Walking in the world

They spoke Dutch when I got on the train and French when I got off, though the ads were always English.

Brussels North Station is next to the Red Light District and surrounded by neighborhoods of Middle Eastern immigrants, so you quickly go from women showing most of their skin to women showing none.

On the street I heard Turkish, Arabic, and Farsi, though I confess I cannot always tell the difference between the last two.

I started off walking but it was farther than I thought, and I was running by the time I found the embassy I needed, between those of Ghana and Lesotho.

Walking back, I heard Spanish, saw a note posted above a mailbox in Polish, and bought a piece of the tortilla-like flatbread I used to eat in Morocco, which I remember being called msemin, though I can google no confirmation of that.

As I ate, I passed a corner store called “Madina-gsm” (Americans: gsm is European for cell phone), which advertised calling cards to Kenya.

I stopped to take a picture of a blue door, and the names on the mailboxes were Azzaimi, Garcia, Deryckere, Ahmed El Kamoun, Boeckx, Tsuranova, and Baschirov.

Brussels gets a bad rap in my opinion (though I wouldn’t necessarily want to live there) but as I walked back to the train station with my visa for Myanmar in my passport, I was in love with the brazen internationality of it.

That’s a good sign, since I’ll catch a flight to Turkey in three days.