Gah! So Much Backblog!

Alright, I'm like a month behind on this adventure journal now. So, I could craft a super-long entry that can only be finished by three people, starting before dawn and proceeding in four-hour shifts, producing condensed 300-or-so word summaries of what they've just read at the end of every shift to fill in the next person and continuing well into next Wednesday. Or, I could just write broadly, writing here there and everywhere like I were Jackson Pollock. Well, rather than tell you how I'm going to tell you everything I did, I'll just tell you. So, here's me, telling you.

November 1st: Wake up Brussels, early morning. Say goodbye and thank you to couchsurf host Damien, eat an apple muffin, get on the train to Bruges. Arrive in Bruges in the mid-morning. It will rain the entire day, and my umbrella will become mostly destroyed in the wind. Bruges is lovely - big towering... uh, towers. Most are churches, but not all. Picturesque, if, like, your pictures sucked. I mean, yeah it was cool, but it's not like it wasn't like EVERY OTHER MEDIEVAL CITY I'VE EVER SEEN. And it was raining. Check in at the hostel at 3. Nap. Meet a nice American girl from New York doing the Grand Tour, who is a floral design artist. We have dinner, sampling some beer, talk, and then call it quits around midnight thirty. Sleep.

November 2nd: Wake up Bruges. The sun! The sun! Finally the sun! I hadn't seen the sun in like three weeks at this point, 'cuz it'd been raining in Montpellier as well as in Belgium. Granted, the sun went away after like an hour, but I got some pretty pictures from a windmill on a hill by the edge of the city. Will have to wait for developing. Saw a church that is an exact replica of either the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or the Church of the Nativity. Definitely not supposed to be in Belgium, in any case. Wandered around, saw a Michelangelo, got some fries, got on the train to Gent.

Arrive Gent in the early afternoon. Cloudy again. Wander around, see a tree the map says "is the most beautiful tree in the world". It sucked. It was brownish gold and was mostly just big. I don't think Belgians have high standards. Or know what they're talking about. Saw the old Socialist Party HQ, also billed as "the most beautiful building". Not quite as sucky as the tree, but nothing to, you know, write home about, present description excluded. Went and saw the "three towers", the Cathedral, the Town Hall, and another Cathedral (which is not actually a cathedral, since it is only in really really big cities that you'd need two Cardinals - if ever). 'Twas cool. Ate lunch at a pannekoekenhuis. Tasty. Wandered around s'more. Met my host, Ramses. Very nice, very generous. Took me out for Bicky's, sort of the national Belgian fast food. Not bad. Worse than McDonalds, but once you're down at that level, it's really just scraping at the bedrock to get further. Get some beer with his friends. Bear in mind, any time I say 'got beer' or 'tried beer', I never had the same beer twice. They literally have a type of beer for every person in the country. Sleep.

November 3rd: Said goodbye to Ramses. Walked around. Saw s'more stuff. Got some interesting postcards that used to be instructional flashcards for Belgian schoolchildren in the 1950s. One of them has the skeletal structure of a pigeon in Dutch and French (the pigeon, remember, is the national bird of Belgium). Some others are quite cool. Went into the real cathedral - saw Van Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb. Or rather, saw a reproduction of it in the back, since the original is in a little boutique that costs 4 euros, and the repro is exactly the same and free. Got a postcard of the angels signing. They look seriously uncomfortable, or confused, or both. Left the cathedral. Wandered around. Realized that, light as I had packed, carrying around 15 lbs or so on my back for four days for about 14 hours a day is kinda rough. Sat for like an hour. Went to find some of the first houses built by Victor Horta. Sucked. I mean c'mon, it took me like half an hour to find them on the block, and when I did I was SO disappointed. Went to use the bathroom at the Design Museum, 'cuz it was free (not many public toilets in continental Europe). While I'm washing my hands, the janitor, who is cleaning up, turns to me and asks:

"Niederlander?" - meaning, am I from the Netherlands.

"No, American."

"Ah, the U S of A. [Pause] So, whose going to win?"

[Me, a little weirded out] "Obama(?)"

"I think so too. He's the real McCoy."

Let me take a moment to analyze what just happened. A Dutch-speaking janitor at the Gent Design Museum is first of all, versed enough in current affairs to know about the US elections (though, really, you'd have to be dead not to), but second of all, knows and is able to use correctly the phrase 'the real McCoy'. I was thoroughly impressed. In fact, I was laughing for like five minutes after that. After that, went to the Botanical Gardens. Neat. Called my host for the night to get the scoop. Can't remember his name anymore. I want to say it was like, Jeremy. That isn't right though. Maybe Sebastian. While I could take twenty seconds and look it up online, I won't, because I am obstinate, and let's face it, I can do a lot more with inventing names every time I need to mention Chuck over there, rather than getting the goods and confirming that he is, in fact, named Jamal. Call up Matongo, he says he'll meet me at the Town Hall around 7. Go there. Meet Cillian at 7. Yunis and I go back to his apartment, which is seriously an hour away on foot, and my back is hurting. I am not happy with you at this moment Joachim, I telepathically tell him. Hussein and I get to his place, where he lives with a young couple and their child. Apparently, lots of, whatchamacallit, roommating dealies in Belgium. While Akiro makes dinner, I take a shower, since I haven't bathed at this point in like five days. Mr. Kookaramanga and I eat dinner, he's an artist, I ask him what that's like, he tells me. I go to sleep.

