Why Look Further Than Tonight?
Travel Journal Part 1 - Brussels
Warning, this is going to be too long for you to read in email!
Our trip kicked off with a generous gift, Adrianne’s mother upgraded us to Comfort Plus for our flight to Belgium. Comfort Plus on an international flight is analogous to First Class on domestic flights. Also, airplane meals have fallen off a sharp cliff in my lifetime. They are essentially college dorm food, but at least they have vegetarian options.
We left Richmond at lunch time on Monday the 30th, had a six hour layover at JFK (coincidentally Adrianne’s favorite airport), ate an airport meal (overpriced and mediocre quality) and left the states at 8:30 pm. I had PTSD flashbacks from working with all the airport time.
The flight itself was relatively uneventful. I downloaded hours of music from Spotify, the entire season of Beef from Netflix and took a lot of other distractions just in case. I mostly played Blockudoku and tried to sleep. Marina was waiting for us at the Brussels airport at 9 am when we landed.
There’s a special sort of exhaustion that accompanies travel, worsened with time changes and even more so with trans-Atlantic travel. We were a mess as we arrived. Personally, I struggled with the train card terminals more than I should have. Chalk it up to fatigue.
We had a nice train ride into their neighborhood, changing trains once and walking to their house. When we first hit the main train station, Grand Place, the heavenly smell of Belgian Waffles overwhelmed me.
Introductions were informal in the best ways, I met Marina’s daughter C and her husband Alexandros. Her son P wasn’t home yet, but we would meet him before trick or treating. Aioli, the family dog, was excited to meet us. What a handsome boy he is:
Our bedroom was on the third floor with a skylight that Adrianne took full advantage of -
Belgian toilets are separate from the bath/sink, but we had our own private bathroom and toilet. In a house with 4 regular dwellers and two bathrooms, that was a great kindness. Our first night was spent Trick or Treating with Marina, her two children and their group of Ex-Pat friends. Coming from a country accustomed to trunk or treating, it was nice to walk around their neighborhood and ring doorbells. It was also fun to meet some of their friends, from Pennsylvania, from Scotland and even one from Belgium!
It was a holiday week in Belgium, so the kids were off school and a lot of people were out of town. You know which houses to visit because the lights are on and the house is decorated. It rained gently most of the night. The costumes were traditional. Were it not for the bevy of French spoken and the gothic architecture, we could have been back home. One house invited us in for beer, I declined. Were I a younger man, or still much of a drinker at all, I probably would have accepted. Some members of our party did.
Let me pause here to speak on the weather in Belgium. In November at that. It’s perfect. It was mid 50s and misty most days, but never really grey. Rarely so wet that you couldn’t exist outside, just enough to feel alive. A bitter wind that cut to your bones did exist, but was infrequent enough to not be off putting. To me at least. Stint one was essentially an Edgar Allan Poe story come to life.
We had foxes screaming outside our bedroom on our second night there!
But that’s getting ahead of myself. Alexandros was off on All Saints Day, Belgium is a Catholic nation after all, so we all journeyed into Brussels downtown together. Belgium, we found, is a hyper-literal nation.
Seriously - I got to be Dupin.
We got to explore the city on our own the next day. One of the most common criticisms I heard about Brussels was that it was a generic European city. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Charlotte. Financially focused, stereotypical city. One more critic with one more common refrain.
We visited a few record stores in search of the two Teen Creeps albums, “Birthmarks” and “Forever.” The first stop pointed us in the direction of 72 Records, which was closed that day. Another interesting lesson, there is no consistency to the days that stores are open in Belgium. Could be closed Tuesday, could be closed Sunday, could be closed Thursday. Caroline Records did not have what we were looking for, but they did have a recent release by Crowd of Chairs, a Belgian noise rock band. So I picked up a record.
We managed to hit up 72 on another day, but they also did not have the records in question. This is important over the entire journey, by the way.
Other common themes in the city were Pro-Palestine messaging:
And street art:
We did not have much luck finding a cool board game store in Brussels, but Adrianne did find fountain pens everywhere. Including in the grocery store. Literally everywhere. A long running joke came to fruition as well. If you don’t know, Adrianne works for a fountain pen retailer. I said that BIC made my favorite pens. Well, now she has a BIC fountain pen.
That night, I made dinner. A couple of pizzas and we stopped by a local bakery to get dessert.
The last day on this journey had us taking the train out to the Maredsous Abbey in Wallonia. They are notable for making Beer, Bread and Cheese. All three were excellent. The beer isn’t actually made at the Abbey, Duvel handles the brewing. Those following along at home might know I’m not one for religion. It may come as a shock that I absolutely love old religious buildings. The Abbaye is home to Benedictine monks and while I may disagree for their core philosophies, I did find it to be a great place for quiet introspection.
The architecture was fantastic as well:
The artwork inside was equally impressive.
And, most importantly, I was still a classic Gothic Horror Detective!
This was the end of our first part of our trip. In the next chapter, we become solo tourists visiting Mechelen, Antwerp and Ghent. We continued the quest for Teen Creeps. I think, however, this is enough for today! Remember, more pictures and videos on Instagram and TikTok. If you want more clarity on anything or have questions, don’t be shy!
Also, thank you so much for your continued support. I’ve always grappled with the self-indulgent nature of writing, especially my own.