Brabant Street

The turn of the season is just around the corner. There is now more prolonged sunlight with overall temperature warming up, though still not in the double digit degrees Celsius yet. At least what's apparent it's no longer dark going out to work in the morning as well as coming back home.

We went to Brussels yesterday for a day trip. Brussels is a 2-hour drive, a distance of 180 km from our place. Most of the motorways are still coping well with the heavy traffic along this route. Though towards Brussels, heavy road works are ongoing to expand the motorway from the current three lanes. This is quite impressive if you consider that Belgium is not amongst the richest country in Europe, but still able to pour a lot of money on road infrastructure to cater for the future.

We ended up at Brabant Street which is famous for its carpets and Arabs and Turkish communities. The place has changed since the last time we were here 10 years ago. It is now more organised and busier. But what is also apparent is the number of beggars around. Some say there are Bosnians. Others say they are gypsies from Romania. When confronted with these set of people, it is a real dilemma, what to do with these people. Are they for real or part of a syndicate. A number of such syndicates has been revealed across Europe where their kingpins live in luxury while the 'workers' live in nice housing but spend the day doing their business targeting tourists and easy communities such as the Middle easterners. In London, one could see a lot of them along Edgware Road.

Then we went for a quick stopover at the square. The place is always busy, the cafes are full with seats now put outside for people to drink coffee while enjoying the sunlight and the scenes.