On truffles and lightning bolts.

So here's irony for you...

Shortly after I left the previously mentioned park bench, still pondering peace and rest and all of these nice little tranquil thoughts like a regular old Dalhi Llama... I wandered into THE most stressful day I've experienced since a rather infamous episode involving a Thai Buddhist temple when I was 13.

The next portion of my trip, beginning in Brussels, was a trip on a kind of backpacker's cruiseline. It was something mom found back in the Spring and had sounded like a really cool change of pace. The plan was to embark in Brussels, and then travel up the canals, stopping in Antwerp, Rotterdam, and ending in Amsterdam. It had a great website, good deals, and looked really cute. Speakin' my language, right? Well...

I picked up my luggage from my hostel, got a cab, and gave the driver the only sort of direction they had given me on the website... the name of what I assumed was the port. Except that every person I mentioned this plan to in Brussels responded with the bewildered head-scratching of "we have canals?" Not exactly inspiring stuff. After an initial round of confusion, the driver seems to remember what I'm talking about, and takes me off into what would've been the backwoods of Brussels, if Brussels indeed had had woods. And then he drops me off along the water, at what looks to me to be an awful lot of abandoned warehouses and not a bit like a passenger boat's port. But then hey, what do I know, right? So he confidently points me in the direction that I gather I'm supposed to find this thing, and I set off, wheeling my little bag on the cobblestones doubtfully. But of course... there is no boat in sight. Nor is there anything that vaguely resembles a port, or a dock, or a mooring, or any other of those friendly seafaring words. Oh no. What there ARE a full supply of are leery old men hanging out by the water and piles of what looks like cement in sort of wharf areas. And one very confused little girl.

Finally, after about twenty minutes I saw the sign for an official port office. Perfect! So I wander in and politely explain to little receptionist my plight. And she just as politely points me towards the left... which, to my naive little eye, holds nothing but more piles of cement and warehouses as far as the eye can see. But she's ADAMANT that that is the way I need to walk... so walk I do. And I KEEP walking. For TWO HOURS I keep walking. On cobblestones. With my little suitcase. Not really because my confidence is building or anything, but merely because I can't really think of what else to do. Meanwhile... somewhere around an hour and a half or so into this little stroll I'm get rather desperate... and I literally say the words, "well, at least it can't get any worse." I mean, I really said them. Out loud. To no one. And I swear, FIVE seconds later lightning flashes in the sky, IMMEDIATELY followed by a booming crash. I promise. The funny thing is, as the first drops began to pelt down seconds later, my first thought was strangely, "aw man, nobody is gonna believe this!"

So I stood in a doorway for twenty or so minutes waiting for the worst of it to pass, meanwhile bargaining with myself not to cry... "if you manage not to start tearing up, you can eat the WHOLE box of those yummy chocolates when all of this is over! I won't even make you feel guilty afterward!"


Finally I abandoned the waterside, and decided to walk towards civilization of any kind. The variety of civilization I found, however, was apparently Brussels' enormous North African and highly Muslim neighborhood... full of even more leering old men, and women covered from head to toe. Meanwhile, I'm of course NOT covered from head to toe, and currently soaking wet. Perfect.

Anyway, skipping ahead past some very confused direction-asking, a very long bus ride, a saint of a bus-driver, and a subway connection after that... I found myself... now get this... RIGHT BACK WHERE I STARTED. This time, I turned right, instead of left.


Later I discovered that had I turned right instead of left to begin with, I would have found myself at where the boat was supposed to be. I say supposed to because no matter which direction I turned that day, I wasn't ever gonna find that darn thing, because it wasn't there. I discover this fact after a VERY amusing 45 or so minute long interaction with some adorably sweet old Flemish boatmen, who tried everything they could, despite not being able to understand a word I said, to help me in my distress, including inviting me into their homes for dinner with their families.

Finally, a grand total of three hours after I began this mess, my angel arrived in the form of an American girl from Georgia staying at a hostel up the street who spoke lovely French, and helped translate me for my sweet Flemish benefactors. Finally she realized what it was I was trying to do and broke back into English, "oh! EasyCruise! Two girls from my hostel were doing that... they found out that the boat had to skip Brussels and they took a train to meet it in Antwerp an hour ago!"


So, one VERY frustrated call to customer service later, I was on a train to Antwerp, thinking that all of my cares were left behind in those piles of cement. I even allowed myself a chocolate.

Of course, as it would turn out, I would wander around the Antwerp harbor for another two hours, in an equally abandoned state of frustrated confusion, rolling my poor bag over ANOTHER set of cobblestones. And to think, I used to think cobblestones were CHARMING! Never again. Did I mention that by this point the sun was setting?

It would take ANOTHER set of sweet old boatmen (Netherlandish, this time) and a German guy who lived on houseboat to physically walk me to this mysterious cruise (which up until the time I walked on board was ANYTHING but Easy) to actually find the blasted thing.

As I collapsed onto my cabin bed at 10 PM, (remember now I started this thing at 3) the last thing I remember thinking was, "well, this is gonna be one heck of a story."