03/11/2022
A day trip to Bruxelles,
The morning was rainy and cool; and started in a way I’m all too accustomed to, behind schedule. Kylie and I realized that the walk to the Lille Flandres station was longer than we’d expected, so we polished off our usual cup of black coffee and hit the road.
Our bus was scheduled to leave the ‘Gare de Lille Flandres’ at 10:45am, but we were on pace to arrive at 10:47am. The walk we’d planned turned into a brisk jog at some points; however, thanks to a hustle that Usain Bolt would’ve approved of, we made it with 5 minutes to spare.
We were greeted by a man that would spend the next hour and forty minutes smoking Marlboro-Reds out of the driver side window as he guided our bus towards our destination; Brussels, Belgium.
The bus was packed with four travelers, the cowboy killer, a lone passenger who sat at the very back (contributing only a few sneezes here and there), Kylie, and myself.
I was entertained by the final portion of my tattered copy of Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Kitchen Confidential’.
A day packed with travel ahead, smoke in the air, and a cool Coke to sip on, my mind darted between thoughts of the countless days I spent sweating my ass off in a hot soul-food kitchen in North-Mississippi and the day of travel that lay before us.
My North-Mississippi restaurant stories are for another time, on another day, but I couldn’t get my mind off whatever Belgium held in store for us.
Would it be like London, a place that almost everyone spoke fluent English?
Maybe like Amsterdam, where fluent English speakers are common, but not the norm?
Perhaps like Paris, a mixed bag of different languages and origins?
The time to get my answer presented itself when our bus screeched to a halt at Zaventem Airport. We stepped out into a comfortably muggy day. Exchanging a ‘thank you’ with the bus driver, who managed to light another cigarette before we’d gotten off the bus, he suggested we head towards the downtown metro stop, Brussel-Centraal.
We took his advice and took one of the cleanest trains I’ve ever been on to the downtown portion of Brussels. Upon our first steps onto the downtown terrain, we were greeted with sunshine and just enough of a breeze to keep from getting too warm in a sweatshirt. We set our destination for the Grand Place, the center of the city with a breathtaking town hall, but ended up catching sight of a park. The picturesque park served as the perfect detour: colorful, fallen leaves, chatter and laughter from passersby and children playing during what I assumed was school break, and a beer stand that provided me with my first bière blonde of the day. The light, bubbly beer was accompanied with my first authentic Belgian waffle, topped with powdered sugar (sucré).
We spent a good amount of time meandering the park. Much of the time was spent talking and marveling at the various sights we never thought we would have the chance to see. Once we’d finished our beers, we had the brilliant idea to cancel our 7pm bus and rebook a 10:45pm bus instead.
We refocused on our original goal and headed for the Grand Place. Along the way, we marched up and down many cobblestone roads, soaking up the various scents along the way. Everywhere I looked there were signs reading ‘frites’ and ‘patisserie’, so the air had a “sweet but savory” aroma to it. We made detours to try conical gummies, made in the region, and our first European macaroon; both were sweet, but not overwhelming in richness.
The evening was spent running around downtown and sampling some of the best beer and snacks we could find. We ate frites smothered in cheese sauce, drank beer in a former brothel (as well as many other places), and had a corndog (half sausage, half mozzarella, rolled in spicy Cheetos, topped with sriracha, and finished off with Sauce Samouraï).
The food was second only to the views however. The Grand Place holds true to its name, providing a plaza, saturated with brasseries and restaurants, where gorgeous architecture serves as what’s best described as a ‘castle wall of beauty’.
The evening ended with us sitting in the Grand Place, watching people walk by and sipping on a Duvel. When the time came to head back to the train station, then to the airport to catch our bus home, we were too tired to do much or anything else but sit there and marvel in the never ending sea of new sights.
Encircled by some of the most breathtaking views I could ask for, and consuming some the best food and beverage around, and sitting with my favorite travel buddy; it’s safe to say I found one of my happy places in downtown Brussels.
This was written in a few places; on the couch in our center-of-city apartment in Lille, France, a park bench in a neighborhood called Wazemmes, and a bus en route to our next place of travel.
I hope everyone enjoyed my first bit of writing, and, as always, if there are any suggestions or things you’d like to hear more about in our travels (places we eat, people we meet along the way, weird things we see, or otherwise), please feel free to let me know.
I’d like to think that somewhere out there, in some alternate dimension/timeline, 19 year old me is relentlessly cheering me on.
Cheers,
BK 🥃
