And so on to Brussels, and my alone adventure. I still was remarkably calm. I made my bus to the discount airport. The flight was naturally delayed. Made my bus from the other discount airport into Brussels. It was so easy, nothing was going wrong. I wasn’t holding back in my mind yet, just letting it calmly wander as a rainy Belgium countryside glided by. And I glided, too, on buses and planes and buses and through the streets and I felt like I didn’t have to be anywhere, and I was exactly there.
I remember the first bite into that baguette sandwich. It tasted different. More flavor.
Inside Gare de Sud, I stopped and looked around. I looked at the departure monitors. So, I could hop on a train to Amsterdam now, which I guess could be called my destination. But Amsterdam was going to be a full on “rager”. Although I didn’t know anyone with whom I was officially meeting up with there, knowing the fanbase of this particular music genre, it was going to be a party, and I was going to have no problem finding people who were going to go and go, non-stop. So I decided to relax and see some of Brussels after a good night’s sleep.
I was happy to be speaking French again. At this point in the semester the Portuguese hadn’t really sunk in, but the French it just flowed. People smiled at me and sometimes spoke back in English, but it didn’t bother me this time.
I got a map and a hotel reccomendation from the cute guy at the info desk. I decided I was going to splurge that night on a normal hotel room. I knew I needed the rest and comfort before being cramped up in a hostel with god knows who…and I’ll get to those stories. On the other hand, maybe I won’t. Across the street from the station I got a nice room for a decent price. The man at the desk was so kind, he spoke in French but soft and slow, telling me he could switch to English at any point. I understood, but I kept slipping up when I tried to speak. Sometimes I would nod and say “Sim,” and my thank-yous were always “obrigado” or even “gracias”. Two days in Spain, and already I was confused. But he hooked me up with a corner room. A beautiful view of the clearing sky over the center of the city. A queen sized bed! I had forgotten that beds even existed on which I could lie comfortably on my back, or turn over in the middle of the night without bruising an elbow. I stretched out, did some yoga. Went to the station and bought a phone card and some food. Called my parents, almost cried on the phone. Nostalgia… turned on the TV…ohh Jon Stewart, how I have missed you…and I watched a few things in French and German, an episode of the Sopranos…and had a blissful realization that I wasn’t going to be setting an alarm clock that night. More nostalgia. But again, I was glad that I didn’t have to be anywhere.
I went to sleep when it was still light out, but 12 hours wasn’t even enough. Unfortunately I had to drag myself out of bed to check out of the hotel. I was going to miss that mattress. I began my wanderings toward the center of the city. I got on the wrong subway twice, it was a little complicated. But again, the calmness and aimlessness persisted. Once I walked the wrong way out of a subway exit for several blocks. When I finally saw on the map where I was, there was no shock of dismay. I didn’t feel frustrated at all that I had to back track so far. Nothing swept over me. On my way back, I happened to stumble up on the Palais du Roi and the near-by park. How was this all just happening? I just listened to my music and walked on. Somewhere on one of the hills I saw the steeple of a very interesting-looking chapel. It was studded and capped in gold, bright tan in color, jutting out awkwardly from the gray and black city blocks around it. I didn’t know exactly what landmark it was on the map but it didn’t look too far away so I walked towards it.
Palais du Roi
The cathedral drawing me in
As I meandered the streets narrowed and surged with people. I felt as if there were a lot of tourists, but mostly older European couples wrapped in scarves and smiling. It was the kind of day where it was raining off and on, but the ground never seemed to stay wet. It was cool when the sun wasn’t out, but the streets of Brussels were comfortable. There were flags strung above the streets and waffle vendor after waffle vendor; the smell was almost too much. The pastries were more decadent than any other European city, absolutely smothered in chocolate caramel and fruit toppings. I was desperate for one, but I was going to keep walking towards that spire. The cathedral turned out to the the center of historic Brussels, Grand-Place Grote Market. It was, probably, a beautiful square enclosed by this cathedral and a few other extravagant, gold trimmed museums and opera houses. A colorful flower market broke up the tan and rusty gold. Old and young people were crouched over them: smelling flowers in the middle of the city. Unfortuntately, the beauty of the quaint square was dampened by the scaffolding that covered all four sides and the construction equipment roped of in the middle. Either way, I took in all of the antiquity of the place and moved with the surge of the slowly pacing crowd.
I continued to wander in a circle around the market place, I noticed that Brussel’s Gare Central was a block from where I was standing: again somehow, I had ended up in exactly the right place to get where I was going, even if I had no intention of going there. The train to Amsterdam would leave every half-hour, and I just stood in the square perplexed at the ease of being alone. No one would even know if I didn’t see all the sights, or if I didn’t take enough pictures, or tell me it was time to leave.
I sat half in the rain and half under an umbrella and ate a waffle with whipped cream and caramel. I found myself laughing, alone, and I wasn’t sure why. Something about how ridiculous the waffle was. How was it that something so indulgent and rich could be such a huge part of the image of a culture? How did Belgian people allow themselves to eat something so…rebellious…on a regular basis.
Delphine, a Belgian girl in my classes, comes from a city in the south. She told me just last night at dinner that there are really three Belgiums. There’s the French part, the Flemish part and then there’s Brussels. And each region has their own waffles. She, of course, tried to convince me that the waffles from her region were the best and offered to make me one. I’ve decided that the food in Belgium is underrated..over shadowed as usually by it’s attention loving neighbor, and is probably the best in Europe.
My cigarette got wet as I listened to the French students behind me trying to pick out a few sentences here and there. Across the road a man in a doorway played the blues, singing clapton lyrics in crisp, clear English. I wondered if he knew what they meant or if he just learned the song by imitation.
On to Amsterdam, although I won’t write much about it. It was what you hear, making friends in hostels, a few coffee shops, van Gogh and Rembrandt, flowers in Dam Square. But of course, I saw three nights of the Disco Biscuits, Dark Star Orchestra, Umphrey’s McGee and Lotus, some of my favorite music. I met some crazy Americans, people that are somehow in the outer reaches of my life in Colorado and on the east coat. It was a completely surreal feeling, I felt like I knew everyone there. These were more my kind of people, and although I love my friends on the program our ability to get along is conditional. In Amsterdam I felt accepted so quickly and without judgment about the kind of music I liked or how often I showered. We were all there for the same reason, and it happened to be in the most open and friendly city in the world. On the third night I had one truly unbelievable music experience, something I’ll be reflecting on for the rest of my life. Those people who opened me up are going to be in my mind forever.
At some point I’ll tell a few stories from the Dam, but it’s all a little scrambled in my memories, as it should. For some reason it’s harder for me to write about things that involved that much emotion. There more involved with something I am, the less I want to let go of it as a part of my mind and write it down. Almost as if talking about it makes it less real or less a part of me. This is a feeling I should probably get over, but right now these experiences are mine.
