Welcome Home
Beinvenue à la maison doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Another one of those untranslatable things.
There’s a massive canvas of the Brooklyn Bridge in our Brussels apartment. There are Burton and all manner of other snowboard/skateboard/surfing whatnot stickers and decorations and knickknacks around the apartment. We pity whoever left these touches and shake off the irony of coming to the country of Matthias’s birth to encounter such American touches.
Jet lag has been less kind to Matthias than me, a fact I’m holding off gloating about until I can collect a few more data points—at least one night’s worth. We touched down without incident this morning after a short layover in Copenhagen (where we said goodbye to the fellow Wayfarian I happened to know on our plane from Boston; we’re everywhere). I remain both impressed and sceptical of his free international data plan, but it got us a ride from the airport, a translation or two on the go, and maps around the city, so the plan and I are at a truce.
After a solid nap, we stroll down to the nearest plaza for some traditional Belgian food.
Ah yes, Belgium, the land where French fries were born. And also Matthias.
It’s Sunday and almost sunny, so there are plenty of families out, Dwight plenty more children and toddlers flitting about. We sit at a café table to people watch and inadvertently befriend a tiny Belgian girl. I think she has a crush on my man.
There are significantly more interracial couples here—specifically of the Black mal/white female persuasion—so we aren’t getting the sorts of racist stares we’re used to in Boston (especially Brookline). We get some stares for being tourists when we first arrived in the plaza and stood in the middle of it like idiots, but if we can weather racist stares together we can definitely weather touristy ones, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather get any sort of stares with than Matthias.
We walked towards a pretty park that I think has some sort of military history significance. Matthias climbs things and we take pictures.
…more successful monument climbing. 
I’ve a remote control app on my camera, but it appears I need to update my camera’s firmware before that will work again, and I can’t do that without connecting to a computer, which I haven’t brought. I’m more bummed than I care to admit about this, so I’m sure I’ll keep trying.
Otherwise, we settle for more traditional selfies.
We’re off do dine at an Italian place down the way and try our hand at ordering off a menu only in Italian in a country in which none of the three official languages is Italian. International travel irony.
Bon appétit.