Let This Be Consolation Steven, That All the While You Were in England, I Treated Her With Care and Respect

July 7, 2010

I have never been an early riser. Waking up for work at 7:30 a.m. was always painful to me, and while on vacation I generally consider any time I wake up before 9:00 a.m. to be pretty heroic. Thus, waking up at 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning was very, very unpleasant, especially considering my very late bedtime.

Given my tiredness, I remember little about the train ride. I listened to a lot of music on my iPod, I emailed with friends from work, I finished the Magicians, and I passed in and out of sleep throughout the day. Over the course of the 12+ hour journey to Zurich, I paid little attention to what was going out the window and interacted with none of my fellow travelers. In fact, my only memory of my fellow travelers were these two white guys across the aisle from me conversing in English, despite both had heavy accents revealing that neither spoke English as a native language. In my drowsy state, I was reminded of conversations between foreign villains in the movies, when the decision has been made to convey their foreignness through accented english rather than subtitles.

I had a 3.5 hour layover in Brussels, during which little was accomplished for the following reasons:

1. My facebook request for things to do there received many responses, mostly jokes, and some suggesting that I drink beer.

2. The train station locker only accepted euro coins as payment, and I had not yet changed my money, so had to spend time doing so.

3. I decided to eat at a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet guide which was much, much, further away from the train station than I had realized, I never found it and ended up eating somewhere else.

4. Where the staff did their best to ignore me despite my best efforts to get their attention.

I did manage to drink a delicious cherry beer and sugar crepe (the cheapest thing on the menu). I did not have time to go to the museum.

My brother Robert (who lives in Zurich) picked me up at the Zurich train station, took me to a Swiss restaurant for a sausage, hash browns and a beer, we went home, and I went to sleep.

* The Decemberists -- The Apology Song