Mussels in Brussels, Part 1

April 4-6, 2009

The man working the desk at the Art Hotel Siru is not bothered in the least when I tell him I speak neither French nor Dutch. When I ask him about where to walk and to not walk at night, he points to a few places on the map he hands me, but he speaks so quickly and points so briefly I do not know exactly which streets to avoid and which are safe. "This area is not so good," he says, pointing to some small print. "Unless, of course, it makes you happy."

The elevator is barely large enough for one person, and I am amused that a sign, in English, specifies that no more than 4 people are allowed in the car. I know some small people, but I don't think even 2 of them would be comfortable in the ride to my room. In my 2-night stay I will never figure out exactly which floor the lobby is on and which button to push to get to that lobby, and in fact more than once I will ride the elevator down and get off on the wrong floor. The room at the Art Hotel Siru is an upgrade from the Windsor House Hotel in London--I feel as though I have moved from steerage to first class because I actually have space in which to move around. In fact, I can move around not only in the room itself, but also in the shower. Hell, I could take a bath if I was one to take baths! I do notice, however, that sounds from the street seem to be magnified as they rise up and through my window. There is a small desk on which to place assorted items, and some of these are shown in this photograph. (The wind did not come with the room--I had to buy that at a nearby grocery store.)


After I have scattered my clothing about the room and consulted my map, I ride the elevator down, get off first on the wrong floor, second in the basement, and third in the lobby. This is fun, I think. Finally outside, I cross a busy street and head in the direction where I think the Grand Place is. I then have a choice of 2 streets to continue on, and, because this is a good pattern, I head down what must be the wrong street and find myself walking by a variety of adult clubs and theaters. I realize this is what the man at the hotel was referring to as the area that "isn't so good." Retracing my steps, I head down what must be the correct streets, and after walking through assorted indoor shopping areas, one of which looks like this:


Soon enough, I arrive at the tourist-laden Grand Place, which looks like this.



I will return to this area several times during my stay, approaching Brussels the same way I do everyplace else I visit: get overly familiar with one place before venturing on to someplace else.

Ready for dinner, I scout out the various dining spots in the immediate area, finally settling on one only because I am tired of scouting. For dinner, I have this, a nice birthday dinner.


Next time: Mussels in Brussels, Pt. 2

Changing Channels

I was so much older then: April 4, 2009

Happy birthday to me...

Skipped cornflakes and toast at the hotel again today because the dining room was full of teenagers. I should have barged in, told them to respect their elders, and taken a seat. I walk to the bakery again but find that it is not yet open, and when I return to the hotel, I find myself locked out--not out of my room, but out of the hotel. One of the 2 keys I was given is supposed to open the outside door, but it does not and I stand in a light drizzle and think, nice way to start my birthday. Finally someone exits, and I smile and step in, then climb the steps to my room where I check that everything is packed for my trip to Brussels. But when I drag myself and my backpack down the steps, there is nobody at the front desk, nobody to return the 10-Pound deposit I had to pay for the 2 keys. In the dining room I seek out an adult who is serving toast, someone who barely speaks English but tells me to knock on a door around the corner. I pass an attractive woman in the hallway as I look for the door, and she disappears up the steps. I knock on the door, and it is opened by a young gentleman dressed in pajama bottoms and nothing else. I tell him I'm looking for the person who will check me out of the hotel, and he tells me she is not there. In fact, we repeat this conversation a second time, but I can tell he is not pleased to have been summoned from his bed. He shuts the door, I walk back up the steps, and I find the attractive woman I'd passed moments earlier.

She is the one who will be taking my keys and returning my deposit. I don't tell her of my encounter with her boyfriend/husband/companion, figuring I'll let him tell her about me later in the day. When she asks how my stay was, I tell her it was mostly fine except for the leaking roof and the Italian teenagers who were also staying at the hotel and thought it was great fun to congregate on the sidewalk beneath my window between midnight and 3 a.m. each night. She is tired. She says that she has not slept more than a few hours each night because of those same teenagers, and she says she is glad to be heading somewhere out of the country for a few days, to someplace quiet.

Then, I am gone and on my way to St. Pancras Station where I check my heavy bag and find someplace to serve me a croissant and a cup of hot tea for breakfast. As usual, I am much earlier than I have to be, so I linger on benches or walk through the station, all the while glad that I am burdened with only a small daypack. The station is full, the languages many, and I don't know if I am pleased or not to see an eldery American dressed in full cowboy clothing. Many young people, some of whom carry climbers' mats, stride easily through the crowds, and their youth and vigor remind me that I am another year older today. I watch them and try to believe that my back does not hurt, that my feet are not sore.... Security in the train station is similar to that in airports, and when I am finally through to the gate/waiting area half an hour before my train is to leave, we are told that the train will be late and the track has been changed. So, I wait some more.

