After checking in, while waiting to board the bus, I conversed with two people. One was a guy going to Germany to watch some hockey before going back home. The second was an old German woman who needed a letter box to send letters with English stamps except she can't send them from Germany. I don't think she got to a letter box but I do hope she manages to send her letters. She asked if I spoke German. I told her the random and minuscule things I am able to say.
Two hours or so on the bus to Dover, where we went through customs. Don't think my customs guy spoke any English. He took a look at my passport, took a look at me, stamped it, and I went on my merry way. Yay. Border control successfully passed. The bus was taking a ferry to the mainland. Yay ferries. I would have been more excited but I had taken a ferry before and I was also tired and knew that I should get some shut eye because I won't be getting any during the day. This is about the time I started conversing with the girl who sat next to me on the bus. Her name is Jolie and she was from Korea. She's studying English in London so she was pretty good in that department. Been in London for about four months -- good for her. She was going to Brussels too but she was going to meet with some friends she met in Spain a week or two back. Go her.
We stuck together on the ferry and when we first got to Brussels. We kept quiet and withheld opinion when the bus turned around an hour into the mainland to pick up the two people they left behind after the ferry. The bus driver didn't speak much English, but someone in the back spoke German and was able to translate for everyone. (The bus's ultimate destination was somewhere in Germany, which is why the bus driver spoke German better than English). We also didn't do anything except look scared when the people in the back caught someone smoking in the bathroom. The bathroom is in the middle of the bus, but we could still smell it. This one woman was sooo pissed. She was yelling at the guy because she has asthma and that he was going to kill her. There was swearing and profanity and three people came on this guy. I thought it would get violent, but it just a lot of heavy yelling. In the end, everyone went back to their seats and was quiet until we got to Brussels. I'm still surprised there wasn't any interference with the bus driver. I mean, seriously?
But maybe anger works differently over here. There's a woman at work who starts yelling when she's too stressed and things don't go her way. I've also heard her get mad at other people. Half the time I expect something to be thrown or hit, but she doesn't. She just yells. That's what those people did. They just yelled. No violence. Perhaps that's how anger works in Europe. All loudness and no physical contact.
Then we got to Brussels. Finally.
This is about the time I realized the map I printed out was extremely inadequate. And the bus station I was at wasn't on the map because my map was only a section of the city and not the whole thing (you can only fit so much on an A4 piece of paper). I also couldn't figure out their public transportation map because they included subway, tram, and bus on the same thing. It was also in French before it was in Dutch. And I was tired. And I didn't know if anyone spoke English at all.
I was lucky to have Jolie stick with me until I got my bearings. She's a pal. Helped me figure out the cash machine and found one that could work with international cards. Helped me with the map and talking with the guy at the ticket booth. We parted ways when I got off my tram stop. She continued onward to another station where she was meeting her friends. I hope she had fun that weekend.
Got there and took pictures of pretty architecture. Got a map in a tourist information center. They didn't have walking tours to book, but they had brochures for bus tours. I took one and started an inner debate about taking it. Sat down with some hot chocolate and a granola bar I brought to journal and calm myself down. I was feeling kind of inadequate (because I bought a map in four languages that aren't English for 4 euro before I got my English-speaking map for free at the tourist center). After I had food, I walked around until stores started to open up. Mostly did basic sightseeing in the morning. While I was in the area, I went to check out the Manneken Pis, which is a statue of a little boy cheerily peeing. I got a kick out of it. He was dressed up today for some special event as is wont to happen when special events are held in the city. Got my picture with him of course. Walked down a main street towards a giant building on top of a hill. Stopped by a small park to sit and journal when my shoulders were tired. The park featured statues of great nobles who fought against Spanish rule when Spain had control of Brussels some half century ago. Took pictures of all of them. Then I walked into a giant cathedral which was gorgeous inside. Walked around and took pictures and said a prayer for Ellie.
Walking out, there was an antiques market in full swing behind the church. I took a few laps looking at stuff. Didn't really look-look but I kept glancing at things. If you ever need awesome old stuff, go to the antiques market near Sablon in Brussels. They have some pretty awesome stuff. I bought an antique ring for 5 euro because it was simple, it was pretty, and it fit. Why not, right? I have an antique ring from Brussels!
Walked back to the main square to use the toilet in a museum. Then I asked a driver for the bus tour if I could hop on and hop off as I please, and he said yes. So I bought a ticket and waited for my bus. While I waited, I found a small sandwich shop and got one to go. I tried speaking in French, but I couldn't understand their French, but they switched to English like it was natural for them. No prejudice there. Perhaps because I started ordering in French first? Who knows. They were friendly, though.
