at the beginning - one day (by accident) in Brussels

To be honest, I still struggle to understand exactly why I was so unhappy in Wuerzburg -- was it ultimately my own attitude? the people around me? -- but I do know that within hours of leaving, a big grin spread across my face and, so far as I know, it hasn´t left there since.

I left Wuerzburg on a 3:30 a.m. train having furiously packed and distractedly prepared a last-minute schedule for my travels over the next five weeks. I also left a note saying goodbye to my roommates; I had not even taken the time to explain to them that I was leaving. I´ve felt bad about not leaving a note ever since.

The series of trains took me, through the night, to Brussels, where I planned to catch the first flight on my grand tour of Europe. I had planned things poorly, so I wasn´t all that surprised when my bus to the airport arrived about forty minutes too late and I missed my flight and found myself stranded in Belgium with a small backpack and no one to turn to. I was exhausted and felt defeated, yet somehow I didn´t care, and the grin persisted -- I was just so glad to be someplace else.

The map shows every major city I visited over the course of this great month. There is at least one story from each city, and I hope to write down as many of them here as I can. Mostly, I visited friends and family. It is so much better to visit a city because you know someone who lives there. Not only do you have at least a floor to sleep on, but they will introduce you to the people there, show you where the best bars are, and help you find the must-see sites. Cities may have lots of concrete, stone, metal and glass, but ultimately they are made of people; if you see a cities buildings and museums without meeting any of its people, you are missing out.

Along the last leg of the trip to Brussels I met two Brazilian girls who had been studying in Belgium for the year. They were very nice and easy going, and talking with them reminded me that it was not so difficult for me to meet interesting people as being in Wuerzburg, for whatever reason, had made me think. For a while, everything after Wuerzburg was a reminder of things like this. Before long they were telling me about the differences between Brazilian and Belgian weather and culture -- Brazilians, apparently, are much more friendly, and Belgians are rather stiff -- and soon we were discussing South American languages and the Treaty of Tordesillas; Spain's non-enoforcement of the treaty is the reason Brazilians speak Portuguese. They were very pleased to hear that a friend named Taylor Ansley, who has been studying all over South America, had been to Buenos Aires and snapped a picture of their World AIDS day celebration (you can see the picture by visiting Taylor´s blog).

But anyway, to get back to the story, I was stuck in this little Brussels airport having missed the only flight to Scotland that day and I really didn't know what to do. I considered abandoning my trip to the U.K. and maybe going to visit Jarred in Tours; I did not consider returning to Wuerzburg. But then I asked the pretty Belgian girl at the airline ticket desk and she told me that I could buy another ticket for the flight tomorrow (€49 is a lot of money, but not all that much) and so I did, and I caught the crowded bus into Brussels -- the girl selling bus tickets, by the way, was also very pretty.

Brussels is a beautiful city, although like most cities it looks muddy and dark in the winter. I asked a nice French-speaking woman where a good hotel was. Ultimately, the hotel I slept at was one she had warned me against and described as "not fine." It´s true that the inexpensive hotel proved to be nothing special, but I suspected later that the real reason for her disapproval involved the owners (they were Turks) and the guest list -- most of them were black. Brussels felt like a very international place; many, if not most of the people I saw or overheard on the street did not seem to speak French or Dutch (the native languages in Belgium), and there were a lot of British people, as well as Turks and Africans.

After sleeping in my room until around nine in the evening (I hadn´t really slept since the night before in Wuerzburg) I walked around this section of town -- clearly an immigrant section -- and stopped at an internet cafe. Inside, everyone stared at me. I must have looked very out of place, I was certainly the only white person inside. But they were very nice and fair to me. I was still wearing that grin I mentioned, and eventually they grinned back. Most people are nice, I thought, and you have to be careful about judging them based on what they look like.

Afterwards I stepped into a cab at the train station and asked for him to take me to a bar. After driving for ten minutes, I suddenly entered another world. Around my hotel it was dark and empty, but here were dozens of little streets brimming with restaurants, bars, young people, and christmas lights strung across rooftops. At a main square in front of an important-looking building there was even a light display and an outdoor art presentation of giant glass Christmas ornaments. I went to a little bar (the first one the taxi driver had taken me to) and asked the friendly waiter what the best beer there was. As I drank the dark, very heavy beer he had brought me I ate a platter of tiny sausage, cheese, and olive appetizers for dinner and listened to the couples and groups sitting around me. Of course, I didn´t really understand the ones speaking Dutch or French, but there were several English people sitting nearby who seemed to be having a good time. Even though I was on my own, I had a good time too.

Afterwards, I wandered around the city, took the subway to the big park and palace in the middle of town, and then caught a taxi back to the hotel around 1 a.m.

The next day, having been scared into behaving by missing yesterdays flight, I woke up early, arrived at the airport three hours too soon, and flew to Glasgow, Scotland.