The Eurostar train is comfortable enough, and intercom announcements are made in 3 languages in this order: English, French, Dutch. Passing beneath the English Channel is dark and quick, and though only some of the scenery changes as we ascend into daylight, I feel a small twinge of excitement that I am now in France. There, the order of announcements changes to French, Dutch, and then English, and a couple of uneventful hours later we arrive in Gare du Midi, one of the train stations in Brussels. This is the end of this Eurostar line for me, and I step out into the station and must figure out what to do next.

I knew I had a few options to get to my hotel: walk, take a cab, ride the trolley/underground. I had consulted my map enough to know that the distance between the station and my hotel was not far and was easily walkable. Instead, I find my way to beneath the streets to where the underground trains were. Knowing that my hotel was very close to the Place Rogier stop on the trolley, I consult the maps on the wall and decipher that I should take the Churchill line. I buy a ticket at a vending machine, wait for what I think is the correct train, and board said train--but do not know what to do with the ticket. So, pocketing it, I find a seat and tried to appear inconspicuous. The stops are announced in French and Dutch, and I wait patiently for "Rogier" to flow from a loudspeaker. Instead, 15 minutes later, the train creeps into a roundabout-type stop from which there is no exit, where 2 other trains are also parked, and during a fairly long announcement, I catch the word "terminus"--and then every door opens and every passenger exits. Remembering the experience my English-ladies had told me about when the rode the subway in Paris, I follow their lead and get off the train. And, for the life of me, I do not know what to do but stand there and pretend I am reading the plaque affixed to the statue of Winston Chruchill.

For 10 minutes I walk around that little circle, checking the sky and hoping the increasing gray did not signal rain. None of the trains appear to be going anywhere, and I can not see any street signs that might help me find my place on the map. Finally, one of the electronic signs on one of the trains changes to "Rogier"--I had, apparently, boarded the correct train, but had gone in the incorrect direction. I am sheepish, then, when I re-board a train, pass again through Gare du Midi, and in 10 minutes disembark at Place Rogier station, find my way past homeless people camped in the station, and ascend into Brussels itself--less than a block from my hotel, the Art Hotel Siru, which looks like this.

Yes. It's a Comfort Inn. But, damn, it's a Comfort Inn in Brussels!

Next time: Mussels in Brussels

No More Cornflakes!

Another London Day: April 3, 2009

More than anything, this is a day of transition between London and Brussels, Belgium, and I discover that the leak in the ceiling outside my room has stopped, or been stopped, and if by magic I now have decent water pressure in my shower. Then, not only washed but properly rinsed, I skip breakfast at the B&B and instead grab something at the small bakery I have become familiar with over the past near-week. I do not much relish Cornflakes (though was once a great fan of Sugar Frosted Flakes), and I could not face a bowl of them again. Later, I head to Camden Town, which I've heard is (and turns out to be) a throwback to the 1960s: tie-died clothing; bongs and assorted paraphernalia; tattoo and piercing parlors, along with current or previous clientele. It is an active place, but I do not linger long before returning to London for lunch at Covent Garden, where I also buy 2 nice, heavy bath towels and a bathrobe to send home to my wife. The transaction is sealed with a handshake and my providing my credit card number to a man who writes it on a piece of paper and assures me that the items will be shipped in just a couple of days. Afterward I take the Tube to St. Pancras Station, from where I will depart on the Eurostar tomorrow. The station is as large as many airports I have been in, and I am amazed at its size. I visit mostly to see if I can leave part of my luggage here while I am in Brussels, which turns out to be possible if fairly pricey.

After St. Pancras I visit the British Library, just a short walk from both the station and the hotel I stayed in after returning from Edinburgh a couple years ago. On that visit, I discovered the Library purely by accident after purposefully visiting the Charles Dickens Museum. The Library is a cool, softly lighted place that proves a good counter to the commotion on the streets outside. I once more enjoy looking at the Magna Carta and other, assorted original manuscripts before finding my way back to the Tube and the Windsor House, where I pack and begin thinking about Brussels, about how tomorrow my age will bump up another digit.

Next time: Changing Channels

A Friend, Her Daughter, Their Friend, and More London

More of London: April 2, 2009

Trekking through London for a couple more days before heading to Brussels, I start out on April 2 hoping to find Harrod's, though I do not find it until after getting disoriented and then nearly disinterested in the whole thing. I am continually perplexed by my inability to orient and synchronize my eyes and feet to my map and compass, and my excursion requires much more time and walking than I think it should. In the hotel room this morning everything appeared so simple, so navigable.

Perhaps, though, my lack of sleep last night contributed to a similar lack of clear thinking. Deciding yesterday afternoon that a couple of t-shirts needed a bit of cleansing to get the smell of me out of them, I washed them in the small sink, wrung them up, then hung them in the shower to drip dry. Several times during the night I awoke to the sound of water dripping, a sound that was much louder than I reasoned any two t-shirts hung to dry should make. Finally frustrated enough to examine things, I stepped across the room to the shower, where I felt the shirts and discovered they were not dripping anything--they were damp, but just so. Still hearing water dropping from somewhere, I opened the door to my room and found that water was, in fact, dropping from the ceiling to the carpet. Actually, it was dropping quite freely. Remembering my navy training, I shrieked, did the Curly Shuffle, and dropped to my knees in prayer.

