AlSo: Everyone Loves Brussels

We kibitzed over coffee with the gang as much as time would allow. Shawn and I worked on motivating Matt out of bed, from his lofty bower. A farewell, and Shawn took us to Jurbise. We caught the train to Brussels and then the Metro and to the Jacques Brel hostel. I have been to Brussels once before at the height of the season and got a dorm no problem. It is past peak season and Every Single hotel and hostel was full. I mean brimming. They told us we could put our luggage downstairs and call after 3pm to see if any reservations had been cancelled. We set out in search of food and, after a long travail and metro, we found a Greek pita place which was absolutely delicious. Walked to the Grand Place, and Corey found us coffee. Then beer. We met with Joan and her husband. He’s from Detroit and worked for GM for 33 years and loves them. He also bikes all over the country and has biked internationally as well. They were fascinating people to talk to for the hour or so that they had before getting back on their Paris-bound train. I want to retire the way they’ve done it. We went to the Horta Museum and then to the internet café where Joroen agreed, Incredibly Graciously, to pout us up for the night. Phew! Because Corey and I had negative energy. It was horrible! We walked around a little more, picked up our luggage, and met him at his place that he shares with 3 others in Ixelles. His girlfriend, Anita (sp?) has been working on their website for their Auto-Suficance campaign which is just brilliant! They took a car and transmogrified it into a garden. Then they towed it by hand up the streets and to its downtown roadside installation space. An incredible project. What can we do along these same lines? This is just perfect! We talked and talked until beer became an increasing necessity. We headed to a swell watering hole and had a fdew beers until it was time to go to a nearby vegetarian restaurant at 10pm when they give away their leftovers. So not only did we have a place to sleep but we also got free food! Hot damn. On the way back, we encountered a woman coming out of a car who asked if we knew of a hotek that had space. We said that getting 15 minutes out of town was her best bet. Boy, Brussels is popular these days. We laid out our pillage and had a great dinner, met Anna, one of the other flatmates, and then fell asleep rather quickly.