Terrible Belgian Weather: 1. Me: Negative 10

Or: How I Learned to be Soaking Wet and Like It
Mons, Belgium

Please do not insert innuendo into the above (which in and of itself is an innuendo, and now I am screwed.)

The first 3 days here in Belgium were spectacular. The weather held marvelously, producing hot-pink sunsets & warm breezes, & for the first time since leaving Krakow, the sun soaked through my black fleece so that I was forced to remove it, & walk around in a t-shirt. It was not to last. For the better part of the first day, I rode a borrowed bicycle down side roads to emerge at SHAPE-the headquarters for all allied personnel in Europe, a daunting concept, even more so when one considers the events leading to its creation. (Here, of course, is what's amazed me regularly since arriving in Europe: that all of this could be built back up from rubble & ash, that it had to be in the first place...)

It started to rain after the 3rd day (sounds like the Bible, eh?). This wasn't any rain. This was driving, pelting, cold fucking rain. The driving & pelting were helped along by a brisk wind. I attempted time & time again to venture out into the countryside, camera protectively slung under one arm.

Pastoralism has its own appeal, an appeal that comes from piles of corncobs & sugar beets & white potatoes heaped carefully by the roadside, waiting for transport. From a flock of big, orange-billed, honking geese, curly tails wagging under a stand of lemon trees, green grass under webbed yellow feet. From houses & barns & streets made solely of brick, crumbling away slowly under your feet: this contribution to both the life of the town & to you, since the brick is polished smoother by your walking, & the residue of it comes home with you, to be preserved in the soles of your shoes. This is where I'm staying in Belgium: outside town, and I walk down the back roads from cluster of houses to sprawling field to duck yard, nowhere in particular in mind. Then again, to be particular is not a habit one forms while backpacking alone around a foreign country.

Two days into the trip, I'm already restless, having completely unpacked my ugly blue packframe, laying clothes out in folded, nice piles, doing laundry, showering in my own bathroom with fluffy rose-pink towels. My host mom & dad have dinner on the table every night, a fireplace that roars (though for the life of me I can't get it to light after fewer than 6 tries). Every night we sit around the table & chat about our days, what we'll do tomorrow, gossip from home (the States). My feet are stretching under the covers at night, accustomed now to 5 or 6 hours per day of walking nowhere in particular. I elect to take the bus into Mons to do errands for my host mom, who needs some things from a specific store. She describes it, and gives me directions, and says she knows for sure there's a big yellow plastic button on the door handle. It seems fairly self-explanatory. Instead, I march resolutely up and down the streets of Mons for hours, searching. In the Singer Sewing Machine Parts Store, I finally give up and ask the shopkeeper if he thinks it still exists.
La Vitresse, c'est fermer, n'est pas?"
Non, c'est impossible. La Vitresse est ici, a cote de la fontagne.

Fuck. I've already passed the damn fountain 5 times, and I know it's not there. In frustration, I march in the opposite direction, in complete ignorance of what might this way lie. Suddenly, I'm outside the square, and everything is quiet, but I spy a pub with the ubiquitous Leffe beer sign above its entrance. A glass of wine sounds amazing. It is 2 PM.

As soon as I open the door, I know this is my kind of place. Small, out of the way. The proprietor wears a long white beard & John Lennon glasses. There's a little old lady with a newspaper & a cup of tea sitting at the bar, a couple of disheveled men smoking cigarettes in the corner. My bad French isn't so bad that I can't order un vin rouge, s'il vous plait, which costs me 1.90 Euro, a fucking bargain, if you ask me. All along the windows are cards. I peer curiously at one as I sit down; they're info cards for Free Trade & Organics, explaining that 25% of the profits from specific products purchased here will go to OxFam. I wonder if my wine is one of them. Something French is blasting on the radio, and I understand approximately .0025 of the lyrics, but I love it, with its light-sounding guitar & rock n' roll rhythm. I pull up a chair in the back, next to the huge chalkboard displaying the menu, & yank T.S. Eliot out of my backpack. I take a sip of the wine: for 1.90 Euro, it's impressively rich & full of the taste of pepper & plums.

Outside, it's starting to darken, the clouds coming in yet again. I know it will rain as soon as I leave this place. That's just the way my luck is with weather around here. The kindly bar owner brings over a coaster & nods. He, like everyone else here, seems to know a tourist when they see one, but they don't let on. Finishing good old T.S.'s "Ariel Poems", less certain than ever whether I like that venerable old poet at all, I throw on all my gear, pack everything up & step out. Prophesy fulfilled (too much Tiresias in the last hour??): it immediately starts to fucking pour. Awesome.

I've got another 10 minute walk to the bus station. In this 10 minutes, I meander, hatless, through crowds of Belgians returning from, or going to, work. Sensibly, they have umbrellas, plastic ponchos, shopping bags wrapped around their purses. Rain is absolutely streaming down my face, my hair is soaked, & my pant-legs are becoming heavy with water. Yet, as I walk, I'm passing cathedrals & the famous Belfry of Mons. There are pubs & shops with their windows lit up, some blaring American hip-hop, others filtering just voices & the clank of glasses out the door. The Christmas decorations are up, every street strung overhead with tiny white lights. Webs of them illuminate what's below just as much as what's above: the bustle of all of us on the cobbles underneath, & up over our heads, the arches & statues & carved stones of the churches. From the numerous patisseries & brasseries comes the mingled scent of pain au chocolat, gaufres, poulet au roti & everything is somehow commonplace & rich all at the same time.

I finally reach the bus stop to find that the #15 to SHAPE won't arrive for another 20 minutes. It's a bit cold, & I can feel the chill in my legs & hands. I huddle up on a bench, & an elderly Belgian woman arrives to sit next to me. She's petite & demure-looking, dressed stylishly in a long skirt & flat black shoes, even in this rain. As she puts her packages down, she drops her umbrella. I stoop to pick it up, & hand it to her. C'est ta parapluie, madame. She hooks the offending contraption over her arm & smiles at me, pats my arm a couple of times.

Ahh, merci beaucoup, mademoiselle. Tu est tres gentile, tres gentile.

You're so kind, so kind. A thanks is ever & always a warm draught, no matter the weather. We can barely communicate, since I struggle still to reply quickly to rapidly-spoken French, but we sit amiably together on the bench, & she turns to me again, smiles, & mimes a shiver: C'est tres froid au'jourd-hui! Pas mal. I do the same. In front of us, part of the Christmas carnival looms: rides blaring more hip-hop music as they sweep children above & past us, the cotton-candy vendor, game stands hung with purple & gold & blue stuffed animals & balloons, & the woman's arm against my shoulder (for we are squeezed onto the small bench with her packages between us) is warm. I'm still soaking wet, but the free-trade wine I drank warms my belly still, as does the casual salute the old bartender threw my way as I left, & this is how I got soaking wet & learned to love it, while the buses carry us all back home & the evening wears on in its own way.