Travel log - Europe - Day 9

Day 9 - Berlin Christmas Eve or the The fall of the house of Ush.. Carol

(warning - longer post - rich in details)


This day was to be a special one. We woke up very early and commented on how excited we were about the day. It was cold as usual, we had breakfast and the place where they served the meals was a bit empty. So, without taking to long to prepare, we hit the road in order to get to the meeting point on time. We were hoping that despite being Christmas eve, the tourist places would be open and there would be walking tour.
As we arrived in front of the zoo station we met a guy, Jakob, who surprised us with a perfect English. Even native speakers (our friends from the US) asked him where in England he was from, and he told them: “I’m from a beautiful English city called Berlin”, so everybody laughed. When we arrived at the meeting point, we approached him, told him we would like to take the tour and paid him the price. With the Berlin card we had some discount, but I don’t remember how much it was. Anyway, nobody arrived and we went, just the three of us, to the second and last meeting point. We took the subway and talked all the way about our lives and everything. He was a very friendly and intelligent person, with a major in literature and history.
At the second meeting point, there were some people waiting, all of them couples: one from Sweden, one American and a nice lady and her husband directly from New Zealand. So, this small group set off to the main streets and building around the center of the city. We visited museums (but did not enter any, the objective was to identify the building, know a bit of its history and come back later if one wished). We walked for about 3 hours and the spotlights were the Reichtag and the Tor and the Monument to the Jews. (Pics below)








The funny thing about this tour was that Carol decided to let out the Japanese in her and she took more photos then than she had taken all the rest of the trip. OK, I might be overreacting a little but all the time I had to call her because people wanted to move on and she was left behind, looking for the proper angles and lighting. She felt a bit bad because she thought I was embarrassed she was holding people, but I was very amused for two reasons: it was too cold for me to want to take my hands out of my pockets and take pictures, if she did it, afterwards I would have a lot of photos with me in them. So I made a little scene, pretending to be annoyed but I was so having fun with my new friend photo freak.
So, we finished the tour by lunchtime and we were hungry. It finished in a square with a church and on the corner there as a chocolate store (http://www.fassbender-rausch.com/), huge and full of sculptures of chocolate. The most amazing one was a building with some hot chocolate fountain. We had a kind of pie, or sweet in a bakery. It was so funny because there were some sparrows inside the bakery which seemed to have been trained to be on the ground eating the crumbs.





