Brussels is nice! Daaay one…
I’m currently sat in a nice park, using someone’s unsecured wifi. I needed to find directions and after asking 20 locals to find the general direction, I thought i’d use Google maps to get a direct route. Trouble is, the road names aren’t matching the local area on the map, and I can’t find any photo/GPS references for the statue of ‘Leopoldo II’ which is in front of me - only a horse which isn’t what I’m seeing at the moment. (It’s a rather posh looking man instead).
After searching for language variations of the road sign I can see, Munsterstraat seems to be next to me, and the geography of the terrain matches on the map…
OK now the map is saying I’m right on top of it, so maybe I am in fact where I need to be - the estate agent doesn’t open until 9, so 1 hour 40 minutes until then. Best make the most of this Internet connection then really…
First Impressions
So the first impressions of the place change when you’re not here with the sole intention of getting as pissed as possible. When you consider that I might live in this locale, when I walk around, I look for different things. Namely, are the people nice, is the place clean, how much does the bus cost - and I am probably biased towards thinking good things - and almost certainly thinking naively, I have to say it’s checking the right boxes so far. Train station staff were very friendly, and the place around here just looks like one big well kept university campus. Massive buildings and great looking parks. Hopefully I won’t ruin this image by getting my laptop stolen by sitting in this park at 7AM.
Went to a pastry shop at around 6AM at the Central station, got a Pain Au Chocolate and a coffee, came to around £2.
Le Bus
The coach was pretty amusing to say the least. At Victoria, there must have been around 12 African American women that didn’t have a clue what a queue was, and after around 10 minutes of tutting at one another, a crazy guy pushed in front of all of them and just set the whole lot off. I just stood back and laughed at the situation. They didn’t seem to realise that this part of the queue doesn’t get you on the bus any quicker… it’s just check-in…
So I went to the shop and back, on my return everyone was outside in the bus lane bit where it says not to stand - so I decided to wait inside. So everyone is surprised when a massive bus comes up and has to blast the horn to get everyone out the way.
I got on the bus and found myself immediately surrounded by the said African American women, who also took two seats each and continued to tut at general things. Others boarded the bus, one nearly got in a fight and a couple had to argue to sit together because they wouldn’t move. Then, the biggest guy I have seen in like forever sat next to me, wearing a massive green dress. He was a nice guy, just really big and I couldn’t really do anything but sit in the same position for a few hours. I gave him the window seat when we got on after the ferry.
Boat was fun as expected, got a few pints in and cruised around on the upper deck watching the water. Read some of the Economist, loads about China.
Shit, I still have like… an hour and a half to kill. Maybe I could walk around and take some pictures or something. Or find somewhere and have a massive foreign breakfast, who knows.
I won’t do the decent thing of letting the owner of this WiFi point know it’s unsecure just yet, it [might|will|certainly will] come in handy later. ./Matt
3 years ago