With that cat-nap behind me, thinking suddenly becomes easier, and Brussels suddenly looked more beautiful.
Did I mention that my bag finally arrived on a separate plane, chauffered to my hostel?
I am also now clean and scrubbed, thank god, but my room still smells like a sewer
every couple of hours.
2Go4 Hostel Brussels is the place (strange name), on Boulevard Emile-Jacqmainlaan, and a sneaky 2 streets parallel from the shopping stretch.
Walk down a mile more and hit the Brussels’ central tourist catchment area (or trapment area), the Grand Place/ Grote Markt/ Grande’Place, some World Heritage site which the Belgians simply acknowledge as ‘too many people’. The architecture is even cheerfully gothic.
**There exists only in Belgium a strange mix of a germanic language and a romance language spoken at once, repeated in announcements twice, and where people fluently switch between German, Dutch, French and some English.
Weirdness is worshipped. Where else in the world do you have a status of a pissing boy (the Mannaken Pis) as an icon?
The rage is to be seen eating the rectangular waffles with cream (only tourists ask for extra sauce) and sit down in some chocolate cafe!
Misadventures
May 31, 2007
Ingredients for misadventures:
Take:
1. smelly, beer-swirling, alcohol-loving fat man
2. A less fat Korean man with a nasal English accent
Put #1 and #2 together, mix with
#3. Lousy Airline Food (poor excuse for Chinese fried rice and watery egg)
Vigorously fold in
#4. Incompetent baggage handling
Garnish with
#5. Nose bleeds
For dessert: Throw in many loud-mouthed, vocabluary-challenged teenage Americans enjoying their gap-year thronging every corner of the hostel.
As far as I know, all these have happened in the space of 12-18 hours.
“Your bag is still in Amsterdam,” some baggage handler said curtly as I stood in an ominous dusty room next to the Brussels’ Airport Arrival hall carrying literally all but the clothes on my body and that backpack. Just outside that room was an LCD screen proudly proclaiming the fastest luggage handling time as part of their ‘performance indicators’.
Excuse me while I choke.
As I type, I am still wearing the same old clothes.
So I’ll be in Brussels waiting for some unknown time tonight when the luggage finally arrives.
Wearing the same icky clothes. Too tired even to use the excuse to go shopping.
But the quick update so far is this:
Horrible, crowded flight, and had hardly any sleep. I had a choice between sitting next to a fat man who stank of stale beer and cigarettes, who wore sunglasses the whole time, and spoke with a dubious Russian (read: human smuggler/drug king-pin) accent, and sitting next to a Korean man who is the uglier and flatter version of a certain saxophonist I know.
Of course I chose the Korean. Surprised you there didn’t I?
Transited in Amsterdam very quickly – barely had time to brush the teeth and wash the face, but I’m glad I managed to! The 30 min flight to Brussels was an anti-climax and all hope of checking in early to get a bath and some shut-eye disappeared when the last but equally important piece of luggage decided to stay back a while longer in sin-city.
Brussels airport is unimaginative and functional. The weirdness starts right here when you need to go down the basement and up again to get from runway to exit.
Walked through the old town for a while, and could not quite enjoy it yet until I know I’m clean with some proper change of clothing and some hours of sleep behind me.
More later, obviously.
