Offered a spliff

Day 12, Friday, Brussels, 13^th May.

Offered a spliff.

With hangovers definitely caused by the mix of Belgian beers last night  we had a lazy morning, and after breakfast in bed we read the hand drawn map, made by us by Luke, the campsite owner, to guide us to the train station. The parking was really confusing, there was nowhere to pay, no signs but cars parked all over the place some with tickets, some without. A lady tried to help us and stopped a man on a bike who told us to follow him to a free parking space, Brilliant! And how very friendly indeed. The train to Brussels was vintage and I absolutely loved it. Dark green leather seats with overhead storage in our carriage, dark blue leather in others. It was spacious and lovely.

On arrival in Brussels, within about one minuet we were invited for a spliff. Eager to get on with our day and see the city, we rejected and headed to the Grand Square. I never expected Brussels to be so touristy, there are artists selling silly portraits of yourself back to you, groups of Japanese and Americans with cameras pointing to the sky, street musicians towering over people drinking coffee and post cards spilling out of every other shop.

 Yes the place is pretty, but overpriced (even the cathedral charged for most things) and not especially different. We wandered around aimlessly, tried to connect to the internet in several occasions but Orange Nowhere was having none of it, wanted to visit a brewing museum but they charged 5 euro to get in, got walked into one too many times and just felt quite annoyed, even a visit to the park didn’t help.

We were still underwhelmed on the journey home, so did some shooting from the hip photography on the overcrowded platform, during which I failed to photogragh a double decker train!

We were still also undecided on if we were going to stay another night at the site or drive through the night to try and save some money. Henry, the bar man had told us that we may be able to get some work in Venlo, Holland, just outside of Belgium and on the German border. So we had a direction, just not a plan. Back at the campsite I decided after tea of a crisp sandwich that I was way too tired to drive and stayed another night. We decided to get an early night and not to return to the bar. A shame, but we need some rest.

Bon nuit, x.