Then, after eating something, we decided to go to the bus station to try to buy the tickets to Prague, our next destination. We arrived at the station and it was awful. The place was far from the center, but there was a subway station nearby. Few people spoke English and most of the ticket booths were closed. It was not so late, about 3pm, but no one could give us definite information about the buses. We met an American girl who said she could not find tickets and she would have to spend Christmas eve and Christmas there because she was trying to go to Prague to see her family but she was told no bus would leave in that holiday period. So we left, but with the information that there were two times we could take the bus to Prague: either 7:30am or 3pm. But the thing was we could not buy in advance, just at departure. Can you imagine what would happen if there was no place in the 7:30 one? With our big suitcases and all that snow we would not go very far. We would be stuck there to maybe get a bus in the afternoon. So, we decided to think about later.
Then, after all that walking we had to go back to the hostel, have a shower, relax a bit and get ready to our party. We were not going to the Russian one, but there was a bar which was offering a X-mas night. So we would go there.
As we left the subway, I was a bit tired and carol was rambling on something we had done or would do. Se was talking and talking and I was three steps ahead of her. Note that we had been walking in Europe for days and we saw many people falling. I played in Belgium that she was clumpsy so I would have my camera handy as to when she would fall. When a part of the sidewalk was slippery we would tell each other to be careful and I would have done so if it. But it wasn’t. Anyway, I heard her scream and when I turned in half a second, she was lying on the floor, bent over herself and saying it was hurting. My first movement was to try to raise her, but I was afraid of making things worse. There was a bar and I could more or less drag her to a chair. She asked for some ice while she tried to remove her sneaker and her sock. I got some snow and would give her so that she could put where it was swollen. She said the pain was incredible and I imagine it would be worse after the adrenaline of the moment went low. Some people saw that and asked if they could help, but there was nothing they could do. Again, the so-called cold German people were displaying a kindness to break with any stereotype.
Anyway, we needed a taxi because she felt she would not be able to walk the 5 minutes to get to the hostel. We knew the way, but no taxi appeared, it’s always like that when you need one. But soon a taxi stopped and I put her in the back seat and I sat in the front. The driver asked for the directions but of course I had no idea what the name of the street was. I had it written but the paper was... in the hostel. So I started describing the place to him and how to get there on foot so he got there very fast. In fact, I wanted to take her to a hospital, but there was a problem: before leaving Brazil, we had done an insurance covering health and baggage. I had done it the other time I travelled but it was not necessary so I thought it was worth what I had paid. I imagined I would give the person my location and she would tell me how to get to the nearest hospital of my area, which they had a partnership. So we arrived at the hostel, I sat Carol in the lounge sofa at the reception desk and went upstairs to get the insurance number. It was about 5pm. It seemed things could not get any worse.
After a contact with the company the girl asked me to tell her all the details of what had happened. So she said she would be in contact with their office in Germany which was in Munich. And she would call us back in at most 40 minutes to give the instructions.
Well, I waited and Carol was in great pain. We had brought several types of medicine but none for pain. Headache yes, stomachache for sure, but no pain killer. I tried to sing with her, talk, interview, write, do whatever I could to entertain her and take her mind off the pain. In vain. Almost one hour going by and no contact from the insurance. So I called them again in order to impress a more urgent tone. The woman said they were waiting for the contact with their office and she was going to try a direct connection. She didn’t do that, but said in 20 minutes they would be calling us. Another half an hour, almost 7pm and they called and told the reception guy they would be sending a doctor to the hostel. Excuse me? Sending a doctor here? We were sure she had broken something but how could he tell if he had no way to perform an X-ray at the hostel lounge. Maybe, as we were in the first world, they would have access to some technology of portable X-ray, so we tried to imagine what that meant. Some minutes later the guy from the reception tells us the doctor called and he said he was behind schedule so he would get there by 9pm. It was a quarter past seven. Carol got desperate, angry. She had no way to move and she started feeling like going to the toilet which was across the hall, but even the attempt of trying to stand was so painful she could do nothing but cry. I decided to ask for information on where I could find an open drugstore. The guy smiled at my naïvité there would be any open at that time of that day. But I could not stand being there just sitting and waiting and doing nothing. It was snowing heavily but anyway I started walking around looking for a place to buy a pain killer. There was a hospital near the hostel so I tried there but people thought I was crazy, they would never sell drugs without prescription and I headed back with my hand empty.
The doctor had arrived by then. He examined her and gave an injection to cut off the pain. Then, he told us in a poor English we would have to go to a hospital. No kidding. We knew that hours and hours before. Which hospital is covered by the insurance? He called them and he told us we could go to anyone, pay for it and then the insurance would refund us. Super again! So, there was a hospital but it was 200 meters from the hostel. The one I had tried to buy drugs from. So I went back there and tried to borrow a wheel chair. They were suspicious and did not want to lend me one, so I left my passport as a guarantee and then headed for the hostel in order to pick her. The pain had decreased a bit and she hopped till the toilet (she was in need, remember?) and after to the chair and there we went toward the hospital. The sidewalks were full of snow, it was still snowing and the wheels were not turning, they were sliding. I had to make some extra effort to pull her and hold the chair so that it would not turn over. I had to use my arms to pull and to keep it steady. It took me 10 minutes to go the same way I had gone in 2 minutes with the empty chair. We got to the hospital and I was sweaty and breathless. The hospital was pretty empty. The doctor was very kind to us and was doing his best so that we wouldn’t spend that much money. We kept chatting how cute he was and so was the X-ray guy. Something nice we had to have out of that situation. They confirmed there was nothing broken, but she had probably ruptured her ankle ligaments. No walking for one month at least. Hey. It was the rest of the trip. No hard activities in 3 months. Well, they made some immobilizing and she got some (very expensive) crutches.



We went back to the hostel, and it was about 10 to midnight. We hugged and wished each other a merry Christmas. We surfed the net a bit and decided to go upstairs to try to get some sleep. The next day we would think about what to do.

Caladinho

Eu queria participar, sabe?
Assim, dar a resposta.
baixa a cabeça
Assim, falar uma frase legal.
quanta bobagem
Assim, conversar até as duas da manhã.
quanta besteira

A boca não obedece o resto e os lábios não se movem
na garganta uma enxurrada fica presa, faz pressão
pigarreio

Tenta te convidar pra sair
Tenta dizer a coisa certa
Na hora certa
Tenta simplesmente falar o que vem na mente.
Sofre porque não consegue contar aquela história
sabe aquela?

