pyrotechnics

Misreading the clock, Elvo arrived an hour early, and I managed to incorporate the inability of Americans to navigate non-gridded one-way Belgian streets into our chat. Why I then insisted on directing him from my map when GPS went kaputt remains a cringeworthy question. Any sane Belgian follows the ring instead of doing a kamikaze straight through town, but I guided us past le Parc de Bruxelles and through the Jardin Botanique tunnel thrice. (My underhanded way of accomplishing some sightseeing.) I then proceeded to mistake lifeless l'Avenue du Boulevard for insane Anspach. Good grief! I would have been at my wit's end driving, but he kept his cool, pulling Belgian driving manuevers out of wrong way streets like a pro. Those R/C racing skills must have kicked in.

Finding my poor buddies warming their freezing selves at the Irish pub, we hiked to our intended middle eastern restaurant to be confronted by a sixty-euro set menu (belly dancer included). Same story everywhere (sans bellydancer), but an adorable waitress at a Thai place bent the rules for us. Soups, crabs, extra spicy sauces, rice, and a couple mouthfuls of exotic flowers later, we were on the hunt for a bar free of sky-high cover charges and awkward dancing or old-folks'-home vibes. No luck. Squeezing through pointless crowd control (through which Jeff managed to slip me and my crutches) into le Grand Place, we instead camped out on benches drinking canned beer that he seemed to pull miraculously out of the air. A fully-dressed girl attempted to rouse the crowd with a Belgian "girls gone wild" act, but the kiddie fireworks really got them going.

One small problem: the firework show exploded over la Bibliothèque Royale, not le Grand Place. So... we retreated early into a cafe for banter with Zoe and her friend for a couple hours past my cripple bedtime. Having forgotten to make new year resolutions, I resolved ambitiously to remember to do so next year.

The way back was straightforward, but we pulled the tunnel trick again... and dropped Jeff off literally in the middle of the small ring. He dashed across five lanes or so, and although the passing cop car gave us a funny look, they let us all take off without hassle.

I'd been stuck in my room so long that I'd practically forgotten what the company of a group of friends is like: freakin' awesome. I could even listen to a couple more hours of chatter about phony saints... occasionally. Funny how easy it is to forget your previous/future life in the present.

One great thing about the Low Countries' indifference to hazardous areas: CLUI-like tours such as those led during the Rotterdams Bouwputten Festival and the upcoming Ruienwandeling through Antwerpen's abandoned underground canal network (used as sewers for a time). I am dying to go. But would my leg kill me?

Other destinations I have "resolved" to visit: The monastic ruins of l'Abbaye de Villers and Claes Oldenburg's Dropped Cone (2001) in Köln--by the same fellow who brought us the infamous Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks in Morse College.

On a side note, I love how the Wikipedia entry for my college contains one of our "unofficial cheers."