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