(Interlúdio)

Você não acha que fala demais?
Você fala demais.
Fofoca, né? Você, queridinha, é perigosa.

(volta pra casa)
A voz sai rouca, sai meio coitadinha
mas ela se faz ouvir.
respondem
lindamente.
E pensar que era tão fácil.

Afinal, o universo fala através de mim.
Através
de todos
nós.

Travel log - Europe - Day 8

Day 8 - Berlin

So, the breakfast in the hostel was remarkable. It was full of options and appealing to many tastes. It is really a place to recommend. The attendants were helpful, the place is clean and nicely decorated. Unlike the other posts, I will try to be more accurate in this one and I will create links to make it easier for however is reading this willing to go there and check out for themselves. So here it goes: Berlin international Hostel.
According to what we had planned, we would have a busy and long day. the first thing we were about to do was to try the guided walking tour around the city. It would give us more ideas on where to go. We just had to get to the meeting place on time. But of course we were late and got lost. On the subway, we started asking for information and we made a friend. A guy kept talking to us and asking us questions about where we came from and all. Very friendly. His name was Peter. We asked him if he had any suggestion of places to go as the next night it would be Christmas. He mentioned a Russian party. Can you imagine how exotic to be in a Russian party in Berlin? We felt compelled to try his idea as soon as we could find information about it on the net.
So, the clock was ticking and the station near the zoo would never come. We expected they would be there waiting for us, as we arrived 20 minutes later than we should have. But there was nobody there, nor any stall. It was just us, the cold and the passers-by. But the art of the tourist,at least of the late tourists, is improvising. We looked around and realized we were just near some places to visit, so all that journey to that part of the city had not been in vain.
The first place we visited was the Sex museum, or the Erotik Museum. As you enter, you see only a sex shop, but you go to the cashier and get a ticket. As I was reading some reviews, something people complained and we also thought that the fee was a bit higher than the other museums. I had been to the Sex Museum in Paris in my last visit. Although it was quite an interesting visit, I wrote nothing relevant about my impressions then. This makes me wonder how much I have been improving my reporting abilities as I write this new set of memories and experiences. Anyway, we had to pay, get into an elevator and work our way down the floors of exhibitions. The top floor (why does it seem I am full of innuendos here?) was very modern and interactive. You could try to find the G-spot in some statues which would start moaning out of pleasure. Carol had some problems, but I taught her just where to put the finger. Another very interesting and interactive spot was the humping statues. You should dry hump them and it would activate a scale. I didn’t try, although there were not many people around. I am a bit shy, you know?



The rest of the floors were full of paintings, drawings and objects (according to the reviews, all copies) related to the ars erotica, as the Romans would say. We had a lot of fun, taking pictures and just inventing some funny things about those pieces of art.
After leaving the museum, we decided to head for the zoo. It was just around the corner. It was not so cheap either, so we entered and started walking and walking around. But all the cages were empty. We guessed all the animals were inside, hibernating and maybe coming outside eventually to see those stupid tourists freezing to death. Then, the discovery came. There were big buildings, they were the places we should enter because most of the animals were, with the few exceptions of those which could endure the outdoor weather.
But the thing of entering a closed space, smaller then the cages and heated was that 1) the animals looked more imprisoned than usual, 2) the smell was just too strong for one to bear for a long time. Each building, each animal, a different stink. Imagine when we entered the one with those boars and wild pigs. All in all, the tour there was very nice. My friends agree:



What we did next was to visit the aquarium which was inside the zoo. It was not so small and we had to go here and there, and talking in Portuguese we soon ran into a Brazilian guy taking pictures, who talked to us. We had seen some girls talking in Portuguese but we kept quiet then. No contact. As we left the aquarium, we remembered we were human being, and as so, we needed to put something in, in order to continue. It was getting dark so it was about 4 pm. We saw a KFC and that just seemed to be the place for two starved people. We asked a combo each, and there was chicken there to feed 5 people. And we went from starved to roll me out of here, please. And with the greasy hands, eating like two ogres, one of the cutest guys in Berlin decide to sit in our table. He was quite busy eating and we just lost the appetite just till the moment he left. We must have spent one hour in our meal. I wanted to start shooting everything to have a picture of the guy, but my hands were too impregnated with grease for me to attempt anything with my camera.

