- Details
- Written by Tom Snow
Friday, July 19, 2019. Suddenly the Train Hostel was way busier than it was the last few days. I may have been the only person there doing the Belgian Journey, but I was far from the only guest going to Tomorrowland. For the next three days the hostel would be full or close to it, and those others were apparently staying in bunks in large rooms full of them. I think I was the only one with a single room.
The bus left at noon and it took about 40 minutes to get to Boom. And the closer we got to Boom, the more I could see the high level of local support for Tomorrowland. As our shuttle buses approached every day, anyone could look around and see countless Tomorrowland flags hanging from the windows and balconies of almost every house and apartment building.
- Details
- Written by Tom Snow
Thursday, July 18, 2019...this was starting to feel like a routine now. Bus left at 10am. Of the three Belgian Journey cities, Antwerp (Dutch Antwerpen, French Anvers) was easily the closest so it didn't take as long as the last two.
- Details
- Written by Tom Snow
Wednesday, July 17, 2019. Today's bus wasn't leaving until 1pm, so with several hours to kill, I decided this would be a good morning to hit up the Atomium. I had totally missed this, and just about everything else in Brussels, the last time I rolled through which was last December. Getting there took awhile, though, because Belgium's S-train is not quite as user-friendly as Germany's S-Bahn. Unlike the S-train I rode to Schaerbeek two days earlier, the ones that were coming through on that morning were not marked in any way, and after taking a quick glance at the timetable, another quick glance at Google Maps, I quickly jumped aboard a train with a final destination south of the city, wrongly thinking it was going through Central and Midi stations. Nope! It was going south in a roundabout way, completely avoiding downtown. I had to hop off at the next stop, and ride another train to Bruxelles-Schuman, a little east of downtown, near some EU buildings.
- Details
- Written by Tom Snow
I woke up that morning feeling the dreaded after-effect of having had too much to drink the night before. And so I decided it would be a good idea to avoid alcohol that day.
Tuesday, July 16, 2019 was to be the first day of our Belgian Journey in which we would get to tour Bruges.
I got picked up at the hostel at 10am. The bus ride was painfully long, but fortunately was the longest of the trip since Bruges was the furthest destination from Brussels of all the cities we visited. First, it was just me and three Floridians I had met the night before. Then the double-decker bus stopped at a hotel downtown and filled up.
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