Someone has pushed a giant pause button in Brussels. Like cities across Europe, we are in the midst of a lockdown, and it’s not much fun. Life began to move into slow motion on the night of March 13, 2020, when restaurants, cafes and bars were shuttered. And life here is nowhere near “normal.”
Brussels is the world’s second most cosmopolitan city after Dubai. Kind of surprising, right? Walk through the city and you’ll hear dozens of languages. It’s the unofficial capital of Europe and home to EU institutions and the European Parliament. And it is an amazing place to live. It’s usually a bustling metropolis. During rush hour, roads often resemble a parking lot — my one complaint about the city.
Everything changed after the government lockdown on March 17. The usually frenetic E-40 motorway seemed abandoned as people hunkered down in their homes. A 45% drop in traffic was reported and traffic jams seemed to magically disappear, as did the tourists. Shops, museums, offices and schools closed. Sporting events and festivals were cancelled. Gatherings were limited. Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes told us all to stay at home, and we did. We don’t mess around with the pandemic in Belgium.
Bye-Bye Belgian Beer and Blossoms
No more gathering for meals or a beer. We were only permitted to go out for emergencies or necessities, like a visit to the doctor or pharmacy, or a trip to the supermarket. Luckily, you could still find Belgian beer there. And it was incredibly frustrating if you needed anything that wasn’t edible. Shops that sold non-food items could keep them on display, but could only sell food items. And, like our neighbors across the pond, we found shelves cleared of toilet paper and disinfecting products. We just had to wait, or discover bol.com, our version of Amazon.
A trip to the grocery store was an adventure – and an escape from our four walls. Only a limited number of people were allowed in at a time. We waited in lines outside — socially distanced, of course — and picked up freshly disinfected shopping carts for our one-way walk through the aisles. Naturally, this was after making the mandatory stop at the hand sanitizing station.
Today, walk down almost any side street, and you’ll see overturned chairs resting on tables outside closed restaurants. It’s sad, especially for the restaurant owners and staff. Luckily, there is still take-out so you can pick up some famous Brussels fries (“frites”) served with mayonnaise, a combination that still puzzles me, but delights the locals.
Soon, borders were closed for non-essential travel. No more hopping over to Aachen, Germany, for shopping or to the Netherlands for the colorful display of tulips at Keukenhoff. Our lives seemed stripped of color.
April and May are amazing months in Brussels with breathtaking floral displays — the Royal Conservatory Gardens in Laeken, open just for a few weeks each year, and there’s the fabulous floral display at the castle at Groot Bijgarden. Both were cancelled.
My annual trek to Halle for the spectacular Hallerbos bluebell display was also cancelled. Only locals, who could walk to the woods, were permitted access.
Brussels Airlines cancelled its commercial flights from March 21, and Brussels Airport is not as busy as before.. The sound of airplanes overhead grew quieter. Non-essential travel was prohibited and penalties were introduced for those who failed to comply with the regulations.
Masking Up
As far as public transport goes, masks were required on public transport trams, buses and trains and in the waiting areas. Now, they are required everywhere. And many people are wearing a mask over the mask because of the worries over the new strains of coronavirus.
Our Bubbles
“Social bubble” sizes were set. They decreased from 10 people, to five people to just one person. Talk about feeling isolated!
We were allowed to go outdoors for exercise. In fact, we were encouraged to do it, but there was no stopping along the way. We had to keep moving. Only the elderly or pregnant women were allowed to take a pause to sit on a park bench.
Our world moved online. Everyone was encouraged to telework from home, and students sat in the living room in front of a computer instead of in class. We all discovered Zoom and tried to find new ways to hide our lockdown locks. Ah, what I would give for a visit to the hairdresser! Beauty salons and massage parlors were “verboten.” I, like so many of my fellow Belgian residents, have discovered the joy of wearing hats to hide the hair disaster! A few people on Santa’s naughty list crossed the border into the Netherlands for visits to the barber or hairdresser, but that was not only discouraged, but illegal.
Slowly “Deconfining”
On May 11, some shops were permitted to re-open. Gardening centers, do-it-yourself stores and fabric shops re-opened. But there were still rules. You could only be in a shop for 30 minutes, and a limited number of people were allowed in at one time. We were all so excited when cafes and restaurants opened in June — with restrictions, of course.
Our excitement was short-lived, though. A second wave of the coronavirus put a damper on that. Non-essential shops closed again on November 2 for six weeks. When they reopened just before Christmas, the rules for social distancing, masks and hand sanitizing remained. And we are only allowed to shop alone. I think there is one exception, though. A bride-to-be may bring one person along to help with a decision on a wedding dress.
Forget about stepping into a shop now without your mandatory masks. We don’t whine about it as much as many Americans do, though. In fact, there’s a very different mindset here. In Flanders, you’ll see signs everywhere that say, “Altijd Samen,” or always together. People here realize that we have to work as a community to fight the scourge of COVID-19. I have to admit I giggled a bit when I saw the sign in a town square that flashed from “Always Together” to “Shop Alone.“
The Waiting Game
I long for Friday afternoons in the cafe with friends and weekends jaunting across the continent with fellow expats. Those now seem like faraway dreams. The lockdown, which was supposed to stay in affect until April 5, 2020, seems to be going on forever. At one point, Belgium had the highest number of deaths and infections, so the government is quite serious about keeping its citizens safe.
Belgium was a nation in crisis, and it responded quickly and with gusto. The restrictions may seem draconian, but the authorities were right. Belgium, which at one point had the highest Covid-19 infections in Europe, has seen results. The measures flattened the curve and the number of transmissions is declining. Now, we’re just waiting for our vaccinations, which have started — first with senior care facilities.
Curfews are still in place from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in Brussels and Wallonia, The Flanders curfew runs from midnight to 5 a.m.
What have I missed the most during the lockdown? The amazing outdoor music and festivals that bring Brussels to life during the summer, and the Christmas markets. We’ll appreciate them even more when they return later in 2021.