November 4th: Rin Tin Tin and I take the tram to the station. I say goodbye to Benjamin, and continue on to Brussels. Floriean goes off to work. For reference, Gent is a city that can be seen in about two hours, not two days. Please leave after you find yourself saying, "Well, I could go see this other thing, or..." In fact, you've probably had a fulfilling experience if you leave the whole of Belgium at that point. Arrive Brussels - I think it's sunny. It probably was that day. It was sunny one of them days. Go see the Africa Museum first. SO COOL. First, it's like an hour outside Brussels, so you have to take the tram to get there. The tram goes through one of the only remaining forests in Belgium (sad, but true) - and when you get there, it's a neat place all about how King Leopold screwed the Congo. They have one painting in particular called 'Civilization', where a black boy is being whipped by the house slave while the white master looks on, idly. Yup, that was the 19th century for you. I have something in my teeth. I need to brush them. Also, I've been mistaken for a journalist a couple of times now by virtue of carrying a respectable-looking camera around my neck. Sweet! Took the tram back. Went to the Military Museum to finish up seeing what I hadn't. In other words, a hanger full of old airplanes. Also cool. Went up top the big Arc de Triomphe of Belgium to look out on the murky city of Brussels. Even on a clear day, you can't see more than five miles for whatever reason - pollution, smog, clouds, etc. Speaking of seeing things, did I mention seeing Atomium - the giant model of an iron atom built for the 1950-something World's Fair? It was... not as cool as I'd hoped. After that, I think I got lunch. I got moule-frites, which are mussels and fries, only the place I went to made you make them yourself, so... I don't think they were the genuine article. I ended up just fishing mussels out of a jar and eating them with fries. It wasn't bad, but I'm lucky I didn't end up hurling. Went to the Comic Book Museum. Sucked. Almost 8 euro for two floors dedicated to obscure, obscure Belgian comics and the Smurfs. Only like two panels on Tintin, which was the real reason I came. They will pay dearly for this insult. Near darkish - head to where my couchsurf host Yann lives. It's a fair way to the south of the city - not good since I gotta catch a train at 5:40AM.

Yann is nice, college student in communications - he makes dinner, we go out to meet some of his friends at a bar. On the bus, an old Congolese woman is sitting behind us wearing an Obama button. You rock, lady! Have more beer, meet his friends, all nice people, all Francophone Belgians - unlike Ramses and his friends, who spoke only Dutch and left me confused. Oh, I forgot to mention, I saw my friends Meg and Ping - from Montpellier - in Gent. That was nice. Also out with Yann and his friends was their Slovakian friend... I wanna say her name was Stephanie. She works as the representative for Slovakia for the European Commission's Youth Organization or something like that. Like a girl scout for bureaucrats. Only, she's like 30 (fooled me), and probably legitimately employed. Apparently Yann and his friends met her on vacation in Slovakia several years ago and have been friends since. She didn't speak French super well either, so it was nice that they were taking it easy for both of us. They asked me about the election, about my studies, etc. Nice people. Went back to Yann's place. Slept for four hours.

November 5th: Wake up 4:00AM. Take care of my luggage, etc. Yann walks me to the Avenue Louise, from which is a straight shot to the Boulevard Peripherique that wraps around downtown Brussels and where the train station is located. Say goodbye to him, thank him. Walk, then run for about an hour and a half to the train station. Make it with 10 minutes to spare. On my way in, I see a crowd of people standing under a TV monitor. Guess what they're looking at? Oh that's right, it's the real McCoy, who just became President-Elect the real McCoy. Collapse on the train - sleep groggily for a few hours until the customs agents come onboard and start ruffling through my stuff. Sleep more until the SNCF agent comes on to tell me I'm in the wrong seat, and ask me why I'm in the wrong seat, and scrutinize me to see if he should fine me or not. He does not. I get off at Valence, change trains, head back to Montpellier. Sleep.

So, that was my long overdue entry about my excursion to Belgium. Lovely place. If you have the chance to go, do so. Would I go back? Well, I'm not gonna say no, but I'm not gonna say 'in a heartbeat' either. Since then, what've I done? Well, aside from mundanity, not too much. Oh wait, I just got home from Ireland yesterday. So, lemme tell y'all all 'bout that!