After doing all these, half of what we had planned, as usual, we headed to the hostel. On the way, we found a Christmas fair with handicraft and candies. We had some hot wine, and bought one candy which was a ball of different colors and resembled a huge donut. But there was no hole in it, it was just a sphere. Carol was afraid of being so heterodox that she bought the chocolate one, the others had names in German we had no idea what they meant. Also, she bought some pistachio in a stall with many types of nuts. Well, can you believe after so much chicken we still had some space left for sweets? We didn’t, but there we were gobbling those treats.
**
As we returned to the base and took a shower, I went online in order to find a place we could go while Carol was taking a shower. I had already prepared to go for a bar or another place, dressed to kill. As I went upstairs to tell her the options, she was in her pyjamas and told me she was too tired to go out. I couldn’t believe it. It’s forbidden, if you check the good tourist manual, to feel tired. Feel tired at home, not here. But she went on unconvinced and I didn’t feel like going out by myself. (Had I known what was about to happen...). In no time I was in my pyjamas, turning off the lights.

Travel log - Europe - Day 7

Day 7 - Berlin

Waking up very early we had no time to eat anything, we set off straight to the airport. In fact, we had time to grab some bananas. Louis took us to the airport, but he didn’t enter. It was so weird because all the goodbyes we had planned failed. He just hurriedly kissed us goodbye in the airport parking lot and as we were running late, we just parted there, as if we were meeting the next week, for our French classes.
The airport was not a welcoming place, like it never is. We had too much in our bags, more than the flight company of those low-cost flights accept. So we had to open the suitcases in the middle of the lounge and try to put some thing in the already full handbags. We considered abandoning something there, giving it to whoever wanted, but it was not necessary. We still had the security check to go through. And we were late. A guy approached us as we were almost finishing checking in. He said his aunt did not speak any French or English, and she needed some help to get to the gate. So, there we were with a new friend who could not speak any language we knew and anyway maintained some mimics conversation with Carol. We almost went to the wrong side once, lost a sheet, but we made it to the gate. When we got there, sweating under those jackets we saw that the flight was late. One hour. So we just sat there, pissed off, but happy that we had not missed the plane. Of course we didn’t see anything during the trip. We were so tired of the few hours’ sleep plus the running around the airport we dozed off as soon as we boarded.
As we arrived in Berlin, we got some information from the desk at the airport. It didn’t seem so difficult to get to the hostel. We also bought some tickets and info books. We preferred to buy those tickets for 3 days. But nothing is too easy when Murphy is at work. The sidewalks were full of snow, what made it difficult to pull our bags. The wheels would not turn, they were not snow wheels. We had some help to climb some stairs, which from the start showed us the Germans were a nice people. As we arrived at the bus stop, we asked a blond girl if she could confirm if that was the right place. She confirmed. We waited for the bus and it was really cold. The bus took some 15 minutes to come, and we hopped in. It was crowded and people were not so pleased to see us with those big suitcases. As we stopped, I wanted to confirm we were in the right direction. A guy with a baby told us we were going in the wrong direction. We cursed the blond girl, she had deceived us. We damned her 7 next generations. We got off the bus, crossed the street and still cursing her, we found the other bus. Still suspicious, we asked a couple that was passing by. The girl told us we were in the wrong direction, which meant the blond girl was right and the man with the baby was the one who got us wrong. So, we stopped hating the first girl and started thinking some hellish punishment for the man. Ten minutes or so later, we were half fronzen and our arms in pain for carrying all those kilos, we finally got off where we were supposed to. And we arrived at the hostel. The place was wonderful. People were friendly and helpful. The place was clean and cozy. And we had paid for dorms but they were not so full so they offered us the double rooms for the same price of the dorms (the double rooms are normally more expensive). So we had a room only for us and this view out of the window.



As we arrived there, I noticed I had lost the ticket of almost 30 euros and I would have to buy a new one to take buses and subways. I had one cheap ticket for the last day and the other for the first 3 and of course I would lose the most expensive one.
It was almost dark, not so late, but it would get dark soon. Anyway, we dropped our things and decided to go out for some food, a decent meal to make up for the breakfast, lunch and dinner we hadn’t had that day.
We found a Turkish cafeteria/bar. We ordered some falafels, because Carol had already had them here. I only knew kebabs. She said they were different from whatever she had eaten in Brazil and I asked it “hot”, but it was really hotter than I expected.



