Bloody Brussels!
After our brief two night stay in Antwerp we caught the train back to Brussels. A sure sign we were nearing the city of Brussels we passed the red neon glow of the red light district. The girls barely covered in their seductive lace outfits, in a little room, the windows facing the street of onlookers. Some girls just seemed to pace their window while others sat in the corner. Some even interacting and teasing potential clientele through the glass. I found the whole experience not to dissimilar to that of a puppy attempting to impress a shopper through a pet store window.
We arrived at the station both fatigued and full of adrenaline. This trip has been pretty much go go go for me, and my prior work stop in Antwerp was no exception.
We shuffled our heavy suitcases off the train onto the platform. I looked about for any indication of an exit. There were no shortage of signs, the problem was I couldn’t read any of them. To make matters more frustrating the signs most of which seemed to be in French obviously use similar alpha characters to English; walking briskly past signs my eyes would often catch partial glimpses of the text, my mind then if for no better reason because it was bored at the lack of information stimuli would re arrange the letters into something more meaningful and I started to catch myself doing double-takes at signs just to be sure. Quickly I gave up on the text and just focused on the symbols. Identifying the taxi symbol I followed the logo out of the train station.
Belgium at a glance is not disabled access friendly, and the capital being Brussels was no exception to this. My palms grew sore from lifting the heavy cases up the stairs, having yo be especially careful either them too due to the structural weakness of the wheels since London.
We arrived at our hotel; The Moon. The entrance of which was little more than a doorway along a facade of shops and restaurants facing out into a square. Immediately after entering the doorway was a staircase, reception was on level one. Fortunately the reservation process was simple and our room was available and with that proceeded to carry both cases up a further two flights of stairs to our shoe box of a room.
The room itself was adequate with a window, bed, shower and toilet. It was just cozy. When in the shower for instance one had to be mindful of turning around as your back will quite often hit the tap either dramatically altering the pressure or worse the temperature.
Brussels is beautiful, the building architecture in the various squares is all gothic, dating back well beyond the 1300’s. The shops and restaurants extending out from the squares were old English style, the streets all cobble stone.
When it came to dinner the only problem was choosing where to eat. There was no possibility we were going to die of hunger, we were located right in the middle of the dining district.
A lot of the eateries were French and Italian influenced. Quite to our surprise pizza, lasagna or spaghetti could be ordered from practically anywhere. When it came to dinner time the waiters would be out thru front of their establishment ready to greet you as you walked by. One was even so confident that he greeted us saying ‘ah good you made it, I have your table as you requested.’ we walked passed that one and finally surrendered ourselves to a restaurant that offered us a free drink of our choosing (although We were convinced this was worked into the price). We both settled for a Duvel beer – my Belgium contact introduced both Michelle and I to it, its a local beer 8% – salad and spaghetti, with a thin slice of cake for desert. For €12 you couldn’t argue. Tho it did make me miss home style spaghetti!