Riding the Rails: Brussels to Berlin

July 17, 2011 -- I took a Deutsche Bahn InterCity-Express train from Brussels to Berlin with a transfer in Cologne. The train makes intermediate stops at Liege and Aachen before reaching Cologne. From Cologne the train makes intermediate stops at Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, Hamm, Gutersloh, Bielefeld, Herford, Hannover, Wolfsburg, Stendal and Berlin-Spandau. DB ICE trains travel at speeds up to 200 mph (322 kph).

The train station at Liege, Belgium is spectacular. It was designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who also designed the new transit hub at Ground Zero in New York City and the Chords Bridge in Jerusalem.

In typical German fashion, Deutsche Bahn wants you to know exactly how fast and efficient their high-speed trains are. The ICE trains top out at around 200 mph (322 kph) so my train was gaining speed at the time I took this picture. For Americans reading this blog post, that is 155 miles per hour.

As we sped through the German countryside I was expecting to see alpine houses and gothic cathedrals, which I did. However, I also saw gigantic wind farms with enormous wind turbines dotting the landscape. And it seemed as if every other house I saw had solar panels installed on the rooftop. Germany is obviously not the windiest or sunniest country in the world, but the Federal Republic has had a Renewable Energy Act in place since the year 2000, so this is the result of over eleven years of generous incentives for wind and solar power. It is impressive to see so many wind farms and so many citizens powering their homes with the sun.

That evening we arrived at the multi-level, futuristic looking Berlin Central Train Station. Trains are coming and going all the time on different levels, making it look like something out of the Fox animated science fiction show "Futurama." So cool.

Here are photos and video of my high speed train trip from Brussels to Berlin. Click here to see the photo set on Flickr.

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Summer 2011: Brussels, Belgium

July 16-17, 2011 -- Brussels is a bit off the beaten track. It is not the most popular tourist spot in Europe. It is weird and wonky -- the de facto capital of the European Union and home to the Atomium monument, pictured above. But Brussels is worth a visit because it is so unique. It is only a two hour train ride on the high-speed Eurostar from London St. Pancras so the city is easily accessible.

I stayed at the Hello Hostel, which doesn't have the social scene of a lot of hostels in bigger cities and is a little far from the city center, but nonetheless is a quality hostel and is within walking distance of a Metro subway station.

Brussels has a complicated history that from an initial observation it doesn't seem to have fully come to grips with yet. First there is Belgium's colonial legacy in Africa. In the lates 1800s and early 1900s under King Leopold II, Belgium colonized the current Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. There has been much suffering and bloodshed in the years following Belgian rule in these African nations. This excerpt is from the website About.com:

"The most important legacy of colonialism in Rwanda and Burundi involved the Belgians' obsession with racial, ethnic classification. The Belgians believed that the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda was racially superior to the Hutu ethnic group because the Tutsis had more "European" features. After many years of segregation, the tension erupted into the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which 850,000 people died."

This dated memorial pays tribute to a shameful period in the history of Belgium -- the colonization of Congo, Africa. It was inaugurated in 1921 by King Albert I.

And there is also the Nazi occupation of Belgium during World War II. Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1944, and there was active collaboration with the Nazis in persecuting Jews. Some 50,000 Jews lived in Belgium in the 1930s and about half were killed during the Holocaust. But not all Belgians went along with the Nazi persecution of Jews. There was a resistance movement. I visited the Military Museum at Park du Cinquantenaire and was disturbed to see Nazi era uniforms and regalia on display. But there was also this statue honoring Baron Jean Michel P.M.G. de Sélys Longchamps, a Belgian nobleman and World War II RAF fighter pilot remembered for his attack in 1943 on the Gestapo headquarters in Brussels in occupied Belgium.

But Brussels today is a vibrant, progressive city that is the de facto capital of the European Union. The city's European Quarter is home to the headquarters of the European Commission (Berlaymont building, pictured below), European Union Council and other EU institutions. Poland currently holds the sixth month rotating presidency. There are 27 member states in the EU. 17 of these member states, including Belgium, use the official currency of the eurozone -- the Euro.

And of course Belgium has some of the best food in Europe. Here is the famous Belgian waffle covered with chocolate syrup. And yes, it is as delicious as it looks.

While the EU conducts serious business in the city, the citizens of Brussels have a quirky sense of humor and don't take themselves or the city too seriously. How else can you explain the popularity of Mannekin Pis, a small bronze fountain sculpture of a little boy urinating into the fountain's basin?

Click here for more observations of Brussels on Green Center Blog.

Here are more photos from Brussels. Click here to see the set on Flickr.



Here is video of a Brussels Metro train arriving at Gare du Midi - Zuidstation:



And here is video of a Brussels Metro escalator. The escalators in Brussels are motion sensor, meaning they are stopped until someone walks up to the escalator and triggers the motion detection system and the escalator starts moving. This brilliant concept saves energy and reduces wear and tear on the escalators.

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Book Review: King Leopold’s Ghost

Recently I finished reading an incredibly well written book titled King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa written by Adam Hochschild, this book is focused upon the acquisition by Belgium of an African colony in the Congo region and the subsequent economic, social, and political exploitation and terror of that region by various different forces within the region.  In summary Hochschild argues that Belgium’s acquisition of a large colony in the Congo was due mainly to the territorial ambitions of its king at the time, King Leopold II, and Leopold gained that territory through a clever campaign of subterfuge, misdirection, diplomacy, intrigue, and lobbying both directly by King Leopold and by a web of his personal agents.  Hochschild then proceeds to examine the actual policies and actions of the various organizations and companies that ran Leopold’s newly acquired Congo colony.  Hochschild spends considerable time skillfully showing how Leopold ruled the Congo directly and treated it as a personal fiefdom, those agents acting within the territory did so at his personal approval and the funds raised from the various raw materials gathering efforts in the Congo went directly into Leopold’s personal fortune.

Probably the cornerstone value of this work is how Hochschild focuses attention upon both the atrocities conducted in the Congo by the agents of Leopold throughout his personal control of the colony, the extreme focus upon extracting the highest return of resources possible from the Congo during this period (specifically ivory and subsequently rubber), and the pioneering efforts by various concerned individual missionaries and reformers to bring about an end to Leopold’s abuses in the Congo.  Abuses is a highly appropriate word as evidence from various sources cited by Hochschild provide convincing evidence that during the roughly thirty years that Leopold personally ruled the Congo colony approximately fifty percent of the total indigenous population, or between 8 to 10 million people, died from both direct violence and indirect suffering at the hands of Leopold’s Congo policies and agents.  In addition to the high death count many survivors of this period lost their right hand to violence, a policy in the Congo was that it was expected for every round of ammunition fired an indigenous individual was to be killed.  Local soldiers who used their weapons to hunt would often take the right hand of a person still alive to even out their count.

As well Hochschild also does an incredible job of detailing the link between the novel Heart of Darkness and its authors real time spent in the Congo region.  Hochschild details how many of the events depicted in Heart of Darkness are directly drawn from Conrad’s own time in the Congo during this period.  The only complaint I would have for this book is, honestly, the title, it seems to imply a focus upon the post-Leopold II time in the Congo and the impact that ruler had on the region after his demise.  However this topic is only lightly covered in the final chapter of the book itself, most of the focus is on Leopold II and those who directly opposed him.  But beyond that minor complaint, this is an excellent book and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in either the colonial era in Africa, Belgian politics in the Congo, or a good very character focused history.

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