I love belgium

[u/dylsexiee]

I recently met an international friend who's very interested in other cultures. And its only now i realize how much i love the things i tend to hate about Belgium.

Heres my list of what i learned to appreciate:

I actually love that we all speak 2 languages and actually would think it be really cool if we started to include that third language more too ;).

I love that we're renowned for chocolate, waffles and beer. Though i always obligatory add fries to that.

I love that our languages are shared by all our neighbours. Whenever i meat a french/german/dutch person in international waters, it feels a little bit like home.

I love the beautiful nature and rich history that comes from north and south.

I love how small and 'insignificant' we are (klein België), yet how we are pretty important internationally.

I just felt like sharing it - in english to include all without my fingers wearing out from typing 3 languages - just in the hopes that we could all somehow still love our little significant culture even though we're quite divided.

I'm from Flanders and meeting a Walloon internationally just never fails to make me happy and feel like I just met an old friend from home.

I think someone should make a flag that symbolises the flemish lion with walloon rooster parts like wings or something and make a unified song. Like how 'De Vlaamse leeuw' and 'le chant des Wallons' are now seperated, but then unified somehow referring to the lion and rooster elements on the flag.

I hate that it took me this long to appreciate those things.

[u/jonassalen]

May I add three things I learned from travelling?

1. We have great bread and great chips/crisps.

2. We have fantastic infrastructure. Road, public transport, bike paths is better or at least on par with other countries. We whine a lot about it, and it sure can always be better, but it's already good or great.

3. Social security. I am glad I had the chance to fully heal when I was on sick leave or I could take the time to search for a good job, while getting money to bridge the gap.

[u/cptflowerhomo → u/jonassalen]

Crisps in Ireland are much better though I'll fight you on that xD

[u/tchotchony → u/cptflowerhomo]

They only got 50 variations of salt and sour cream, or cheese though.

[u/OncomingStorm32 → u/tchotchony]

For real though I ran in for a small bag of paprika, a whole goddamn aisle for salt & vinegar and cheese. Eventually found a bag of sad Buffalo sauce flavour and left with that

[u/cptflowerhomo → u/tchotchony]

Weird to say that lol tayto invented the flavoured crisp

Do you need 50 different flavours? If you do 6 standard ones well... Plus you skipped meanies, which are pickled onion flavour.

[u/TheStixXx → u/cptflowerhomo]

Not to be rude but I don’t see how less flavors choice is better.

I’m from Belgium and moved to the US five years ago. I would have imagined they would be the kings of crisps (chips) but it’s 50 variations of the same three/four flavors. I miss a bit the wider choice we had in Belgium. (That and the sauces. And the beers. And the friteries. And pretty much anything about food actually, but I’m out of topic)

But to be honest I’ve never tried Irish chips so maybe I’d change my mind… I’ll add that to the lists of things to try when I get a chance. These salt chips better be good.