BELGIANS: So friendly and helpful! I'd forgotten! (Flashback to Rebecca and me, on our cycle tour, hauling our bikes up to the platform of a train that was already pulling out of the station, and the train STOPPED FOR US and the nice conductor helped us load our bikes on. This would never, ever, ever, ever, ever happen in Germany.)
ANTWERP: So full of ultra-Orthodox Jews! In their hats and long black coats! Riding bicycles! I'm not sure I'd ever seen an Orthodox Jew ride a bicycle - but since this is Flemish-speaking Belgium and thus a lot like the Netherlands in many respects (but shh, please don't tell them I said that) of course they do here.
THE FLEMISH LANGUAGE: Not just a dialect of Dutch, but in fact many, many different dialects of Dutch. I had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a middle-aged local guy who was an expert on the Bruges dialect, at the bar of the hostel where I was staying. He and the woman at the reception told me about regional differences in how they pronounce things from how the Dutch pronounce things, and that you can tell which town in Belgium someone is from by hearing their dialect. "Even the next town over," the man said. "Oh, yeah, definitely," the woman said.
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