So, there we were, a new city full of possibilities and we were eager to unravel its mysteries. What did we do? Well, it had been a straining day. The best thing we could do was to lie down and take a nap in order to have energy to do anything else. I should call it the arriving nap. After having done that, we got our newly acquired booklets with info about the city of Berlin and we started checking if the plannings about where we were going on the following days should be stick or not.

Teoria da Ponte, ou hipótese da ponte

Conversando com um novo possível amigo, ele falava que todas as relações - o foco da conversa eram os relacionamentos amorosos e de amizade - terminam de alguma forma frustrante. Ele pedia para que os presentes dessem exemplos de pessoas que eles conheciam desde a infância e que ainda estavam ali, ao lado da pessoa. Ou foi algo assim. Não vou lembrar das palavras exatas dele, mas o tom resignado dele me fez pensar sobre aquilo nos dias que se seguiram.

Eu sempre fui defensor da hipótese de que as coisas podem sempre dar certo, de que se você investe energia, tempo, arranja um tempo na agenda super cheia e tal, qualquer relação pode se manter, já que os dois lados obtêm algum tipo de satisfação ou realização.

O problema é que eu também sou adepto do mutatis mutandis. Acho que "tudo está na natureza e em movimento", como diria a Joana n'"A gota d'água". E esse movimento faz com que tudo vá mudando: nossos gostos já não são os mesmos, nossos padrões de julgamento, nossos sonhos. E com a velocidade com que as coisas estão acontecendo hoje em dia, mal a gente consegue acompanhar o passo das nossas mudanças. quantas vezes você não se olhou no espelho e não se reconheceu? Olhou pra dentro e falou, meio assustado, "Meu, quem é você?". Mas a gente tá ocupado e mal se pergunta isso, de forma verdadeira, querendo saber a resposta de fato. (Medo, né?)

Daí,lembrei da teoria da ponte. Já falei dela em outro post. Ali eu falei que alguém tinha me falado da teoria, mas na verdade acho que gostei tanto que prefiro dizer que é minha hoje. Como ele não vai se opor a mim nem aqui e nem em lugar nenhum, eu sinto que posso.

A tal da teoria se diferencia um pouco de outra com o mesmo nome. Talvez seja melhor eu chamar a minha de hipótese da ponte. Fica meio pseudo-científico, mas evita confusão pra quem for googlar a palavra.

Sem muito mais rodeio, explico o cerne da minha hipótese: todas as pessoas são mais pontes do que portos seguros. Como assim? A gente conhece alguém, ela mostra algo pra gente, algo sobre eles, sobre nós mesmos, nos leva a outros lugares, lugares nunca antes imaginados, nunca antes adentrados, ou nos levam a lugares onde sempre estivemos, mas olham pra eles com olhos diferentes. Até aqui, tudo lindo. Isso é a amizade, o amor, não? Pois bem, o que acontece é que uma ponte serve pra gente cruzar um certo espaço, água ou terra, por onde a gente não poderia passar sem ela. E de repente, a ponte acaba. A gente chegou ali do outro lado.

O que fazer? Abandonar a ponte? Ela foi tão importante pra fazer você chegar ali do outro lado, ela foi tão carinhosa, tão paciente. Ela já sabe de todos os seus problemas, de todos os seus defeitos e te aceitou mesmo assim.

Mas ela é ponte. A caminhada continua do outro lado. E assim deveriam ser as pessoas. Tem gente que é pinguela, tem gente que é a Ponte do lago Pontchartrain.Não dá pra saber logo de início. Afinal, a gente muda e a ponte muda.

Assim, quando uma pessoa passa, assim como a ponte termina, como eu posso ficar frustrado, aborrecido que ela passou? Vai deixar saudade? Certeza. Vai ser diferente das outras pontas todas, única? Sem dúvida. Mas olhando a sua volta, tantas outras pontes no horizonte.

Isso significa que se deve amar menos cada ponte, caminhar mais rápido de ponte em ponte? Não. Significa que a própria efemeridade de caminhar por sobre ela, sabendo que ela chega do outro lado, que ela tem um fim, é exatamente isso que faz com que você a ame mais (pelo menos em teoria).

Então, não, querido. As amizades e as relações amorosas nunca terminam de forma frustrante porque elas terminam. Afinal, você nunca está no mesmo lugar em que estava antes ao cruzar a ponte, nem ela é a mesma depois dos seus passos. E a caminhada em direção ao horizonte continua.

