Paris vs. Brussels

It's taken me a while to come up with a paean to my beloved Brussels, mainly because it's such an easy place to live, and because so few of my readers have actually lived there.

Paris, on the other hand, provides a bold point of comparison, one much more familiar as a destination and as a city of significance. Now, on my first decent stay in the City of Light since returning to Europe in 2007, I am finding some help in telling the story.

Brussels is no Paris, in much the same way as Washington is no New York. While Paris (and New York) overwhelm with a density of world-class museums, ethnic and home-country eateries, and beloved visual landmarks, Brussels has a few showstoppers (the central Grand Place key among them) but they are delivered on a far more modest scale. Indeed, when I have visitors, I recommend that they spend their days outside Brussels in the more telegenic Brugge, Ghent ot Antwerp, unless they are true museum hounds. That much being said, I have yet to go to any Brussels museum.

Paris, of course, is a great place to visit. The shopping's world class, the museums, the landmarks, and the river, which creates breathtaking views, particularly after nightfall. The dining in Paris is superb, not only for all of the French standards, but because of the immense variety of ethnic places (I am writing this from an Afghan place on the Left Bank, having not had the cuisine de Karzai since leaving Washington in '07).

It's funny to go to Paris to eat ethnic. But in a way, that's a testament to the strengths of the Brussels eating scene as well as its weaknesses. Brussels is considered an outpost of traditional French cuisine, and it is hard to get a bad meal in Brussels, to the delight of my palate and chagrin of my waistline.

My favorite Brussels restaurant, Le Petit Pont in suburban Uccle, can go toe-to-toe with anywhere I've eaten in France (or anywhere, for that matter). But Brussels is the capital of a continent, not a capital of a diverse, fallen empire (and the cuisines of Congo and Rwanda have yet to build a following among non-members of the African diaspora). Asian cuisine in Brussels tends to be pedestrian, Indian inconsistent, Jewish nonexistent, and even Turkish, while widely available, suffers from a dumbing down of ingredients.

Brussels does do a good job of serving its big expatriate populations. Fat Boy's Sports Bar has the best hamburgers and BBQ wings in Europe. Western European restaurants abound, Balkan grills are on the rise, Italian and Greek are ubiquitous, and Brussels' longstanding Spanish and Portuguese communities have loads of cheap standardbearers in a number of enclaves.

Moving from eating to sleeping, the story becomes clearer. Property is at least twice as expensive in Paris. A small 20 sqm (220 sq ft) apartment in a prime Paris location costs EUR 1100. My larger 70 sqm apartment in a comparable Brussels location costs EUR 720, including the (intermittent) heat.

Paris has 19 metro and regional express rail lines. Brussels has four metro lines, though two were artificially created as part of a rebranding exercise. But while Paris has only four tram lines, Brussels has more tram lines than one can shake a stick at. And what's more fun. Dark, dank, underground Metros or romantic, elegant, and ever-so-European trams?

Paris is in France. No one can credibly dispute its Frenchness. But while many Bruxellois like to think of their city as a bastion of la langue de Moliere, the legions of French-hating Flemish civil servants who descend on Brussel daily, and the growing number of East European EU staffers who eat, work, socialize and above all socialize in la langue de Shakespeare have other ideas.

Going to Paris and seeing everything in French awakens my inner Francophile. But living in Brussels stirs my inner Flandrophile, who is larger, meaner and drinks more heavily.

Paris is 80 minutes from Brussels by high-speed rail, and reachable for anywhere from EUR 30 to EUR 150 round trip depending on traffic. Having Paris so close--and not having to live there--is priceless.

Our Herb Brooks Moment

With the World Cup draw having been so ably handled by the gorgeous if ultra-leftist actress Charlize Theron last night in South Africa, we now know where all 31 of the qualifying countries will be playing, and we know where France will be playing as well.

For the United States, my first love in the game of "football" even if it is a place I prefer not to reside in, the draw could not be better. For not only does its group involve two of the last countries to qualify from their respective continents, Algeria and Slovenia, it also requires that the US kick off the account against England.

Fearsome England. Birthplace of The Game and home of the vaunted Premiership. Thanks to Charlize and the Football Gods, American soccer has been given the one opportunity it has sought, pined for, and ached for--a money game against the world's most storied football power on a Saturday afternoon in June.

For American Soccer, this game is for all the marbles. A draw, or improbably but not impossably a win, and this game will not only mark America's true arrival as a first-tier footballing nation but of soccer as a first-tier American sport. A humiliating shut-out, and it's time to forget soccer once and for all and start considering how many NFL rejects we can recycle into rugby players for the following year's Rugby World Cup.

Great games deserve great speeches. So, here is my adaptation of the famous speech by the last US Hockey Coach Herb Brooks to his charges before the epoch-changing match against the Russians in the 1980 Olympics, with apologies to Kurt Russell's performance in the movie "Miracle":

Great moments...are born from great opportunity.
And that's what you have here today, boys.
That's what you've earned here today.

One game.
If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine.
But not this game.
Not today.

Today, we play with them.
Today, we stay with them.
And we shut them down--because we can.

Today, WE are the greatest footballing nation in the world.
You were born to be footballers.
And you were meant to be here today.

This is your time.
Their time is done.
I'm sick and tired of hearing about
What a great football side the English have.

Screw 'em.
This is your time
Now go out there and take it.