No. I didn't do those things. Rather, I put on my shoes and ventured downstairs to the manager's desk, where of course there was no manager. Creeping back up the 2 flights of stairs, I looked up to the ceiling, then went back into my room and did what any level-headed person would do: I packed everything I had, which included putting the 2 shirts in a plastic bag, and lay down on the bed to await the inevitable general alarm of "Flooding! Flooding! Flooding on the third floor." When the alarm didn't sound, though, I fell asleep with thoughts that this was only some kind of prank, some sort of false water-torture technique the Brits employed to get their American guests to spill the beans about, well, whatever beans needed to be spilled about.

Shortly after sunrise, after I had contorted my way into and out of the shower once again, I headed down to breakfast, passing the manager on the way. He was, apparently, aware of the potential flood and had already called in the Calvary. And, after breakfast with giggling Italian school girls, I started for Harrod's and points beyond. I purchased nothing in Harrod's, though I came close to buying chocolate from 2 Sirens who sang to me about how good their chocolate was, and how part of the money went to some charity or another. After taking a free sample of said chocolate, I told them I would pass by again, and if they saw me I would indeed trade money for sweets. I then dashed out of the store and out to the street, exiting through a door that must have been half a mile away from the one I'd entered through.

Leaving Harrod's behind, I retraced most of my steps and found my way to Hyde Park, and after several hours of walking found a park bench on which to rest and recover from the day's harrowing experiences. Then, taking the Underground toward Tower of London, mill about but for the second time in 2 visits balk at paying the nearly $40 admission fee. I instead cross the Tower Bridge, which looks like this from a distance:


And it looks like this if you're walking across it:

On the other side of the bridge is a pub in which I am supposed to meet a co-worker, her daughter, and their friend. The pub looks like this, with the Tower Bridge in the background.


My co-worker and her party arrived in London today, and they will be headed to Madrid in just a couple of days. I eat fish & chips of marginal quality, and we compare flights and hotels. Then, they go back to their hotel, and I head across the Tower of Bridge again, which looks like this at night:


Back in my hotel room, the water is still dripping. The carpet outside my room is very wet, and the ceiling above that carpeting looks as though it could collapse at any moment. I leave my bag pack and huddle in the corner of my bed, waiting for morning.

Next time: No more Cornflakes!

Programus Interruptus

Briefly interrupting the slog through Europe, a couple of things.

First, one of the blog entries actually got a comment--it's nice to know that sometimes someone is stopping by for a quick visit. Second, the comment itself (thanks, Shawn), is an excellent poem by Mary Oliver, one of my favorite writers. Here's the poem:

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into this world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

Doing Battle

No fooling: April 1, 2009

Spent a second breakfast with the 2 women who joined me yesterday. They were quite pleasant, and we spoke about many things: traveling, British and American English (essentially, "who do Americans take the language and change so much of it"), and a bit of politics. As did Mark the Swede did a couple of years earlier in Edinburgh, the women wonder at why the United States thinks that it somehow has dominion over the world because of its superpower status. Though I am tempted to point out that the English Empire has a somewhat dubious history as a world leader, I instead hold my tongue and simply enjoy my toast, my tea, and my single hard-boiled egg. They also tell me of a trip they made to Paris, at how friendly people there were, at how they successfully navigated their way via subway and taxi even given their inability to speak French. Once, they said, they were on the subway late one night, and the train stopped at a station, an announcement of some type came over the train's intercom, and everyone on the train got off. Figuring they might as well do the same thing, they followed suit, correctly assuming that the train was done for the night.

An hour or so after breakfast I board a train to the town of Battle, where the battle of Hastings took place in October of 1066. (Read your English history for the rest of the story.) Though I have no map of Battle itself, I find my way to the battle site, pay my entry fee, collect my little audio-tour device, then set out walking. The day is sunny if breezy, a good day to be outside and walking in a place less hectic than London. Here is a photograph of the battlefield itself, now covered with peaceful sheep. Though the photograph does not show it well, this is taken from downhill of the distant building and wall.

And here, ruins of an abbey built after the battle itself.

And beneath the abbey, an area where the monks apparently liked to gather for their little monk-parties.

Overall, the trip is worth the cost, and I am glad to have gotten a bit of tourist-type insight into something that happened so long ago, something so significant.

Returning to London late in the afternoon, I spend a few hours exploring areas south of the Thames, an area new to me. I make a mad dash to the Tate Modern art museum, where I discover that I have neither the artistic background nor the imagination to understand much of what I am seeing. One exhibit, a very old Volkswagen bus (with snow tires on the front wheels) trailed by a large gathering of just-as-old wooden sleds. It is a place, I think, where someone like me needs a true guide--the BFA/MFA types who are willing to educate me. Instead, I wander the exhibits with a haste more than likely governed by general fatigue and overall hunger. So, walking back across the Thames, I find a pub, sit down to a glass of wine and a dinner of sausage of mash, and try to figure out what the hell I have just seen.

Next time: A friend, her daughter, their friend, and more London