Travel log - Europe - Day 6

Day 6 - Bruges

So this was our last of Belgium. Again, we would travel and Louis would stay home. But it was some practice for the rest of the trip, as we would then be on our own. We woke up early and had breakfast. He took us to the station and this time we bought the right (though not so cheap) ticket to Bruges.
We boarded and now we would not mistake the station. However, do you know when you think you are in the wrong place, but you cannot be really sure until someone comes and tells you that? So, we got on the train in the first class and, of course, our tickets were second. It was not deliberate, but the guy gently told us off and we headed for the place we belonged.
As soon as we arrived in the city, we bought a map and asked for some nice places to go. I guess after our experience in Antwerpen, Louis had decided not to do the planning with us (as we did only 3/11 of what he had planned). We started walking toward the city center and we fell in love with it just then. The weather was not so good, it was cold and wet, it snowed a bit, sometimes it looked like a drizzle. Later, when it was getting dark it also got foggy. It gave the city an atmosphere and we just loved it even more.
The streets were narrow and the buildings were short and made of apparent bricks. There were small bridges and canals. We visited one monastery and it was funny because there was a church there and it was empty. So even tough there was a sign of no pictures, Carol could take one. She told me, no one saw me anyway. I answered: God is watching. We laughed out loud. But she stopped with the pictures. And she is not even that religious.



After some walking more, we got hungry and we started the process of choosing a place to go. There were a bunch of small restaurants, and one nice thing we have there is the menu by the door so we could check the prices before entering. We selected one which was fancy but not expensive (most of them were like that). So we chose our dishes. I had some wine with mine but Carol didn’t because she thought some orange juice would come along with her dish. But in fact it was the dessert that was orange whatever... a kind of pudding. As the magnanimous person that I am, we shared my wine (OK, as Carol remembers it, she only had a drop of it). I ordered some chicken with a strange sauce. It had a lot of bones, which I don’t like so much. I thought it was fillet or a steak. Carol preferred beef, but the meat was hard and dry, in spite of the sauce. So the lunch was not a top one, but we had fun and it was a moment to get warm.



After that, we headed for some museums. The day was getting dark. We saw some stores, bought some chocolate and got to the museum of chocolate just 15 minutes before closing, so the guy didn’t let us in. We went to a museum which we knew would close later and although it was a bit expensive (10 euros), we had a lot of fun in the Museum of Salvador Dali.



Then we got to the main square and there was a street market there. Besides, there was a ice-skating place, and I told Carol I wanted to go. She told me she was not into it, but I childishly insisted, so I was going and she would stay outside taking pictures and all. I discovered it was very cheap to stay there for 1 hour. And that’s what I did. I put on the skates, and I didn’t bind them correctly. It was easy when they were a bit loose, but someone told me I could have an accident and I went for help in order to tighten the boots. After that, things got a bit rougher and they were removing the snow on the ice so I got more slippery. But the thing is it was my first time ice-skating (here in Sao Paulo you can find places to ice-skate indoors, but I had never had the opportunity of trying it) and I didn’t fall even once. I nearly did several times, but I managed to maintain my balance and avoid the fall. Meanwhile, Carol went for some shopping. She found a FNAC and she was paying 0,40 without complaining. But I guess she had what she wanted without having to pay (later, in the train station, the toilets were closed after 7pm, to our astonishment, and the restaurant inside there was charging double fee - that’s capitalism - but when we got out nobody was there to charge.) One interesting thing that happened is that I was wearing borrowed shoes and as soon as I left Belgium I would have to return them. So in Bruges, we found some shoe stores. I was going through some boots for snow and the saleswoman was very kind and gave me some options. When she discovered we were Brazilians, she got extra nice asking questions and the first one was ‘what are you doing here in such a cold weather if you have all the sun and hot back home?’ Well, my sweet lady, I wondered the same thing several times later. And she kept our shoes while we walked a bit more, so that we wouldn’t have to carry them around.
***
The way back was fine. A group of girls sittten across the aisle and who were probably American had to pay an extra charge of 50 euros each because they had the wrong tickets with them. Ours were correct so we just had to feel sorry for them.
When we got home we had dinner, and there were, among other things, reindeer meatballs. I had already tasted it, but Carol was not so comfortable tasting it, but she, as the real adventurer she is, did it without a frown.
We said goodbye to everyone as we would wake up at a not very humane hour to get to the airport (who had bought the tickets for so early a flight?). It was the time to give the gifts we had brought to everyone. We were not very sure on what to take and we took some simple things, we should have been more sophisticated, but we had no idea about anyone of them, so it was fair enough. The last memories we had there was Louis going upstairs with us and talking and talking like we used to do in Brazil, about the future, about the expectations of the rest of the trip. It was so nice. Packing and packing and of course I forgot my sneakers there.