With said sandwich, I ate and waited until my bus came. I was sort of impatient because I wanted to see more city than I was (which was the main reason I bought the bus ticket. There was more to Brussels than my Internet searches said there was). But my bus finally came and I sat on the top for the better view and took lots of pictures of buildings and passing scenery. We arrived at the place I wanted to check out but didn't think I would have either time nor transport to visit: The Atomium.
The Atomium is a giant steel structure that's an atom (I forget which one) blown up to several billion times its original size (which I call BS but I'm not about to dispute the things that bring the tourists). It was cheap with the tour bus ticket too. I had half off the entire cost and audio guides were only 2 euro! It took about fifty minutes to finally get the single elevator to the top (I passed the time with sudoku becuase the people around he had their respctive non-English speaking groups). The elevator takes twenty seconds to get to the top and the tour guide in the elevator explains this in about four different languages while on the way: English, French, Dutch, and German. Go her.
The view was incredible. I walked around until I was bored. Then I had someone take a picture of me with the view. He was nice enough to say "There wasn't a flash and you didn't come in very well." Then "The flash appeared on the window. Let me try from this angle." And then finally, "There, that's better." When I was done, I took less time than I thought coming down. There's supposed to be a sphere with temporary exhibitions, but it was closed because one of the exhibitions was being changed over. And I wasn't all that interested in the main exhibition because I had heard that stuff already in my audio guide. So the view was pretty cool but you don't spend a lot of time there.
Bought my Belgium chocolate at the gift shop because they had a pretty awesome deal. Buy ten bars and get the eleventh free. One bar was 50 mg was one Euro. Everywhere else was about 250 mg for 10/15 Euro and I got about 550 mg for that same price! So ha! What has two thumbs and can find those awesome deals? This gal!
I was debating going to Mini-Europe which was right next door, but I looked at the time and thought that I should really get back to the Old City and get my Belgian Waffle before all the shops close in that region. Meanwhile, let's explore this park until the bus comes! Five minutes later, I was on the bus (I know, I didn't get to explore the park. Oh well). Got back to the Old City, found a comic strip store and walked around for a bit looking at French comics. Nothing in English, but I did find a shelf of manga. Didn't pick up anything because it was in French. Yep. Then I continued to the market where I walked around for a deal I spotted earlier which included a waffle, ice cream, and hot chocolate for 3.50E. Except they didn't have hot chocolate. ALSO, the hot chocolate advertised wasn't the drink hot chocolate but melted chocolate to be poured onto the ice cream and waffle. So I got a waffle with Nutella for 2E instead. It was delicious but there was so much Nutella I couldn't finish it.
Walked around some more until it got dark. I attempted to kill time by walking up to the Grand Justice place on the top of a big hill. Took a few pictures of the nightscape before I decided that it was too dark and I wanted to be somewhere safe. So I found the station I used earlier in the day and took the first tram back to Gare de Noodst which was the bus station I would use. And that's where I sat for about three hours doing more sudoku, journaling the rest of my day, and reading Red Mars until check-in time came. This time, the bus driver spoke really really good English and I had two seats to myself so I could sprawl.
Woke up at border control. Went through once where the guy looked at my passport and gave it back to me. Then a second time where a guy asked questions about what I was studying, where in London I was studying, where do I live. Just to make sure I was legit. I was also cold and I think he saw that. Got my passport stamped and away I went.
A couple people with "Douance" on their jackets came in and took an English guy off the bus. We all waited as his three suitcases were searched outside. Some people tried watching it, but there were a bunch of people on him now and one kept shooing off spectators with his flashlight. I wonder what singled him out. But he was deemed acceptable to pass through after half an hour. He said "Sorry everybody" loudly when he settled back in his seat. I appreciate the apology and mentally told him that it was alright.
Got on the ferry, and walked around until I found the Costa the ferry said was there and still open. Got myself a hot cup of tea (with a glorious burnt tongue. I was freezing in the bus station and on the bus). Ate another granola bar. Then went to find a place to snooze.
Woke up with the ship at port and I started to worry because there considerably less people around than before. I asked a worker how long we were at port, and he said five minutes. So I rushed myself to deck five where the bus was and got on. I wasn't the last one on the bus either, for which I was relieved to see. But there was still that flash of panic and a memory from very early that morning (or the previous morning by now because it had to have been four/five. I wasn't keeping track).
Two hours to London and here I am. Froze myself waiting for a bus because Victoria Station was closed. I cursed weekend upgrades as I waited. Grr, weekend upgrades. Got myself a nice little nap before I started to feel disconnected again. So I brought my computer to the bed and started watching How I Met Your Mother. I think I'll be good for the London Eye later tonight. Lucky I'm doing it with people, too. But I'll blog about that later tonight when I blog about my actions today.
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