Brussels, Your King has Arrived

Beautiful church near my residence

Ok maybe I over described the prestige of my arrival, I was treated more like trash than royalty by my kind taxi driver. At least he recycles right? Well good god folks, last Friday (May 28th) was definitely an experience I don't want to ever have to repeat again. With 2 over stuffed suitcases, 2 backpacks, and a kitchen sink I could not have made life harder for myself. My day started a roughly 7:15am and didn't end until my 190 pounds of solid muscle and my 150 pounds of solid crap traveled 435 miles across the European continent to arrive in Brussels, Belgium. That is only a sip of Friday's joyride... adventure, the real hell ride was hauling all of that above mentioned crap through Paris. Yea... I had to use the metro. Read on.

I packed the night before which was no small task considering I had to pack my entire life into just 2 suitcases and 2 backpacks... Friday morning was when the real fun started. I woke up at about 7am to finish cleaning my closet. The cleaning lady arrived promptly 15 minutes early to make me look like the swell slacker I am. She began berating me in French for not being prepared and then proceeded to whip out her handy dandy magnifying glass. Without over exaggerating the cleaning ladies at Belle Beille (my residence) are absolute Nazis when it comes to check out. They love the power they have over us innocent students when we depart and save no opportunity to make us feel like idiots for not making the sink's chrome shine brightly enough... but I digress.

Final look over my shoulder as I leave my home in Angers.

After my nightmare of a checkout and paying the €18.75 in fines for a small crack in my entrance card I headed to the Angers train station. Life was fairly uneventful up until my connection in Paris. Now in anticipation of the hell that would be Paris metro, I called a good friend of mine that I met in the Fall who currently interns at a restaurant in Paris. Arriving just after the lunch rush I knew it was a long shot that he would be able to meet me at the station.


BEFORE I go on I should mention that I was only given 50 minutes to changes trains... and stations.  BAM, the doors open on the train and I leap off loaded with all of my gear. My eyes shoot quickly around for my last hope and sadly he is no where to be found. Speaking softly under my breath I say "merde" (shit), and begin the trek towards the metro station. Understandably this is no stroll through the beautiful streets of Paris, this is a three legged race down several busy flights of stairs and steamy underground tunnels leading towards Montparnasse Bienvenue (the metro stop). At this point in the day I still am chugging along solidly. As I start to approach the metro stop my mind is thinking "Ryan you freaking rock, you're almost there." Now up to this point the whole journey had been mostly down hill, not too difficult, even with my overloaded self. Then it happened. I arrive at what seemed to be a giant F#%@ YOU from the devil himself. A massive set of stairs that stood between and my platform arose before me like the never ending hill of Sisyphus. I fumbled around for a few moments trying to decide whether leaving one suitcase at the bottom was a good idea while I rolled the other up the hill. As if a choir of angels or god himself had heard my prayers, I hear my friend shouting my name rushing to my aide. Apparently he had made it to the station just a moment too late and in my haste I didn't attempt to answer my cell when he called. Needless to say the rest of the connection was fairly easy, but still steamy.

UPON arrival in Brussels I struggled to find the taxi stand and get to my new apartment. My luggage was so heavy and immense that the first driver actually told my to "piss off." My next "chauffeur" was slightly more kind rolling up and lookn' fly in a big van. After complaining incessantly about the weight of my bags (the man had a ramp even!), we slide into the cab and he asks "Were to you go?" I reply in French (it was subtle but apparent that  his English sucked), "31 Rue de la NICETRY, si vous plait." His next response bewildered and shocked me to my core, "Where is that?" I reply ehh "I know nothing of this town." Quite obvious I would think, given my lame accent and over packed suitcases... So he grumbles some more and figures it out with the aide of his GPS and a city map, shooting off just when he thought he had run the wait meter up high enough for his "troubles."

THIRTY minutes of heavy traffic later I am dumped off at my final destination, 31 Rue de la NICETRY. I collect my keys and heave all of my luggage up four floors to my new apartment. I leave just as quickly to load up on food for the evening and Sunday. Once parked in the apartment for good, I fall hard asleep without even cooking the food I had bought moments earlier. Fast forward 72 hours into the future I am fully refreshed, settled, and ready to tackle my next challenge abroad... actual work.

CONCLUSION:

Never ever travel by train with more than 70 pounds of luggage.