Road to Brussels

Proud American Highway it might not be, but that French motorway was pretty straight. A sign said 185 and that - for the first time in months - was kilometres not miles. Ride on, I thought, even though if I was driving we’d probably be there in 2 hours, not 4. Not a problem. Globally we aim at making our travels more and more efficient (just as we tend to make everything more efficient, enter the passage on how global capitalistic system organizes our daily life here). But I quite like the fact that it still takes time. Over the past 3 years the train ride to the airport, checking in, walking around, the flight, baggage - all this is not waiting, it’s my transition time. Although this days I’m so used to carbon-footprinting the planet at least 5 times a year I usually sleep on the plane.

I arrived quite late to find the station completely empty and couldn’t find my way around, since it’s apparently deemed unnecessary to put signs around public transport in Brussels. After an 8 hours journey, empty train station filled with the sound of working escalators and occasional announcement beeping sound with no announcement to follow is quite something, I can tell you.

Any how I got picked up and taken to our Brussels headquarters then taken out for a meal in nearbay restaurant followed by certain amount of beer. This is Belgium’s selling point for sure. I took some notes for binary life beer guide (which with all luck is to follow) but I gave up after 3rd bottle.

Some more precise dates came up for my summer route, so I made some ammendments on the map. There’s also my tipku account on jaiku, which you can follow, but right now it’s mainly an expression of my foul mood over the loss of my iPod, which got stolen from my friend’s handbag. My iPod is a very personal belonging (photos, calendars etc), I can’t even contemplate the coming month of travelling without music, i’m really %#&*(@ upset.