Episode: 2624
Title: HPR2624: Cycling through Brussels
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2624/hpr2624.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 06:41:58

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This in HPR episode 2624 entitled Cycling Through Russells, it is hosted by ITWI's and
in about 22 minutes long, and Karim an exquisite flag.
The summary is, on a hot day ITWI's ride and his bike through Russells.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honesthost.com, get 15% discount on all shared
hosting with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
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Hello there, Hacker Public Radio, this is Nightwise, and I am for the moment in the very
heart, the capital of Europe, on Brussels, and I actually just dropped off my MacBook Pro
at the store, the Apple Store, to have the keyboard replaced.
I am on my way to the train station right now, because I work at the other side of town
of the city, which is quite a way off.
I brought my little mini bike with me, and I am cycled through Brussels, so I am going
to do the same with you guys, I am going to do a little sound suing through Brussels,
from where I am right now, which is in the Rue de Toisseau d'Or, the street of the Golden
Veil, or in Flemish, the Hilden Vlislam, all the way to Central Station, I will show you
a little bit about the sights and the sounds that you hear and stuff, right, so just leaving
the deli here at a quick veggie lunch, pushing my bike along the boardwalk, it's not the
boardwalk, it's the sidewalk, side, side street, whatever, sidewalk, all right, looking
for words there, kind of cycling on the sidewalk, you're not supposed to, but who cares,
and I am going to drive down into the, or the lowest part of Brussels, actually, where
the train station is at, and where the central square is at, Brussels is of course known,
the capital of Europe, many pretty museums, magnificent buildings, lots of history, starting
out here at the Hilden Vlislam, the Rue de Toisseau d'Or, because Belgium is the trail
lingual country, every street has, and Brussels at least has two street names, French one
and a Flemish one, and right behind me there is the, well they, if there's such a thing
as Chinatown, it's Congo Town, it's the Matongae district featuring a lot of shops and
people from Zaire and from the Congo region, from Africa, and it's like a black, well
not a suburb, but a black, I don't know, mini town inside Brussels, and it's very cool
to shop, they have all these interesting little towns, and the people are mega friendly,
because they have African roots, most of them come from Zaire, that was a former Belgian
colony, they speak French, and they have this fantastic accent, wish I could let you
hear some of these people talk, it's a fantastic, effort-contained French, so leaving Matongae,
Matongae district behind me, heading down through the Namsa Strat, all the way down to
the heart of the city, I have to cross the small little causeway around Brussels, which
is like when you're in the city and you want to cross, you know, transfer to the city,
that's the road you take, this is not a place where you J-walk, you J-walk, you die, even
by cards a little bit of a challenge, and this is the first time actually that I'm doing
this bike bike, and now it's all downhill, it's fine, but then it's actually a little windy,
it's warm wind, because Belgium is suffering from a heat wave, we haven't had rain, I don't
know, six weeks or something, and I think still something like 30 degrees outside, and
I'm cruising down, now it's not busy anymore, shops are closing, it's about almost six
o'clock, and so not a lot of people on the sidewalk, you can just bike here, it's okay,
Namsa Strat connects the Roud-de-tois-on-Daud with the Gourning Splang, which is a square where
we have a couple of very famous museums, one of them being the Musee de Margrit, the museum
dedicated to one of our surrealist painters, Irene Margrit, who is known for the painting
of the pipe, that says Sussi Nippon Beep, or this is not a pipe, very strange, and I don't
know, people ask me, you know, before you Google at a name I could eat, which you should,
you know, what looks stylish this, well if you are a Monty Pieden fan, and you know those
little animated sketches they had in the middle, you know, of the, I don't know, sometimes
cut out head and a foot stumping on it and stuff, he has kind of like that style to be honest,
it's a little, you know, Monty Pieden-esque, of course, Monty Pieden was inspired by Irene
Margrit, not the other way around, because there was Rene, before there was, you know, the
Holy Grail, and the knights who say, Nippon, heading up to the Gourning Splang here, be a
little bit careful where I drive, don't want it, you know, kill any pedestrians getting off
the sidewalk, all right, my skull ain't right here, woohoo, and it's cool, I mean I just
cycled up this road, which is pretty uphill, about half an hour ago, it was bustling with
activity, and half an hour later it's a totally different city, this is of course now the domain
