbeau. A long straight shot filled with tarnished varnish tabletops resting on wrought iron frames, wood-paneled and mirrored walls and above, on the upper third of the walls, tributes to all things Corbeau, or Raven. Placards, posters, Poe quotes, stuffed versions, adverts, anything and everything Raven-related.

A confused and vacant sort of girl rushed around and eventually served me something I would come to love on this trip, in all of its iterations, Le Cannibale, or Toast Kannibal, a tangy steak tartare spread on toast and topped with a hillock of diced white onions, capers (if the place is fancy) and some pickled element: either cornichons or sliced dill, whatevs. It was delicious. Perfectly paired with a Leffe Noël.

But here I am distracted by martyrs, food and beer when I should be talking about surrealism, or rather surreal experiences in Belgium. I am officially gress-ing back from my regressions. Surrealism. I was off in search of it, via a dude named Magritte, and a museum honoring him. Rene Magritte, born in 1898 to working type people, armed with art supplies and a dream. He lived in Brussels for much of his life and the city has definitely claimed him. Comunque, I have a sister who is an artist and I like to try to know things about art, not just for her, but for my own moral edification. I am still generally of the school of art aficionados known as, ‘I like that or ugh no thanks’. Very high-brow I know, but still, here in Brussels I was presented with an opportunity to learn (or re-learn) about this Surrealism stuff so I took a chance.

The chance was quickly lost. It was New Years Eve and by golly, the museum folks were darned if they weren’t going to close early. Damn. I shouldn’t have lingered for that second Leffe. Oh well, I thought. Best just to move on to La Fleur, to Surrealist headquarters.

As I walked to the bar, I did a quick search for Surrealism and Magritte. I had vague traces of memory from college…was there an apple and a suit and some blue construction paper? Surely a little online learning could cancel out some pub time just as well as a museum visit. After walking on for a few blocks, the webpages loaded. Aha! For those of you unfamiliar, René Magritte was the guy who painted that image of the guy in a suit and bowler hat, the one with the apple floating in front of his face? Yeah, he’s that guy. He’s also responsible for the much copied image of a tobacco pipe where underneath he has scrawled Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Surrealists, as I’ve come to understand it, are people who either in art or in writing are trying to tap the subconscious, in order to unlock imagination. Dreamy stuff.

One of Magritte’s quotes: “Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden by what we see.“

That pipe? It’s not really a pipe. It’s an image of a pipe, and thus entirely different.

At first glance, La Fleur en Papier Doré was everything I expected. It’s dark. It’s cramped. Yellow, nicotine-stained walls, ornate mirrors, art and old photos and graffiti from the men themselves. Entering La Fleur is like entering an old sepia photo, from those glory days before the world got Depressed.

Yeah, I thought, slowly taking it all in. This is real. This is where creativity lives and breathes. This is where the magic happens. I want to write some stuff in here, feed off the collective consciousness or something.

Behind the curtain, three tiny rooms in a row, moderately crowded. Tables in the first two rooms were filled with tourists and locals alike, so I walked up two steps to the third room and found it empty. Moving to the smallest of the four tables, the one in the corner barely big enough to accommodate a notebook and a beer, I dug in. This was going to be great.

So great that I’ll break in to a little present tense, just so you can live it as I did…

Some time later, the waiter greets me. No, not greets me, per se. Rather, he callously acknowledges my existence with a grunt. In the time it takes him to shamble over to me I have cleared my throat, and rehearsed my French.

‘Je suis désolé. Je ne parle pas français. Anglaise okay?’

‘English is okay,’ he says with a shrug and a twisted lip.

I clear my throat. It’s obvious that English is not okay.

‘Well what should I have first? The Westmalle dubbel or the Rochefort 10?’

The man paused. ‘You will be having more than one?’

‘Yes?’

He exhales heavily, lips literally flapping. ‘But we close at 5:30.’

‘Oh, really? 5:30?’

