The Tiepolo House, Belgian edition

Brussels, Belgium

Music: Audioslave, Out of Exile album; Jeff Buckley, “Hallelujah”
Books: Alexis de Tocqueville (“Democracy in America”), Thomas Friedman (“The World is Flat”)
Beers: Primus (simple and tasty), Leffe Blonde (a little too tasty for my taste), Stella Artois (still the same)

Scheduled arrival time: 8:40am. Actual arrival time: 8:55am—and we’re still rolling on the tarmac. I’m starting to worry, but not the kind of back-of-mind concern that you feel when your chances are still good. This is the kind of worry that makes you wish everyone in front of you would just shut up and move out of the way. And the kind that makes you hate fussy children, of which there seem to be far too many around me right now. The plane taxis for what seems like en eternity, and when I get off, I realize we’re nowhere near the terminal: I have to take a bus to, well, where I don’t know, because we’re so far from everything that I can’t tell which speck on the horizon will turn out to be Terminal 2. Andd when I do get to Terminal 2, there’s still the nagging problem of customs to get through (somehow I’d forgotten about that too), and of course, by the time I get there, the line is massive. Time: 9:33am. My train leaves at 10:09am. This line is easily a half hour. I won’t make it. All sorts of bad thoughts creep into my mind, but none so shameful as the thoughts directed at that whiny English child. The one who brayed simply because she was tired. And the one whose parents I would have liked to tar and feather for letting a child behave like such a brat.

So, in the end, after running through the terminal to get my luggage and sprinting to the TGV station, I actually do get to the train on time (I can’t imagine how I managed to do it), but only because I neglected to withdraw the ticket I’d purchased online at an automated teller. The controller informs me that the solution to this problem is going to involve bending over and grabbing my ankles, so I opt for the next train, which leaves in 45 minutes and actually gets into Brussels earlier. Sweet. Now I can go to the washroom and wash some of the traveller’s smell from myself.

Arrival time in Brussels: 12:05. I’m not at Centraal Station. There’s always a hitch, right? So after a short ride by way of the Metro (they actually call it the Metro here too), I finally get to the destination I set out for on Sunday morning. Total travel time: 24 hours and 20 minutes. No sweat. Except for the actual sweat that now covers my stinking body and lends the characteristic traveler’s smell to my clothes. Here’s an idea: they make disposable baby wipes to quickly clean babies, why doesn’t someone out there make the equivalent for travelers? On Air Canada, they give you that warm towelette to refresh yourself before they serve the meal, and I always thought that was a classy thing to do. I’d like to see one-shot, disposable towelettes, of varying fragrances, that travelers can use to wash off the grime of an 8-hour flight. Something hand towel-sized, a little thicker but still compact, with an imbibed solution of some deodorant agent. Not an actual shower, mind you, but the closest thing to it. You could even use this after short gym visits. I’m not a big fan of the disposable craze, but this one’s a winner, people.

So, here I am in Brussels. I’m greeted by the kind of weather I remember from Milan in the winter, which is to say, cold, damp and grey. But hey, it’s Europe, and I’m happy to be here! I make my way to our meeting spot. Through the Meridien, right on l”Enfant Isabella, across Place d’Espagne and into Gallerie St-Hubert, a covered shopping arcade, very much like Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, with good reason it turn out: it’s from the same architect. As I got there early, I make my way back to Place d’Espagne, where I indulge in some people watching. Belgians are intriguing, but perhaps only because I’m so happy to be back in Europe that I infuse my perception of everyone I see with my romantic notions of what it means to be European. Jamin walks by, and I flag him down so I can share an inaugural beer (the Primus). Socha, Isabelle and Fritz also arrive, fresh from Amsterdam, and we make our way to Café Vaudeville, where we’re meant to have our welcome lunch.

Jerry Sheridan, our host and the director of the American University campus in Brussels, is an energetic guy. He’s a Notre Dame alum, and has now been in Brussels for 15 years. He’s obviously fascinated by what he teaches, and more importantly, he loves talking about it. We have the traditional Belgian dish of Watrzooi for lunch, accompanied by a general survey of Belgium’s geography and history. Belgium is the site of more historical conflicts of great importance than almost anywhere else in Europe, being located as it is between the traditionally warring empires of France, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. Belgium, if we can believe our host’s characterization, has no national identity, which is a condition I can understand and sympathize with. And it makes sense: having been repeatedly invaded, and having served as the launching point for so many war campaigns, the country hasn’t had time to develop the iconoclastic centuries-old traditions of its neighbours. Another interesting tidbit concerns the language issue. Belgium, contrary to what I had thought, is not a bilingual country. It is firmly divided into two unilingual halves: Wallonia in the south, which is mainly francophone, and Flanders in the north, which is exclusively of Dutch expression.

After this introduction to the program, and, we are treated to a tour of Grande Place by none other than our fearless host. It seems there is no limit to his enthusiasm for the subject matter, and his eagerness in sharing it is impressive. Grande Place, the centerpiece of Brussels, is simply magnificient. It features three distinctive buildings (the mid- to late-gothic town hall with the heretical clock added by Napoleon and the pendentifs, the church rebuild 400 years after town hall and looking distinctly less well-preserved, and that symmetrical one by the guy with lofty ambitions), along with a series of elegant old guild houses, all rebuilt within four years of the December to January bombardment of 1695.

The tour also takes us by the fabled Manneken Pis, which itself has several alleged origins, but none authoritative. There’s the story about the child who helped put out a spreading city fire and who was thus immorialized. There’s the other one about the warring general who took his family to a battle site (a common practice, it appears), and whose child ambled out into the chaos only to blithely perform that most poetic and natural of acts (I like that story). It turn out that they actually dress the little fella up with various costumes throughout the year, and for the right price, one could even manage to have him dressed like the Irish Leprechaun, if one were so inclined …

The tour eventually wraps up, as the weather is getting increasingly nasty (it’s snowing now, fer chrissakes), and we take the Metro out to the University campus (Alma stop). Once there, we are introduced to our host families, and after some confusion, I am paired as desired with Frei, and our hosts Sara and Pablo take us back to their downtown home. It is immediately obvious that these people are unique, but we won’t have any idea how unique until we see their home. It is a 150-year old Tenenbaum kind of house, with 30-foot ceilings and walls covered with momentoes accumulated over the 27 years they have lived there. Our rooms are on the very topmost floors, and given the fact that the building is three stories high with such high ceilings, it feels more like we’re on the sixth floor. Despite its idiosyncracies (wonky bathrooms, streetside furniture and the years of neglect), the house, like its owners, is warm and welcoming. As dinner is being readied, Pablo takes us on a whirlwind tour of the neighbourhood, which takes us by St Michel’s church, Centraal Station and that other massive church, and it is now more than at any other time that the weariness of the past days sets in: I’m tired.

Unfortunately for me, one of my greatest pleasures is about to be sated: we are about to have a dinner with all the house members, and this is making me think back to my days in the Tiepolo House. We share vegetarian lasagna with Steven, a youg kid from Bethel College in Massachussets, Andrew, from Maine, our hosts Sara and Pablo, and soon enough, their daughter Sophie joins, along with her boyfriend Oscar. In all, there are four languages being spoken at the table by eight people, and the conversation is engrossing.

And, though I thought I’d never get there, at long last I get some sleep.