of the locals, still busy, still cool, but you know, cycling past the museum, the Rene
Margrit and a little bit further down as we go towards the Jewish Museum, there is one of
the most exquisite museums, at least museum buildings in Brussels, which is the museum for
musical instruments, and I'll see if I can get you some picks in the show notes, because you
got to see some of these sites, it is a fantastic building, and it was also designed by one of Belgium's
greatest architects, Irene Margrit, no no, good thing it wasn't designed by Irene Margrit, it would have
felt, would be floating upside down in the air, with mushrooms growing out of its ass, I don't know,
no, it was designed by Victor Horta, which was a fantastic architect from the beginning of the
century, and he made some magnificent buildings, and the museum, there is a street mall,
du music is one of them, passing a group of tourists here, you're with a guide looking at the
square, the guy is explaining what they do, and then passing a glassy Pasqualito,
Monsieur, you can take cards too, no, okay, thank you, damn, I don't have any cash money with me,
and I was kind of checking if this guy who has this little yellow truck, and he sells
golfers, Belgian waffles, but you know Belgian waffles, I'll tell you about that,
checking if he took credit card, he doesn't, damn, should bring cash someday, don't use cash,
and so this guy sells waffles, and there are, you know, everybody says Belgian waffles, but there's
no such thing as a Belgian waffle, it doesn't exist, because Belgians have two kinds of waffles,
Brussels waffles, legal for themselves, and very nice, pretty, tourist ladies walking around,
hot weather, beautiful women, Brussels is sight for sore eyes,
we have Brussels waffles, which are kind of dessert-y, light, crunchy, served with cream,
and chocolate, or fresh fruits, and then you have legal for les jouins, which are a little bit more,
which is smaller, a little doughy, heavier, but also delicious, sometimes cinnamon taste,
is added to them, and I like the latter, I like les golfers, les jouins,
street artists here, I'm just walking down the stairs, so you come from the Koningsplan,
you go a little way down, and then you go through, you pass down a couple of stairs right in front
of you, is a little park, and you have a fantastic view of the city, of course this place is packed with
tourists, taking shots, vendors selling stuff, having a good time, oh man, Brussels is really alive,
and I'm passing the Jewish Museum, which has this beautiful sign on the wall,
which says, and I'll give it to you in, in, in, in Dutch, we ain't live rats, rats,
hailed evadels, he who saves one life, saves the world, and that's a very inspiring thought,
always like that, and whenever I pass through here, I kind of try to read it out loud,
inspire me, okay, walking, cycling through the little park here with beautiful trees,
people sitting here, and I can actually smell a barbecue, somebody has brought a barbecue,
and they are having a barbecue, and there is a golden rule that says everybody in smelling
range of a barbecue, it's allowed to be invited to said barbecue, and should be fed at said barbecue,
although I don't think I can actually, you know, prove that point, all right cycling a little bit
further down, we are heading towards central station, also a lot of tourists here again,
admiring the buildings, having a tour guide, Spanish guide of a Portuguese guide,
giving them the sights and the sounds and telling them, you know, what's going on, all right,
come for staying, this is the main road that goes from east to west through the town,
and it interconnects with, interconnects with the Wetzstraatlun, Rü-du-Wach, where all our government
buildings are, and the palace of our king is not that far from here, and I've been working in
Brussels for a while now, and at my previous assignment I would be here around the central station
of Brussels a little earlier, and every day, every time I came, about the same time, well, you know,
the king goes to work, and he would have this amazing police escort with lights and sirens,
and, you know, motorbikes, the motorcade, and this is really impressive stuff, you know,
the king's motorcade is cool, these guys, they really drive through the city like they own
the place, and they are literally able to stop traffic at the drop of a head, they take complete
control of the situation, it is probably one of the most macho things that I've ever seen
at its way cool, and you know, after the motorbikes comes the king's limo, and because the streets
are actually quite narrow, you can see him, you know, you can wave at your king in the morning,
I actually did that a couple of times, passing through a central station here, quickly going to check
if my good friend Henry's here, it's a homeless guy that I befriended when I commuted to the
central station, but, you know, these days, you know, the last couple of weeks I have to go to,
like I have to do now, so I haven't been able to check up on him, but the spot where he's at
