Bodily Fluids

So, last week I decided that I was over Paris. I'd seen the Eiffel Tower a couple times, consumed several hundred pastries, bought a few scarves...I was ready to blow this popsicle stand. So when a few Northwestern friends also in Paris invited me on a weekend trip to Belgium, I made a few last minute train reservations, hastily packed up a bag and headed off on my first international trip of the year. And what a trip it was...

I don't know how familiar you are with Belgium, my lovely readers. I certainly wasn't before this weekend. And if you listened to French people, you would never attempt any sort of communication with Belgians, as the French take delight in mocking their supposedly moronic neighbors to the north. Essentially, Belgium is Canada with waffles.

Anyway, plan was to spend three days visiting two of the country's most famous cities: Bruges and Brussels. Bruges is known for being Belgium's most well-preserved medieval city, and for being the setting of some movie featuring a lot of foul-mouthed Irish guys. And Brussels is known, of course, for being Belgium's capital, and for bearing an unfortunate linguistic similarity to one of the most disgusting vegetables known to mankind. Both cities are known for their lace, chocolate, frites and waffles. Clearly there was much sight-seeing (and eating) to be done. So prepare yourselves for a long entry.

Friday

I was traveling separately from my two friends, so I arrived at Paris's Gare du Nord Friday afternoon, tickets and passport in hand, unsure of quite what to expect. Considering that I go to college 45 minutes away from home, I'm not really accustomed to solo travel. I've only flown by myself once before (and I use the term "by myself" loosely, as my mother and aunt printed out my boarding pass, followed me until the security line and then stood tapping on the glass and waving until I headed off to my gate). And train travel was completely foreign to me. Considering this, I expected to end up in Romania by the time the day was over. But European trains really did live up to their reputation, and within four hours, I was safely settled into our hostel in Bruges.

That's not to say there weren't a few glitches. I almost missed my train from Brussels to Bruges because I had only 15 minutes to transfer between trains. After getting to Bruges, it took me a few minutes to figure out the bus system because Western Belgium likes to play a fun game called "Let's stick it to those nasty French people by speaking Flemish, which is like Dutch but not exactly. And not just any Flemish, West Flemish. Oh, and we won't put French anywhere on the signs either, even though it is an official language of our country." It's a fun game, let me tell you. Anyway, I did finally figure out which stop to get off at. Whereupon, I discovered that my friend had e-mailed me the link to the wrong hostel. So I had to walk 20 minutes north--in the rain I might add--to the correct hostel.

I was the first one of the group to arrive, so I picked up the room key and headed upstairs with my bags. It was here that the first signs of trouble emerged. When I put the key in the lock, I heard a man's voice say "It's open." I opened the door and came face-to-face with my roommates for the weekend: three beer-swigging German men (two in their mid-20s and one who looked to be in his 50s).

If one of those Germans had been holding a camera instead of a beer can, they would have captured the best deer-in-the-headlights/small-frightened-woodland-creature expression known to mankind. Unfortunately, they chose alcoholism over the arts. So I can only imagine what my face must have looked like.

Once it had been established that I was to be alone with my new roommates for the immediate future, I climbed onto my bunk and pretended to be very interested in organizing my purse. Everyone else pretended to be very interested in the brand of beer they were consuming. Finally, we reached a tacit agreement wherein the Germans went out for the night, leaving me to await Julie and Kathryn.

The rest of the night was relatively uneventful. Julie and Kathryn arrived not long after, and we made a failed attempt to find dinner which ended in us getting lost in the rain on the deserted streets of Bruges. After finally settling for a rubbery cheeseburger and fries in a fast-food joint near the hostel, we decided it was time for bed.

But one more obstacle stood between us and our beds. Just as we were returning to the hostel, we ran into our roommates. They asked if we'd like to have a beer before brushing our teeth. I declined (see the Nuit Blanche entry for a full explanation of my relationship with alcohol), but all of us stayed up for a while chatting and trading stories. Robert and Thomas, as they introduced themselves, seemed perfectly friendly if more than a little tipsy. Soon, however, exhaustion set in. We all got ready for bed. Julie and Kathryn put their bags into one of the room's six lockers and closed (but did not lock) it. I was inspired, for some unknown reason, to keep my two bags in my bed with me (remember this), and in short order I fell asleep.

Saturday

Saturday morning, I woke up after a good night's sleep to find our inebriated roommates gone, and Julie and Kathryn still asleep. When they finally got up, it turned out that both of them had had trouble sleeping. Julie in particular complained of a bad night's sleep. "I laid awake for five hours," she told us, "I could hear every little sound whenever anyone moved." There was a long pause.