Quickly, I check the time on my phone. Yes. On my phone. I don’t wear a watch. I have girlish, dainty wrists and the pancake-sized mens watches out there would look more like a manhole over a string bean than anything else. So I check, instead, my phone.

3:00.

‘Okaaaaaaaaaay. So I have two and a half hours? The Rochefort 10 then.’

‘Okay.’

He turns as quickly as his lumbering form can manage in the small space and shambles off. He is a massive dude, all circles, hulking shoulders, pot belly and a bald pate shining like the full moon.

‘Oh, wait!’ I call out.

He stops, pauses, and turns around.

‘Can I also have a portion mixte? I could use a little snack.’ On the menu, in three languages it explains that a portion mixte is a sampler of cheeses and meat. How can one NOT order that?

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. We close early.’ He turns without anything further.

I hang my head. This La Fleur is off to a rocky start.

Ten minutes later he serves my drink. Twenty minutes later he serves not one, but two different tables a portion mixte, the same dish I had been refused.

Hmmm. Methinks there are benefits to speaking the native language(s) in this place, namely: meat and cheese plates.

The guy never comes back. In the meantime, I hunker down over my notebook, and scribble down notes and writings, trying to ‘compose’. Over the course of my Trappist Rochefort 10 (Tremendous beer by the way. Dark, a little sweet, a lot strong) I finished writing a brief account of the slowly unfolding tragedy that was my La Fleur experience. I checked the time after my last sip: 3:49. 15:39 for you army types.

I waited for the monster to return, but to no avail. Finally, after ten minutes, I just went to the bar to order another. Maybe I would encounter the other barman and have better luck.

Nope.

The hulking monster was there, bobbing up and down stocking glasses, sweating and gasping like a dying manatee in the shallows. Another gentleman was at the bar too, putting in an order.

When the barman saw me he stopped dead in his tracks, flicking eyes at the other gentleman.

’Yes sir!’ he says brightly. ‘What can I get you?’

I look over my shoulder. ‘Oh, me? Uh. Puis-je avoir une Chimay Blue?’

‘Certainly, sir. I’ll bring it to you.’

‘Oh, uh, great.’

I return to my little table in the corner, excited by this strange turn of events, ready to settle into a writing groove, and I sit. Five minutes pass. Then ten. My excitement wanes. What’s wrong with this place? I’m so thirsty…

After another five, the second waiter appears wringing his hands.

‘I’m sorry. What did you order?’

That was the gist of it anyway…I think. It was in Dutch, but the man who previously was standing near my at the bar, now sitting with another gentlemen in an adjacent table, answered for me, a bit sternly and slowly, ‘A CHIMAY BLUE’.

The man broke eye contact with me, bowed slightly to the man who had interjected and retreated, hands still wringing.

My beer came a moment later.

Hmm, strange. The waiter seemed unduly nervous.

In almost no time, in a rush, the bald barbarian returned with my beer in hand. He apologized gruffly for the delay, all the while flicking nervous glances at the men in the adjacent table.

This was surreal. What was gong on here? Why did this barbarian, the man whose bad service succeeded so well in bursting my little attempt at recreating the magic and creative genius within those hallowed walls, now pull this turnaround, why did he now look beaten rather than gruff and stern?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Maybe you guessed it faster than I did, Dear Reader. After a while, my suspicions were confirmed when the second barman returned to ‘check out’ and present the bar’s daily receipts with the gentleman who had helped me get my beer. Aha! This gentleman interjector was the owner, the inheritor of La Fleur.

The manatee’s abashed look did little to restore the mood. After quickly scribbling down the bones for what would be this latest entry, I put away my notebook and settled for just sitting, drinking in my beer and imagining the service the Surrealists got when they were in this same space, one hundred years ago. I wondered if maybe after a hundred years the creative energies had leaked from this spot, marred by too many tourists and ungruntled uglies.

La Fleur en Papier Doré. Ceci n’est pas une…great place.

Much like surrealism, it wasn’t what it seemed to be.