Travel log - Europe - Day 5

Day 5 Namur and Louvain

We woke up and I realized something curious during breakfast. The other days there was one thing I could not identify bothering me during this meal and when i saw what there was to eat I finally understood: the previous breakfasts had no salted ingredients. They normally have sweet breads and cookies with jams and chocolate. And for me if there is no rotisserie, there is no breakfast. Cheese, ham, salted butter are a must. I don’t know if this is something Brazilian, but I got so happy to have bread with ham and cheese.
So, we got in the car and set off for a different city which would be our destination: Namur. It is a city not so far from Brussels again, but different from the others, it was in the French-speaking part of Belgium. However, the city itself was not our final destination. We had to pick up our friend’s girlfriend, somewhere near the city and we would have lunch with his grandmother.
Besides his girlfriend, his brother was going with us. It was a sweet surprise to discover he was not what we imagined. By what Louis had told us in Brazil, we had an image of his brother as a too serious person, a kind of suit-and-tie yuppy, who would barely talk to us. But he was so nice and talked about everything. After that day, we felt sad we didn’t have more time to spend with him.
So the first place we went to was a fortress from where we could see the whole town. The snow was high and it gave us ideas and we started playing with it but Louis - with his 13-year-old spirit made poor Sara almost roll in the snow and she got really wet.




We got to grandma’s house and the house was very interesting - old architecture, a lot of pictures and small details, it seemed we had entered another century. She was a very sweet old lady, she even resembled a little Queen Elizabeth. And there were a lot of rituals we had to follow, she told us where each should sit when we got to the table and some people were lucky to eat watching the river just outside the window.



Carol and I were not the lucky ones, as we sat back to the windows. Something interesting was that whatever was served there was grown in their gardens and the meat had been hunted. It was the first time I tasted pheasant. During lunch there was a funny moment because they were talking about history and they asked me to tell them in French some details about D. Pedro II. I had no idea because it had been more than 10 years I had studied and read about Brazilian Imperial history. After lunch, we went to the living room and not even the coffee they served helped Carol not doze off while they were going on and on in French.
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After leaving Namur, we set off to another city on the way back to Brussels. It was a special place beacuse it was the city where our friends study. It’s called Louvain la neuve.



It was built in the 70s after a kind of dissent that teh French speaking people wanted to have classes in French but the university is in a Dutch speaking place so these Franco-Belgians went for it and had their own university city. It was quite different from a university city, but it was just lovely. The buildings were low and the apartments seemed small but cozy. We tried to visit a museum that there is there - a comics museum - but it was closed. There were some stores, we spent some time in a comics store. We also got to know the library of Engineering and Math. It was getting colder and colder so we decided to go home. We were invited to a party by one of Sara’s friends and it would be in a bar. Carol was not in the mood of going and I wanted to stay and talk more to Felix, but we felt it would be very impolite of us not to go. we had some hours for showering and resting. And it was time for another movie. This time it was Corpse Bride - but again, it was never completely watched in the middle of it we had to stop because it was time to go. So we went. When we got there, it was a bar where there was a conveyor belt which would continuously keep bringing dishes. There was a big menu with color codes on the wall and you would check out the dish you want, just grab it out of the belt and remove the plastic transparent lid and have fun eating it. After some time we were told we should pay by each dish we had. I learned that the bad way. But, at the end, they had some kind of discount and we paid less than we were supposed to. There were some interesting people that night but most of them were not into talking to us, so we were having fun ourselves. One of the guys was really messy and did a lot of stupid things, we didn’t know if he was just a jerk or if he was trying to get the attention. Afterwards, we walked a bit and ended up in a bar with some of the people who were there with us. I had a chance to have a different type of beer which came in a quite exotic glass.




And I talked to Sara in French for about half an hour. Quite challenging. Carol had stuck to English and she made some new friends as we sat far from each other. She would only speak non-stop French as soon as we set foot in Berlin, but this is another story. We still would have our last day of Belgium. And what a day.