Museum Night Fever!!

Since I'm now into my second month of living in Brussels, I'm starting to love the city more. These past few days have been fantastic: the weather has gotten warmer (in the 50˚s F now guys! Minus Monday, when it snowed all morning.), the feeling of spring is in the air, I've eaten some really delicious food that my fellow Erasmus students have made from their countries, watched a 6 Nations Rugby match in a lovely Irish pub and... went to Museum Night Fever!

Yes it was actually called that. Last Saturday night, nearly all the museums in Brussels- 24 of them- stayed open until 2am! It only cost 9€, and we got to visit all the museums we could manage, with free bus transportation between them. All in all, a pretty sweet deal. The atmosphere of the night was incredible. We had seen posters for quite a few weeks now, bright splashes of green advertising the event. Suddenly the city just sprang to life- hundreds of people were out and about, milling around Place Royale, inside the museums, and on the buses. It was a mix of every kind of person- international students like us (we heard plenty of English), parents with their kids, and loads of Belgians just out for the night. It was a warm and clear night, the kind that we haven’t had in quite a while, filling everybody with energy and excitement.

I should also mention that while the museums were incredible, they went one step further and had live concerts, dances and artwork all over the place! Much of this live artwork involved people posing or being ancient characters- more on that in a second.

We managed to squeeze in five museums total, and didn’t have nearly enough time in some of them. First up was Jardin Botanique, right next to where we live. With this first stop we noticed this tall illuminated cone that changed colors, marking the location as participating in Museum Night Fever. From that first cone on, it became our quest to take a picture with every cone we saw. Jardin Botanique doesn’t really have a whole lot of the ‘Botanical Garden’ bit going on, it’s more often used as a concert venue (every night actually) and exhibition room. We passed a few palm trees, and some adorable gold fish, and then saw a photo and painting exhibition with theme of “desert.” The paintings were pretty cool, especially since they were painted on glass fiber, which I’ve never seen as a medium before. There was also this artsy performance by a group of school kids, making desert sounds, acting things out and speaking a bit of desert poetry. It was…interesting.

Our first light cone 

Jardin Botanique, all lit up

After we finally found out where the bus left from, our next stop was BOZAR, a museum playing with the French name for Fine arts “Beaux arts.” Only we couldn’t find the entrance. So we ended up underground instead. Logical eh?

We found the Coudenberg! This underground museum, if it can be called that, explored the ancient Palais de Bruxelles, the old Royal Palace. It was an incredible walk under the city through these ruins of a forgotten palace. And this particular night, they had placed actors all throughout the chambers. Some were story tellers (and exceedingly creepy with finger puppets), others read monologues, impersonating the castle’s ancient inhabitants and I even came across three guys at a birthday party, one eloquently explaining the merits of plastic cups. One of the funniest and weirdest things in the ruins however, had to be the swimmer-ducks. We were just walking along some ancient underground passage way when these two people, in a tight, red jumpsuit, wearing yellow flippers, goggles and a swim cap waddled in, arms in wing position and occasionally quacking. All the while with the most neutral of expressions on their faces. I still have no idea what that was about… more live art perhaps?

in the Coudenberg!

There also happened to be a Red Bull car, giving away free Red Bull? This mean it was time for a group photo

From the Codenberg, we went back and found BOZAR, which was playing host to concerts and dance performances throughout the night. We only caught the tail end of one of the concerts, but there were groups from all over the world. Instead, we saw a photography exhibit by CY Twombly and a really neat painting exhibit by Per Kirkeby. I’m not usually a fan of modern art, but this guy was very interesting. The more you looked at a piece, the more images you picked out.

Main hall of BOZAR, filled with band equipment

Natural History Museum was next up, and while the dinos were very exciting, I was far more fascinated by the dancing. For amongst the dinos, music soared, followed perfectly by a group of tango dancers. I’ve never seen people tango right in front of me before- and these guys were incredible. It’s amazing how the man can lead with the subtlest of movements or pressures and the woman can follow with ease. It looked like they were reading each others’ minds. Now I really want to learn how to tango.

Last museum: MIM- Musical Instruments Museum. After a quick and exceedingly delicious brownie snack (Green Kitchen, Place Royale, get a brownie!), we got in the fast-moving queue for MIM. After a mandatory coat check, we were given headphones and let loose to explore the museum! Inside were loads of really cool instruments from all over the world and all different periods of history. Plus, you could plug in your headphones near each display and hear what they sound like! MIM is also just a gorgeous building- Art Nouveau style, with an incredible view of the Brussels from the top floor.

As we walked back home that night, my friends and I concluded that we had had a fantastic night out. Museums, brownies and a warm night, what more could we want?