right in the sun, so he's not gonna be there, all right, heading into that train station, Bristol
Centrao, central station in Brussels, always a lot of interesting people here, let's see
which train we can take,
I have the 1850s to be sure, that one's gonna, is that, yeah, that's gonna take 1849, it's gonna
take me to Targaryen, you've got the 1834s to Hussles, I'm gonna get there sooner,
no, it's gonna be the 1845 track 3, I can jump trains in Hussles should I want to,
and the central train station is a pretty amazing place because all the tracks are underground,
so it's like a giant subway with trains, so it's a completely subterranean construction,
there's a big building at the bottom, at the top of course, and then you actually descend,
like I'm doing right now, down the stairs, and you can go to the different tracks,
again, a lot of beautiful people walking around, a lot of sights and sounds to take in,
and you will hear the voice of the Belgian national trains service announcing the different trains,
this is a fantastic text-to-speech application that they wrote, which gives our little lady a
magnificent voice, and she, you know, announces all of the trains, and because Brussels is in the
heart of Belgium, it's a trilingual country, the announcements are in Dutch, in French,
sometimes in English and in German, and now it's easy, now, you know, now it's quiet, so she's kind
of shutting up, but when it's rush hour, one train after the other is coming in, that's not her,
I'll tell you when it's her, this is just a standard PA message, but when the trains are coming in
high speed, it's this constant, you know, track 15, train to Otingey coming in, blah, blah, blah,
and there she goes, she goes on and on and on and it's magnificent to hear, because when you close
your eyes, and especially for you guys, if you're not native and you don't understand the language,
it sounds very good.
There you go, that was the announcement to the airport in four languages, and you've got to imagine
this, when I go a little bit higher up, when you get a lot of reverb on this voice, and it's busy,
and she's pounding out one announcement after the other, it's fantastic, so here I'm in the big
hole, so now you hear with this reverb, it's fantastic.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to get myself a snack, I'll just let you enjoy some of the
sounds and the different languages of this train station, so I'll shut up for a while, and you can
just imagine what it is like walking through here at the heart of Europe, it's during a quiet
evening, during the holidays.
Getting a soda, one of these good green tea sodas, those are good.
Guys.
Do you play?
Oh no, no, of course.
But I also ate this.
On the other side of it, I will be doing it.
Tonight I'm with you for the day.
I was driving myself there just until it was myself.
During my
last year speaking of law.
It's for the fans of the Veloelun Tréca.
No, it's okay, it's okay.
There's good speed, you and the small speed, so it's okay.
A rice cake, if you like.
A rice cake?
Not a big cup, huh?
If you like.
It's okay.
If you like, it's okay.
Here it is.
Here it is.
It's going to work.
Thank you very much.
See you next time.
Brussels is a bilingual city.
Most of the time you start out in French.
Most of the people speak both, but you kind of do both.
Both.
Let me see.
Hasselts.
1834.
So what I'm going to do, I live in the east part of the country.
I live in Thormren.
So I'm going to take the train to Hasselt, which is in the middle of my province.
And then I'm going to switch trains to the end of the line.
Normally, when I take the train 10 minutes to the hour, I have a direct train.
I have a direct connection to where I live.
Trains are well out conditions.
Not always on time, but it's okay.
All right.
So we're taking the bike down the stairs.
And we're going to transform it into its compact mode.
Right little, little mini bike that I have.
I'm very pleased with that.
All right.
We're already coming in early.
Not convening.
All right.
There you go.
Fold into steering wheel.
There you go.
Click.
And transform.
Slow your fingers.
4-1.
Change words to turn the train.
Check the destination of the local Maisage de Morgheur onras 11-11-18-19.
This is one of those funny announcements which are track changes which I call the
train Olympics because at the last minute they say hey your train's coming in on
another track and you have to go up the stairs across the station down the stairs
and you really see people running for the lives always nice here's my train
it's a big one your conditions I am happy so I'm gonna sit down enjoy my book
I'm actually reading an e-book and you can take my little bike with me and I will
see you when I see you I hope you enjoyed this little selfie tour and the
hearts of Europe and one of the busiest train stations of Europe and I'm gonna
get on board my little train here and I hope to see you guys again this was my
wise not doing any painting this time doing something else and well see you
next time
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