The Nadine Scene

When the bus drops me off near the center of town, I am immediately struck by the activity around me. It is late, and yet the square is abuzz with the anticipation of what is to come. Even as the late hour beckons, shops are streaming with patrons and bartenders begin to prepare for the busy night ahead. For here, even though it is late, the night has not yet begun. Everywhere, preparations are being made; families eat their dinners, ice cream is handed out to children, and the strolling of the promenade begins. This is what I have come for, to be part of the night long stroll. It is an old custom and one in which everyone participates. Everyone is here: the young, the old, and the in-between. Whole families roam about, grandparents pushing strollers while parents hold hands or admonish older children. Packs of teenagers roam like wild animals, sneakily stepping off the path to inhale a forbidden cigarette or else they sit giggling together, bottles of beer and wine in their midst...

I don’t think I ever imagined the kinds of challenges I would face when traveling alone, especially in a place where my language skills, while allowing me to get through the most basic interactions, are not strong enough to lead to the kinds of conversations that create intimacy and friendship. One of the things that can get especially nerve wracking is interacting with new people and entering new places. It gets overwhelming, not being sure what to expect and all the while being concerned about whether you’re going to accidentally say the wrong thing, without even meaning to. At least if you’re speaking the same language, you’ll know when you insult someone. Suddenly, actions that are so inconsequential in normal life take on major significance. Going to the grocery store. Riding the bus. Ordering coffee. I can’t tell you how many times in the last several weeks that I’ve stood in front of an establishment, preparing myself for walking inside. Just yesterday, I practiced saying “d...

There is truly nothing to report about the rest of my stay in Belgium. J. left early on Sunday morning, to catch a flight that would hopefully get her back to the US in time for the World Cup final. I strolled along the Grote Markt, picking up some English language newspapers and catching up on my news over coffee. After a while, I returned to the hotel to catch up on work, which is what I did for the rest of the day, until it was time to find a place to watch the final game. I must say, even though soccer (football!) is something I don’t pay all that much attention to, the World Cup has been fabulous fun and I have every intention of cheering Spain on to the bitter end. And a bitter end it was, as we all sat around the bar with our fingers crossed and our breath baited. I don’t think anyone anticipated the unscored game, the double overtime. I was lucky enough to find a bar with a lot of other fellow Spain fans, all of us biting our nails and jumping up when we thought things were...

I want to go on the record that everyone told me that I should stay in Bruges, not Brussels, and after visiting, I have no idea why. Don’t get me wrong, Bruges is a very pretty city; many parts of it are actually designated as World Heritage Sites. And renting bikes to get around was a lot of fun, especially since I perfected my map reading while biking skills in Amsterdam. But honestly, after a few hours and a tasty lunch, I was ready to hit the city again. So while I’m glad that I went, I think I would have gotten very bored if I had spent three days there instead of Brussels. Although I could probably have eaten my weight in chocolate if I tried. And it was a beautiful city – just see for yourself: When we disembarked from the train station in Bruges, we noticed signs for the Cactus Festival. Seeing as how I had just been informed that one of my cacti back home had gone on to that big desert in the sky (through no fault of its caretaker – it was probably killed by the shock ...

We had better luck getting to Brussels, making an earlier train that we expected. And the train ride was rather uneventful, at least until we got to the Brussels-Nord Station. Turns out that there’s a Red Light District in Brussels too – and it is right outside of the train station, so you have the full opportunity to view the merchandise before you get off the train. Luckily, Brussels-Nord was not our stop! Turns out our hotel was just a block away from the Brussels Train Station and we were ready to hit the city in no time. But first, lunch. Boy was that a mess! It turns out that there are fewer people who speak English in Brussels than in any other city we’ve visited. And unlike Paris, where Spanish got us by in a pinch, there was no way to communicate with people unless we spoke French or Dutch. I must admit that this was kind of surprising to me, given the fact that Brussels is the seat of the European Union. Nonetheless, I was happy to go along with it – I knew going into thi...

On our second day in Amsterdam, we were still recovering from the insanity that was Paris. So we decided to take it easy and rent bikes for the day. Now that was interesting. J. happens to compete in triathlons, so the bike was no big deal for her. I fall down the stairs on a regular basis and would prefer training wheels. But somehow, I was talked into it and before I knew it, I was navigating Amsterdam on two wheels with map in hand (a pretty difficult skill by the way, reading a map while riding a bike – I’m surprised I survived). First stop, the Rijksmuseum. On the other side of town, parts were under renovation, but we still got to see a lot of the Dutch masters, as well as some cool pottery. Overall, it was a really nice museum (with a pretty good gift shop too), but when we were done, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to go to another one. So the Van Gogh Museum was going to have to wait for another day (I took pictures from afar though). Outside the Rijksmuseum is a fun little p...

After two full days in Paris, I know I was looking forward to an easy day of travel. We were taking the train from Paris to Amsterdam, and after an interesting metro experience with too much luggage (I think it’s an American thing), we arrived at the Paris station only to figure out that the ticket machines would not accept American credit cards. Luckily, the ticket agent would, but by then, we were going to either pay triple for first class or miss our train. In the interest of sanity and saving money, we decided to take a later train and armed with the appropriate tickets, set out to find a place for a café au lait where we could wait for the next train. A few hours later, bagged lunch in hand and postcards sent off, we were comfortably ensconced on our train to Amsterdam, complete with Internet and smelly European passengers (seriously people – smoking makes you smell bad!). Upon arrival in Amsterdam, I managed to completely screw up our directions and send us off in the wrong d...