It was at this point that she uttered the following troubling words, "It's the weirdest thing. In the middle of the night, I heard Thomas get up and walk over to our locker...And then I heard water noises."

I know what you're thinking. No. It can't be. There must be some other explanation. I regret to inform you, dear reader, that your worst suspicions are indeed true. When Julie and Kathryn opened their locker, they found that their bags and clothes were soaked. With German urine.

Needless to say, this dealt a significant blow to the general mood. But, as the culprit had scampered off for the day, there was nothing to do but wash everything in the hostel bathroom and head into town to try to salvage the day.

If you've ever seen the movie In Bruges, you know that many of the characters don't have the nicest things to say about the city. And it is true that the town isn't exactly hopping after 10:00 (or 6:00). But it's really a beautiful place: compact houses with stepped gables and red-tiled roofs, picturesque bridges spanning an extensive canal system, squares filled with medieval buildings and churches.

We started the day with a visit to one of said squares, where we got a view of Bruges's main attraction, the belfry. It dates back to the 13th century, and is topped with 48 bells. We didn't go up the tower, instead opting for the cheaper panoramic view from the Bruges concert hall. But, not wanting to miss out on Bruges's spiritual side, we walked a short distance to a much smaller, more unassuming church that contained the holiest body fluid we'd encountered all day: Jesus Christ's blood. That's right. Jesus' very own blood, after a long journey from the Holy Land during the Crusades, found its final resting place in Belgium.

And for any of you wondering what Jesus' blood looks like, the answer is kind of gross. Congealed and filmy are the two words that come to mind. Nonetheless, it was a really interesting experience, as I'd never seen a relic before. Obviously living in the U.S. means missing out on some of the history that Europe is absolutely saturated with. We don't have 800 year old buildings But I'd never considered that the States are also missing an entire dimension of religious tradition, simply because of our location.

I'm pretty sure that whatever was in that vial was not Christ's blood. But at least the story has a whiff of plausibility. Stories like that just wouldn't fly in America. No one's going to believe that the Virgin Mary took a weekend trip to Virginia and left a finger bone behind for John Smith to stumble upon. Nope, the best we can hope for is the odd piece of holy toast. Advantage Bruges.

The advantage also goes to Bruges when it comes to charming modes of transportation, notably boat tours. What better way to see the city called "Venice of the North" than from the water? Yes, it's about the most touristy thing you can do in Bruges, but it was a relaxing way to pass a sunny autumn afternoon, and the views of the town did not disappoint.

From there, the bodily fluids theme pretty much ends, unless you count my own saliva. Because the rest of the day was spent indulging in my favorite pastime: eating. The Belgians know what all the tourists are after, and they have no problem supplying it. Bruges must hold the Guinness world record for the world's highest concentration of chocolate shops, because there were about 25 of them on every street. And every store not selling chocolate was a frietshop. Frieten (frites in French, fries in English) are enormously popular street food in Belgium. They serve them to-go in paper cones with mayonnaise as dipping sauce. Sounds disgusting, tastes delicious. Finally, sated and tired, we headed back to the hostel and spent an awkward night giving the silent treatment to three very guilty-looking Germans.


Sunday

We awoke Sunday morning with no goal but to get to Brussels as early as humanly possible. Waiting for a bus to the train station seemed more palatable than spending another 30 minutes in close quarters with our German friends, so we headed to the bus stop when it was still gray outside. While waiting, we had a brief, seemingly-insignificant conversation with two South African girls staying in the same hostel (Hint: Not really insignificant).

The first couple legs of the journey went off without a hitch. We made it to the station, and managed to get tickets and get on a Brussels-bound train in less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately, that was to be the simplest part of the day. Upon arrival, Julie and Kathryn decided to reserve seats for their return trip to Paris that night They have Eurail passes, which means that they get free seats, but it's preferable to reserve spots well in advance to ensure that there's space on the train. Unfortunately, earlier reservations were needed in this case. All free seats from Brussels to Paris were filled for the day. Their only option was to take a train to Lille (in France) and pray that there were spots on a Lille-Paris train. Essentially, they had less than two hours in Brussels before they needed to catch a Lille-bound train.

With such a limited time frame, we decided to head for two of Brussels' major tourist attractions. First up: the Grand Place. Now, Brussels is obviously a much smaller city than Paris. And up to that point I hadn't been overly impressed by the architecture. But this main square is really spectacular.


