Visiting
Brussels, Belgium/Carlos Pueblo
After the
second day in Frankfurt, Germany, I was ready for my first
train ride
to visit Brussels, Belgium. First mistake occurred to me was
the train
schedule from Heidelberg hbf, central station, initiated at
Heidelberg
instead of Frankfurt and I didn’t notice; therefore I was
wandering at
the Frankfurt hbf for three hours before the train took off.
It was
before the day break and was still dark; therefore, I could not see
the pretty
scenery heighted light on the German Rail Pass from Mainz to
Cologne,
along the Rhine River bank. At Cologne hbf, I switched to another
ICE, Intercity
express, to Brussels, Belgium through Belgium plain. During
My three
days stay, I had visited a re-innovated business center from an
old castle
and the famous Grand Palace area.
I stayed at
a hostel at the Simmons station where I walked through an area
of new
immigrants mostly the middle easterners. I can tell by their outlook
and dress.
The residents on the street were very surprised to see me passing
by and I did
stop by a grocery store to have some plums and bananas. I kept
on walking
as a quick direction from the inn toward an attractive building
looks like a
castle. It is a castle with a square wall and a jack up lower ground.
Inside this
beautiful castle, there are office of some artists and some special
art galleries.
Outside the castle, there is a huge ground with additional building
under
re-innovation and is still a long way to go. The ground has some abandon
building
something like an old hospital with high weed around and several areas
are blocked
with wire fences for different purpose of usage. I took several buses
attempting
to go back to the hostel and ended up to go through an European
Union
Center, a military hospital through some kinds of canal with some navigation.
Finally,
with a help of a young man to take a bus to a subway station, I was able to
get to a
loop of subway to my station with two different names across a street for
each other.
On the
second day, I went to visit the famous Grand Palace area. I walked through
the beautiful
streets of Brussels, many EU office buildings. Brussels is the head
quarter of
EU, then I reached to the Grand Palace and on the top of the Palace, I
could view
the gorgeous Cathedral steps down through several gardens and other
converted
shopping center from an old palace. Belgium is a small nation yet the
capital city
is like an old empire. I lost my cash wallet while standing by listening to
a group of
tourist in a presentation of chocolate from outside to inside of a chocolate
store. I was
devastated. My loss was about 200 Euros, 200 British Pounds and a cell
phone. This
pick pocket incident has changed my enjoyment of traveling ever since
and taken a
whole three months for me to get over with it.
I could not
stop blaming myself for not careful enough to avoid this kind of situation.
My original
wandering Buddhist monk’s discipline became true. I asked for a help from
my bank to get
some cash in vain and I could not make a phone call and still didn’t
know why my
debt card was invalid in Germany and Belgium. My disciple started with
200 US
dollars and credit card to make though the next 58 days.
I ran into a
Japanese gentleman of 84, a retired diplomat and a French export. He travels
to the
western Europe often. I played some old Japanese Enka favorite to him and made
him so
happy. He thought that he should go home soon. His last post was the Japanese
Embassy to
Luxembourg and before was mostly with Japanese private firms for their
language needs
in Europe.
