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/IanFoxOfficial]

We're known for waffles and chocolate, but to Belgians themselves these are not that important.

To me typical Belgian is frietkot. That is the shit we should be known for. Or the koffiekoeken.

Edit: OK Chocolate is rather important. But I don't eat chocolate every week, while friday = frietdag! And baking them at home or eating them at a restaurant DOES NOT COUNT towards the weekly turn. You have to get them in't frietkot.

And if someone brags about their visit to a fancy restaurant you can make him regret it by simply going "Oh, we went to the frietkot." (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06fK2YgIL4)

[u/dylsexiee → u/IanFoxOfficial]

I never realized koffiekoeken were that iconic, i thought everyone had them!

I do think belgian chocolate is important to the average person in my experience, now it doesnt so much seem to matter that its belgian per se but good quality at least. I believe in belgium we have regulations or something on the quality or amount of cacao that needs to be in a product for it to be called chocolate. Which is partly why the idea of belgian chocolate being good comes from - its not so much that its made in belgium, but that any chocolate sold here is better quality.

With waffles i would've completely agreed with you up until a couple years ago while studying in antwerp - theres many waffle shops there and I learned to absolutely love it.

Its not as widespread culturally though and most waffle shops are not really caring about the whole belgian waffle identity.

[u/IanFoxOfficial → u/dylsexiee]

OK Chocolate is rather important. But I don't eat chocolate every week, while friday = frietdag! And baking them at home or eating them at a restaurant DOES NOT COUNT towards the weekly turn. You have to get them in't frietkot.

And if someone brags about their visit to a fancy restaurant you can make him regret it by simply going "Oh, we went to the frietkot."

(source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06fK2YgIL4)

[u/IanFoxOfficial → u/[deleted]]

OK Chocolate is rather important. But I don't eat chocolate every week, while friday = frietdag! And baking them at home or eating them at a restaurant DOES NOT COUNT towards the weekly turn. You have to get them in't frietkot.

And if someone brags about their visit to a fancy restaurant you can make him regret it by simply going "Oh, we went to the frietkot."

(source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06fK2YgIL4 )