Brussels Sprouts: Part I (The Bad News First)

It takes one hour and twenty minutes to get from Paris to Brussels on the high-speed Thalys train. Then it takes one hour and twenty minutes to get from the Bruxelles-Midi train station to your hotel. No matter where you’re staying.

All we needed to do was get from the train station to our hotel near the Grand Place. How difficult can that be? I’m the designated family navigator, so this was my job. Don’t worry, I’m qualified. I have a little pair of gold-colored, Junior Flyer plastic wings that Pan Am conferred on me when I was a nine.

Problem # 1-A: The Subway System

I could not make sense of the Brussels subway system map that was plastered to the wall in Bruxelles-Midi. There appeared to be three train lines numbered 1-A, 1-B and 2. Does this bother anyone else?

It turns out that we needed to take a tram, which, for some odd reason was not only underground with the subway trains, but was even on a level beneath the subway trains. There was a chill going down my spine as we descended lower and lower and lower. Morlocks are just in England, right?

The fun part is that the tram conductors give you about five seconds to get into the tram, which is impossible to do unless you’re first in line or Scotty beams you aboard. When we finally managed to get us, all three kids, five bags, and the stroller into a tram (three times a charm!), we couldn’t figure out which one we were on. We were so focused on just getting into a tram that we didn’t look at the front of it. And of course they don’t put that little piece of guarded information (or a route map) on the inside of the tram! All we know is that we’re on a tram, in Brussels, going somewhere in some direction.

I’m glad I left my Pan Am wings at home; I’ve become a disgrace to my fellow Junior Flyer alumni.

Problem # 1-B: The Street System

When we finally got off of the tram, we were nicely and swiftly dumped onto . . . the middle of a busy street. No little island for us to step onto or to separate us from the speeding cars. The tram stops are actually over yonder on the sidewalk and people step directly into the middle lane of traffic to get on and off the tram. Darwinian city planning. Genius.

So now that we’ve made it over to the sidewalk alive, it’s time to find the hotel on foot. I had four maps of downtown Brussels in my coat pocket, none of which had every street drawn or street name indicated. Not that that would have been necessary—not every street name was marked in the three-dimensional version of Brussels, either. Can’t it just be as simple as Third and 51^st everywhere?

We finally resorted to asking people where the Grand Place is. The Grand Place is like Trafalgar Square in London or Times Square in Manhattan. It’s kinda well known. I think. Every Brussels Sprout should know where it is. I think. Alas, an amazing number of them don’t. In fact, our informal survey of businessmen, street sweepers, and café waitresses yielded the number zero.

Problem # 2: The ATMs

After spending a good while walking around searching for the hotel, we finally decided to pull some cash out of the nearest ATM and catch a taxi. As if we were going to find a taxi! But we never actually got to that problem because none of the ATMs would accept our French carte bleue. Now I understand why the EU put its financial headquarters in Germany.

So now we’ve turned our attention to looking for an ATM that will accept our cards instead of looking for our hotel. And after about ten minutes, we turned a corner and we found . . . our hotel.

And no, our carte bleue didn’t work there, either!