I went to bed relatively early on my birthday. I felt the roots of a head cold settling in. My throat was sore and in the middle of the night, I woke up congested, coughing and sneezing. My host gave me some pills and told me to get some more from the pharmacie next door. Sadly, I needed to be on the train to the Porte Maillot Coach Station at the same time she opened. I hit up another pharmacie next to the train station but the attendant didn't speak English.
Under stress, my lifeboat French becomes Franglish...a new breed of French, Spanish and English.
Our conversation went something like this.
Lady: Bonjour
Me: Bonjour. Parlez vous Anglais?
L: No
M: Tiene este? (Spanish. Do you have this? I handed her the pills my host gave me. There were only 2 left.)
L: No.
M: Je suis (I am in French) *cough cough* and *sneeze sneeze*) I.actually coughed and sneezed. She gave me some lozenges.
I left Paris for Brussels at 11am on my friend, the Megabus. Paris was cold and gray but had enchanted me with its wine and desserts.
As I rode off into the distance, I tried to keep my eyes open but the heat on the bus and my cold had me feeling narcoleptic. The ride was only 3 hours. I was in and out but what I saw was flat terrain mixed with snow in pockets and heavy rain in others. I was getting worried about the weather.
We arrived in Brussels at a little past 3. In my haze, I'd forgotten to write the address or directions to my temporary home in Brussels and also, I'd expected the wifi on the bus to be working. It wasn't.
So, here I was in Brussels where once again the official language was French with no clue where I was going or how to get there, desperately searching for wifi. I was sick, hungry and Brussels was coooooold. Like, hands out of your pockets for 2 minutes, can't feel your fingers cold.
Shit!
I was at Brussels Central Station and I knew I had to take the 3 tram to a station that started with a V. Were there tram maps in the station? No. I bought a map of Brussels thinking it would help. Did it? It might as well have been written in Japanese. The "best map of Brussels" only had directions to the sights. What.the.fuck?
I just wanted to have a cup of tea and snuggle in blankets.
Belgacom was offering 24 hours of wifi for 5€. I whipped out my credit card so fast! And it worked....for 5 minutes but I kept having to sign in.
Frustration.
I found the address my host had posted on airbnb and I Google mapped directions. I was set, right?
Ha!
Travel Tip: If Google maps tells you to walk somewhere and you see a bus with that as its destination, get on the bus!
GM told me to walk to De Brouckere Place. It said it was about a 5 minute walk. Clearly, whoever is walking in this scenario wasn't a backpacker with a 50lb bag on her back with a headcold feeling like death.
As I begrudgingly walked, I reminded myself..Dude, you are in Bruss-els! I looked around and it was beautiful. The streets were clean. Everything looked like it was out of a fairy tale. And so, I sucked it up. I looked around and I put aside my Type A, Perfectionist personality and enjoyed being lost for the moment. After all, I WANTED adventure. I paid hundreds of dollars for it. The least I could do was take it in.
I finally found where Google told me to go and....no tram.
O.o
A man stopped me in the street to ask ME for directions! Really? He only spoke French. I responded...
Je ne se pas. Je suis Americenne.
He walked away angrily as I logged in for the nth time trying helplessly to make sense of Google Maps without a grid view of streets.
I broke down and walked into a hotel. Using my perfected French phrase: "Parlez vous Anglais?" I asked the doorman.
"Of course Madame."
"Where is Tram 3?"
"In the metro station."
Sooooo....trams are supposed to be above ground. Silly me, I was looking for it there but where I was, it was underground.
A moment about confusing Brussels public transport: the city is small. Like, probably the size of 1 borough in NYC. WHY do they have trams, buses, and a metro? To confuse sick tourists.
I feel like I'm in better shape as I enter the Metro station. I have Euro. I know I will get a 24-hour ticket. I get to the machine and it only takes coins. 1€ and 2€ are in coin form. All I had was paper money and let's not forget that my cards don't work in Europe. There was no ticket agent on duty.
Oh.em.gee.
I stopped a man at the machine next to me.
Bonjour, I said, determined to use that lifeboat French I'd been working on.
Change? I askes, holding my 10€. I said it real fancy....French-like...
He looks at me like I had two heads.
Do you need change? he asks in English! *forehead slap*
Yes! Yes! He bought the ticket on his credit card. I gave him my 10 and he gave me 5€ back. I wanted to kiss him on the lips!
I get on the tram at rush hour with my big bag and get off at the stop Vandikinere. What I didn't know was that.I got off at the beginning of Vandikinere and I should've gotten off at the end. After walking for another 10 minutes looking for an address that didn't exist, I broke down and called my host. She put the wrong address online. Moreover, she talked over me when I asked her where she was relative to where I was and she talked over me, insisting she'd text me.
NOW, I am a patient person. I know that my look is unconventional - dark skin, bald cut and I generally own a scowl on my unsmiling face so I work harder to seem more jovial than I am. But 2 hours of being lost in the cold not feeling well had me at my who's end. AND to be disrespectful on top of that, I was NOT having it.
She was upset that I was 2 hours late to check in. She gave me no directions and the wrong address...how DARE she try me. We had it out. I cut it short. I was sick, pre-menstrual, cold and angry. I was in no mood to argue.
She showed me to my room and it was really cool. The whole place was really creative and beautiful but I couldn't.enjoy it because I was pissed off.
I realized I hadn't eaten since 8am in Paris and I had.some cold and flu pills I didn't want to take on an empty stomach. I went to get something to eat and realized I couldn't taste.
*record scratch*
I was in the land of waffles and chocolate and I have no taste buds?
My host had a list of foods she offered at a price, of course, and I didnt want to go out. Reluctant to have another interaction with her, I went into the kitchen hoping she'd have something available. My throat was so sore and scratchy, I really wanted tea. She followed me in the kitchen and abruptly said, "You do not have access to this area."
My other hosts made me feel like I was living with them, granting me access to anywhere I needed to go (within reason). Part of me wanted to play the ass and say...well it's not locked. There was no electrical shock forbidding me to come inside....but, I was staying in her home AND I didn't want her to kill me in my sleep. So, I held up the list of food items for sale that was in my room.
Oh, that was for the summer and I'm not cooking tonight.
I wanted tea and soup, I was almost pleading.
There's a Chinese store 2 blocks away.
Oy. I had the choice...go to bed hungry or brave the cold.
I went out, got some hot food, a quart of orange juice, took my pills and re-packed my backpack.
I informed my host I was checking out as soon as possible in the morning. I felt like I had to get the eff out of her place ASAP.
 |
| Dutch orange juice. French lozenges |
I was determined to not make the same mistake in Amsterdam.
I planned on spending the day doing my own sightseeing using my 24-hour tram ticket and I needed to plan out my day.
I turned all the heaters on full blast and fell asleep hoping to wake up in a better mood the next day.
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