Visiting Brussels, Belgium/Carlos Pueblo

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.