(There was no way my camera could fit in the whole square. For a much more complete view, click here).

Mere minutes from the square lies what is possibly Brussels' most famous attraction. It's a small, relatively unimpressive statue. But, given the previous day's events this tiny sculpture took on a whole new level of irony. Behold, the Mannekin Pis:


Needless to say, the sight brought up painful memories for Julie and Kathryn, memories that could only be repressed with Belgian waffles. Fun fact: what we call Belgian waffles are actually American waffles. Real Belgian waffles are either of the Brussels or Liege variety. Julie and Kathryn opted for Liege waffles (which have sugar baked into the dough) with whipped cream and chocolate, while I went for the traditional Brussels waffle (a more rectangular form) with the traditional topping of powdered sugar. We were all very pleased with our decisions.


We made a brief stop in one of the city's cathedrals before it was time for Julie and Kathryn to strike out for the train station. This left me with seven solo hours to kill before my train left for Paris.

My plan was to head back towards the tourism office, pick up a few maps and hit a few attractions in the afternoon. On the way back, I figured I'd kill 20 minutes at a little market we had passed earlier. This turned out to be a surprisingly fortuitous decision. Because while perusing hats at one of the stands, I glanced to my left and saw one of the girls from the bus stop in Bruges. Long story short, we struck up a conversation and I spent the afternoon wandering Brussels with Catherine and Lies.

We wandered back to the cathedral, then headed over to the Eglise St-Catherine, a smaller church situated on a pretty little square. It was a Sunday afternoon, so the city was pretty quiet. But we did see, in the space of 30 minutes, a wedding and a fistfight.

That was too much excitement for us, so we stopped at a supermarket and fashioned a picnic lunch to eat in St. Albertine's Square (Camembert and a baguette for me, doing the French proud). After lunch we wandered over to the Royal Palace and the beautiful park that adjoins it. Catherine and Lies eventually had to leave to head back to Bruges, and I didn't have much time before heading back to the train station. So I spent another hour wandering around the park and ended my day in Brussels on a park bench with a book, a warm caramel-drenched waffle and a cup of steaming hot chocolate. All in all, not a bad weekend.

I really appreciated Belgium for its beautiful medieval architecture, quiet countryside (seriously, the whole country looks like one big landscape painting) and excellent street food. But what really made the weekend a great one was my mindset throughout. Nothing I did over those three days was rocket science (catching a train, figuring out the bus system, navigating around Brussels, etc). The revolutionary part was that I did it all without getting nervous or frustrated. Whenever a glitch came along (going to the wrong hostel, being left alone in Brussels, etc.) I didn't stress out about it. I told myself that everything would work out, and it did.

In case you are not impressed by my mental fortitude, let me remind you that just a few short years ago my mother had to push me from a car into a Panera to order coffee for her. Literally. She pushed me because I had never ordered coffee there before and was having a panic attack over what size to get and where to find the cream and sugar. So this trip was kind of a big step for me. In fact, I think this is the first clear difference I've seen between American me and European me. American me is a compulsive worrier. European me is apparently fine when things don't go exactly as planned.

Besides the change in mindset, I also had some really incredible luck. It probably would have been a lot harder to stay calm had all of my wearable clothes been drenched in pee. And my afternoon in Brussels wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable if Catherine and Lies hadn't talked to us at the bus stop that morning. It's ironic and kind of terrible considering all nightmare that my friends went through, but it felt as though the weekend was determined to work out for me. In short, International Trip #1 goes down as a success.

I leave you with a short list:

Things Learned From My First Trip Abroad

-Two cities in 2 1/2 days is too much. It's not hard to see most of Bruges in a day, but Brussels definitely got short-shrift. Sure, we hit many of the major sights. But it's hard to get any sort of feel for a city in eight hours. Thankfully, the rest of the trips I have scheduled for this semester won't be as hectic.
-Take every opportunity to sample local cuisine. Multiple times if necessary.
-There's no place like home. I was clearly just kidding in the opening to this entry when I said I was sick of Paris. Even though I had a nice weekend, I was so happy to be back on the Metro, surrounded by French, Sunday night. It was surprising, but great, to realize that I feel like I'm in my element here.
-Look up some handy phrases in the local language before traveling. I didn't expect the sudden Flemish attack, and I felt like one of those terrible Americans who just expects everyone to speak English to them wherever they go.

And, most importantly...

-Lock up your stuff. Especially when Germans are around.