The Three Brusseleirs
Conquering loneliness in the city of waffles
From beyond the quickly expanding horizon rose a dim facade of buildings, oddly mishapen, distorted by rain and wind and the strange air of a new city. The motion-sensor escalator brought us quickly away from the dank concrete of the Brussels underground, utterly tomblike, and into the new world. Covering our exposed extremities and bags as best we could, we started ahead for the nearest boulevard, taking time only to question God about his choice of heavy precipitation. I left the rain behind in Glasgow, I’m sure of it, I thought.
But alas, no. The clouds hung heavy over the Belgian capital, and we had no choice but to follow the water. Literally. Our hostel sat right on the canal, a few hundred yards from the Metro station. Coming in on the heels of sleepless and fitful ten-hour bus ride, it was a small consolation.
Brussels is an ugly city. It even says so, right in our locally-made, hostel-distributed Brussels For Young Travelers map. “Brussels is ugly and we love it,” it says.
We stepped off our bus and into a slum, or at least that’s what it felt like. At 6 in the morning, you would expect a metro to be mostly deserted. But the Brussels metro wasn’t merely empty; it was hollow, a cement organ hungry for bustle and blood and breath. Paper wrappers littered the floor as we walked to an automated machine to purchase tickets, the letters H-E-L-P or I-N-F-O comfortably nonexistent in the immediate area. A trio of lumps in sleeping bags occupied a corner to our right. Signs screamed at me in French and Dutch, and I screamed back internally whilst simultaenously attempting to shove my small pieces of foreign metal into the ticket machine and look over both shoulders at the same time. Ticket secured, we boarded a train that looked ten years too old to be running safely, and, with only an impossibly long, most certainly mispronounced street name to guide us, embarked on our journey towards some semblance of comfort.
Exiting the metro we were confronted with a mutt of a skyline: short, squat buildings with slanting roofs and dirty porches juxtaposed against whitewashed, vine-adorned penthouses. Following the canal to our hostel revealed a set of plastic lawn chairs, strung-up on a chain like clothes on a line, hanging from a crane. The zealous Belgian youth had tagged every wall observable wall with bright, looping graffiti. Trash bags lay discarded at the door of every establishment, waiting patiently for collection. Brussels is an ugly city — and strolling through its streets in the pouring rain, I felt sincerely and utterly refreshed at just how much it didn’t care.
Unable to check-in for several hours, we wandered the streets of Brussels with our umbrellas and our cameras. My faithful traveling companion was J, who holds me together. As we walked we struggled with one another, each trying to express just how much we didn’t believe this was happening. We saw an iron sculpture, a church full of refugees, and the top of a parking garage that offered us a view of the entire city. We stumbled through cobblestone side streets, drank Belgian beer, ate spaghetti, and took selfies with statues of peeing babies. We settled in at a bar that set the world record for the most varities of beer, got silly and sleepy, and stumbled home around mid-afternoon to the warmth and comfort of our hostel beds.
It was before all that, in the rainy streets of Brussels, amongst new and old friends, that we met M.
M was from Canada, but lived in Rome. She wore black Doc Martens and a maroon scarf, and wasn’t afraid to talk to anybody. I like to travel alone, she told us. For my part, I couldn’t comprehend how anyone would like to travel alone. The thought terrified me. As our few days in Belgium progressed, I began to see what M meant; traveling alone meant traveling with impunity, completely free from squabbling companions and indecisive lunch time decisions. She was free to strike up a conversation with anyone she felt like. Under M’s tutelage and uncounted glasses of Tremens, I began to see the city as I think she did; the setting was inconsequential, and the world was like a room full of friends she hadn’t met yet. So I kicked back and spoke with some Italians studying engineering, and talked slowly to Pedro from Brazil so he could work on his English. I tried to explain basketball, but I didn’t do very well, so I had another beer instead, because everyone understands beer.
What started out as a cursory friendship in an ugly city transformed J and M and I into a trio of fearless adventurers in a beautiful one. The train to Bruges was quick and scenic, and we stepped off of it into a fairytale. We spent the day traipsing up tall belfries, sampling authentic Belgian sugar waffles, and drinking beer on the canal as the sun went down. “If Bruges is hell, then I’ll murder someone,” J said, laughing. “I will covet ALL of my neighbor’s wives.” I’m inclined to agree.
Everyone in Belgium made an effort to speak to us in English. Possibly it was because most people grew up, as most people should, speaking more than one language. Maybe it’s because English is one of the most widely spoken language in the world. Perhaps we just looked hopelessly out of our depth and the staff didn’t want to lose a customer. Regardless, the effort made me feel welcome. Back home, we expect customers to come into our restaurants and supermarkets and gas stations and department stores and speak our language. It doesn’t seem very fair to me. This — in conjunction with gallivanting around with M, who moved to Italy knowing exactly nothing of the language and had since become rather adept at it — instilled in me a desire, however short-lived, to learn another language. I would love to be able to switch back and forth quickly and easily. I’d love to order something in another language. I’d love to not feel as underprepared and overwhelmed as I did trying to navigate the Brusselian metro and tram lines and train station. Maybe I will one day.
The three of us parted ways early on a Tuesday morning, and M told us she didn’t feel like she had only known us for two days. It was a feeling we reciprocated. As J and I headed our own separate ways — her to Spain, me back to my home base in London — I reflected on how much I’d gained from the weekend. There was a certain breath of fresh air about Brussels (literally, the city smelled like waffles), and a certain aura of hopefulness about M. Combined, they created an experience out of nowhere; I would have been perfectly content to drink beer and eat waffles and buy chocolate on my own, without the need to approach anyone about anything. But by speaking to strangers, by suspending her cynicism for just one moment, M was able to create relationships from thin air. I realized as we parted that my inherent distrust of people in large cities was a handicap, and that people have stories and are worth my time. Admittedly, not an easy hump to get over after being the target of a robbery. But M, and Belgium, restored a little bit of that faith in humanity that was lost last month in Glasgow. Funny that such an ugly city had such a beautiful message.
Odds are I won’t see M again, or if I do, not for a good long while. But I’ll be seeing her everytime I find myself in a new place and I lean over to ask someone what their tattoo means, or what local cafe they recommend, or if the touristy attraction is really worth it. I think she’ll be pushing me, there at the back of my mind, to go go go. Keep the conversation going, send out an open invitation, meet someone new. While it might seem a little naive, I like to believe she was onto something. Least I can do is give it a shot.
Cheers, strangers.
My name is Christian Vosler, and I’m currently somewhere in between paralyzing guilt and reckless abandon. I’ll be in Europe for a few weeks, writing about it. Well, I’m not in Europe to write about it, but I figured I’d just..you know what, I bet you don’t even read this part. La la la, la la, la la. Here’s a link to a cool thing.
-Christian
