It was 9 years ago that I arrived in Belgian shores, on a Sunny day of summer. To be more precise, I arrived at 2pm on the 26th of August 2002, via an Air Switzerland flight from Miami -with a brief connection in Zurich. I brought with me an X-size piece of luggage, a backpack, a broken guitar, and my winter jacket on, as there was no place left to put such a gargantuan piece of apparel. No kidding when I say that an army tent could have been easily built with all the layers of textile in the jacket, and its weight alone could have served to do some muscle building training.
So there I was with all my stuff at the Brussels Airport. After coming out of the immigrations office my first stop was the local telephone booth, from where I called a Peruvian dude who was supposed to host me at his place during my first days in the Low Lands. Now, I didn’t know the guy personally as he was the friend of a friend, but being the only person I knew in this side of the world I dared to send him an email asking if he could lodge me for some days, at least till I could find my own place to live. The lad seemed happy to have another country mate in Belgian soils, so he accepted my (own) invitation to his place.
Back to the phone booth part: First call, no answer, so I waited 5 minutes.
Second call, no answer. I waited another 5 minutes.
By the third phone call- and again with no answer, I realized that he either wasn’t available or that he was just neglecting my call…but, could he really? I was faced suddenly with my first -of many to come- dilemma: to wait or not to wait (that is the question, said my dear Shakespeare). “I’ll take the train to his city and call from there” was my thought.
And so I headed towards the train station, carrying all my stuff…feeling tired…checking the girls….feeling anxious…checking the girls…feeling hungry… checking you know what by now. “First things first” – I said, “let’s change my hard earned dollars into euros” . I looked around for a minute or so and spotted almost right away a Western Union shop. After checking their prices I realized the bastards were using a ridiculous under priced rate! (Working against me of course). “Screw them” I thought while searching for another competitor at the airport. After combing all the 3 floors of the airport, I realized that Western Union was the only shop where I could change my money. I had no other choice than to go back with resignation to the yellow colored local, and accept what was obvious about to happen: I was going to get screwed … Belgium 1, Luis 0. Nice way to start my new life in a new country!
Bon, I think I changed only $200 or so, just enough to survive till I could get my money withdrawed from some local ATM. So I changed the money, went to the station, bought my ticket, and got all my homeless-like equipment in the train. After 40 minutes of traveling I arrived to the city which would become my second home during that year, and where till the date of today I’m still very fond of and happen to live in: Gent.
At the station I tried calling my local contact again....with no luck! Soon resignation invaded me, and I realized I was on my very own in this strange land. Poor guy you would think.. but Alas!, I will have to disappoint you, since not all is as bad as it seems, and not everybody is as fool as not to have a plan B (B of Bad ). While booking my ticket to Brussels, in a rationale moment (strange for me) I found and printed out the address of a youth hostel in Gent, just in case and as a last resource measure. Time to put Plan B in action!
As I emerged from the station, I couldn’t help noticing that it was a beautiful day, with people walking around in their summer outfits, big smile in their faces…all of them seemed happy to be there. I also realized that I was somehow messing up the hole picture in my astronaut outfit, my expedition bags, and my Molotov- cocktail hangover face…it was like having the ugly fat bitch in the middle of the beauty contest, you get the picture right?
My very first interaction with a Flemish (funny name for these people) was a local teenage girl that helped me find the right tram to get to the city center. My second interaction was with the angry tram driver, shouting at me to hurry up since I was forming a bottleneck while trying to get my lugagge in the tram. My third, fourth, fifth and all subsequent interactions was with all the passengers in the tram I had to push asside to make some place for my stuff. No kind interaction back from them of course.
Anyways, I managed to get on the tram and enjoy the ride a bit. As I approached my stop, I saw that I had a couple of buttons to press in order to get off the ride: a blue button and a red button. Since the red button said STOP, I pressed that one. Now, If you have ever been in a tram, you might imagine by now that I had pressed the EMERGENCY STOP button, so you can also imagine what happened next: the tram stopped suddenly, all passangers looked aroung confused, angry tram driver got out of his seat to see what was going on, foreign dude was trying to hide among passangers (although impossible) after realizing his mistake, angry tram driver and angry passengers staring at foreign dude … Belgium 2, Luis 0... Damn :s.
By the time the tram arrived at the city center I was more than happy to step out at the first stop. I was now finally in the center du Gand, the place to be, the city of mis amores. As I started walking towards the address of the youth hostel I realized my first challenge of the day: the whole city center had bricks on the sidewalks and on the roads. Why is that a problem you might ask your self? Normally is not, had it not been for the fact that my luggage was weighting a bit more than 35 kilos, and although the cement bag had wheels, the bricks in the floor were making my task to move forward an impossible one. Think about you trying to smoke some dope with the pope and you´ll know the feeling!. To make matters worse: I had to walk in the road, since the sidewalks were full of people and tables of restaurants. And there I was again, the freak carrying a house -don’t forget the ugly Eskimo jacket-, walking in the middle of the street like a nerd, with ALL EYES ON ME as I was trying to move forward, step by step (or I should better say brick by brick)…Nothing like the sweet taste of humiliation in my lips once again. By this moment the score was Belgium 3, Me nada.
It took me about 30 to 45 minutes to get to the youth hostel I think. Not bad for a 300 meters distance :s!. By the moment I arrived at door of the hotel I felt like "I´m the king of the world", like the Caesar proclaiming ‘vini, vi, vinci’, like Kid Rock banging Pam Anderson on the boat (nope, never watched that clip he he), like a Goldman Sachs CEO claiming a billion dollar bonus after screwing the financial system in 2009. I had finally gotten away with finishing my journey....I was finally there!
Murphy said once ‘Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong’, and hell he was right! .After announcing myself at the frontdesk, the receptionist told me with a very expresionless face: “Sorry, hotel is full. Next opening is within 3 days”. As he sat back in his desk my W.A.C.K.O 7.0 operating system could process his words in echo (insert 'Psicosis' soundtrack pls):
“Hotel….
Full……
ull……..
ull…..…
ull…..
After 3 minutes or so of being lost in the twilight zone, a voice told me to get away from the white light and come back to reality, which I had to do with resignation. Suddenly, the king feeling was gone. I realized my journey was far from finished. Worse of all: I was killing/begging/dreaming of a bed to crash in and throw myself away in the arms of Morpheus...but that couldn't happen, not yet.
I realized I was dekcuf*…….big way. Belgium 10-Luis cero*Tip for the not so gifted ones: to be read backwards
Coming soon
Part II: El Luis strikes back
