Welcome to the second day of my solo backpacking Europe exploration. Today, we will be traveling to the capital of European Union, Brussels, which is in Belgium.
When I was planning for places to see in Europe, Brussels was not on my list, because, frankly, I hadn’t heard about the city of Brussels and wasn’t interested in visiting Belgium. But, when I took a closer look at the European map, I saw that it was on my way from Amsterdam to Paris. As I was going to travel from Amsterdam to Paris, it made sense to explore Brussels as well, and I added it to my itinerary.
I had booked an AirBnb near important places that I wanted to visit in Brussels and got a good deal too. I had a few places in my mind during my research of the city and I had planned all these places very meticulously and also made sure that I download the Google Maps, so that I don’t have a hard time finding these locations. There was just one problem – I hadn’t planned how I was going to get from Amsterdam to Brussels.
You see, having after lived in the US for more than 3 years now, I was accustomed to rent a car or take an Uber when going from one place to another and I thought it would be applicable to Europe too, but, boy, I was wrong. When I got ready to leave for Brussels, I got to the nearby car rental agency and asked for a car to get from Amsterdam to Brussels. This was the moment of realization for me when I learnt how different Europe is from the US. The car rental guy told me that it was hard to get rental cars at the last moment and I would need to cough up some extra money if I needed one, also, he didn’t have cars with automatic transmission, so if I were to rent a car, it would be a manual one. Having driven *only* automatic cars all my life, I didn’t want to take the risk and dropped the idea of driving from Amsterdam to Brussels.
The next option that came to my mind was to take a train. This was my second moment of realization of the differences between Europe and the US. In the US, there is a chance of getting a last minute ticket at a reasonable price between the destinations of your choice, which was not the case in Europe. When I walked to the counter and asked for the ticket, he told me that it would be more than £100 just to get from Amsterdam to Brussels. I was shocked to learn this and then the kind person at the counter helped me explain that if I would have booked it a couple months in advance, it would have cost me less than £30. That’s when I realized as far as the travel reservations are concerned, Europe aligns more with India than the US. It was a hard pill to swallow for me. I knew I had a limited budget for the trip and I didn’t want to throw it away just on a train ticket, but, my mind wasn’t working during this time and I ended up booking a one-way ticket from Amsterdam to Brussels. It still bugs me today.
Anyway, as soon as I got the ticket, I started heading to the correct platform at Amsterdam Centraal station. I was on my way to Brussels within minutes.
I simply fell in love with the European trains. They were so spacious, clean, and welcoming. I hadn’t had the pleasure of traveling in such first-world trains in a long time, so I was enjoying myself. During this journey, I enjoyed the views from the window for some time and then I got bored as it was going to be a couple hours’ journey. I took out my iPad and put on some episodes of Breaking Bad. I had been a huge Breaking Bad fan at this moment and couldn’t resist watching it whenever I felt low. I was glad the journey didn’t feel that long as soon as I put it on.
I reached Brussels in a couple hours and by that time, I had started raining in the city. If I knew that, I would have gotten an umbrella, but, it was too late, and I really wanted to get to my AirBnb so that I can take some rest before heading out exploring the city. The route from the Brussels station to the AirBnb was filled with many picturesque places and I couldn’t resist clicking many pictures of various things and places.
After seeking some help from my host, I got to my AirBnb and got freshen up. It turned out to be better than the pictures. I rested for a few minutes and then quickly got ready to explore the city and have some food. My AirBnb was located in a little busy area, so, it wasn’t hard to find a quick bite. I ordered a sandwich to go and munched on it while exploring the city.
The city of Brussels came across as not that happening as compared to Amsterdam. Maybe, it was because I was exploring it on a rainy day, but the initial reaction was that I was having more fun in Amsterdam than here. I had a long list of places that I wanted to visit, and there was Google Maps to help me out to walk from one place to another.
So far, I haven’t had much fun at Brussels but fortunately, that is about to change, but, you will be able to read about in the second part of this post, so, stay tuned!
Next stop: Brussels, Belgium (Part 2)
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