The first time I got on an airplane I was 18 years old. I had been 18 years old for about 12 hours when I climbed aboard a MartinAir (yes, the OTHER Dutch airline) M-80 from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Schipol. The flight had been delayed almost twelve hours. Apart from the fact that I could legally drink beer, it was uneventful.

I got off the plane in a different place, lit up a cigarette (like everyone else), and made for the train station. I had a mission: Brussels. My mother worked for a Belgian owned company, and had arranged for me to spend six weeks in Brussels with one of her colleagues. I would work in the warehouse (for cash), and live with the couple who occupied the apartment above it. In exchange, their daughter (17) would fly to Minneapolis, work in the warehouse (for cash) and stay with my parents. It was a good deal for all. Except that I needed to get a train to Brussels.

Aside from taking just about every Kroner I had, it turned out to be very easy. Everybody spoke English. All the signs were in English. There were maps and schedules in English. I was surprised. I hadn’t expected so much linguistic pandering. I was a little scared and pretty eager to use the meager skills I had developed in French or German. I had found on the plane ride that I could understand a modicum of spoken Dutch by triangulating between German and English. I felt well prepared.

I climbed aboard my train, found a seat in the smoking section (I had yet to learn what a horrible mistake this is), lit up, and made an effort to take in my new surroundings. How very grown up. How very punk rock. How very gritty it was, to be on a train in Amsterdam, having had too many cigarettes, too many beers, and not enough sleep. One of those situations where you have to be nonchalant to get all the style points you’re entitled to.

I rode the train out of Amsterdam, through Rotterdam, watching the sun set out of the right side as saggy roofed, brick buildings sped by. The buildings gave way to houses, gave way to fields and yes, windmills. Fucking windmills. And were those really tulips in the field? Wow.

It was late before I got my first chance to test my linguistic prowess. There had been a lot of chatter over the PA system on the train. I was certain I had heard ‘Antwerpen’ amid the sibilant loogie hawking that is Dutch. I knew I had to change trains in Antwerp, so as we pulled in to the next stop I fixed my world weary traveler gaze on a gentleman who was getting up to exit. I figured we must be in Belgium by now, and everybody there must speak French, so what the hell: “Ici est Anvers?” The man looked at me as though he didn’t understand, so I gave it another shot, this time pointing down at the ground (through the floor of the train of course).

“Antwerpen?” he asked.
“Oui, Antwerpen,” he must be a Flemmish speaker I thought.
“Oui. Ici.” He nodded, pointing at the floor of the train (and it turns out, not at the ground underneath it.)
“Merci” I replied. I had succeeded. I had had actual conversation with an actual foreigner in an actual foreign language. I grabbed my bag and leapt off the train to find the city of Antwerp…

…20 miles further south.

I was in Roosendaal. It was almost midnight. I haven’t slept for almost 36 hours. I have ten Kroner and no idea what to do next. I was really disappointed to find that not only was I not in Antwerp, I wasn’t even in Belgium yet. That crazy old man must not speak French very well. That would make sense of course, him being DUTCH and all. They claim that Roosendaal is a city of 78,000 people, but at midnight in mid June it looks pretty Podunk to me.

I tried several times to make a phone call, but every time I thought I might have connected, it made a funny beeping sound, so I hung up. I must be doing something wrong, and the phone seemed to like eating my money. Every time a train rolled in I asked people if it was going to Antwerp or Brussels. I picked on young people and abandoned my French, figuring it to be as useful in Holland as a pick-ax and a pair of crampons. Plenty of them understood me, some even felt for me, but none knew when the next rain to Belgium could be had. Eventually the train station was deserted. This was getting to be a bit too gritty. A bit too punk rock.

When I spotted another person, I was not relieved. He was creepy. He walked across the tracks, even though there were signs which seemed to indicate that this was not only forbidden, but almost certainly fatal. He approached and sat down on the bench next to me. In an empty train station he had to sit down on the same bench. There were enough empty benches to build a sizeable set of bleachers and he had to sit down on mine. The world weary traveler shit went right out the window. Now I’m just a scared teenager up way past my bedtime and I want this weird (probably smelly) guy to go away.

Of course he started to talk to me. It turned out that he was traveling too. He was Polish, and knew enough English that we could have a stilted conversation. He asked me about my car, which at the time was a 1971 Chevy Nova with a 350. I had a picture. He was impressed. He showed me how to use the phone, and explained that the obnoxious beeping was the phone on the other end ringing (leave it to the fucking Europeans to reduce something so basic and meaningful as a ring to a soulless post-modern beep.) I got a hold of my Belgian connection and received instruction vis a vis the train (note the gratuitous use of French). It would be coming soon. I should get on it and not get off until evicted by the conductor.

Growing up an American watching countless war movies, I knew how to please the natives of savage lands: gum for the kids, smokes for their folks. I tossed my new Polish friend a pack of Camel lights as we boarded the train to Brussels. I took a seat as the Pole climbed into a luggage rack and immediately nodded off. We rode for another hour or so, stopping in the occasional town, before the Pole awoke and hopped down from the luggage rack. We were just pulling in to a station. The PA was indicating that this was Brussel Zentraal/Bruxelles Nord.

The Pole winked at me as he hopped to the platform “Next one for you!” he shouted as he waved, backing away quickly. Just then the conductor came in to check my ticket and it was only then that I realized that my Polish friend was traveling for free. I was impressed, and feeling much better about this whole foreign thing again. The train jerked to a start as we pulled out. Within ten minutes I was at the station that the French call central but the Flemmish call south. I was kicked off by the conductor.

The only other people in the station were a 40 something woman with purple spiked hair, a beat up leather jacket, miniskirt and black and white striped tights, and her plain looking, Garfield loving, 17 year old daughter. They were there for me. Brussels, I thought, might turn out to be very interesting.

To be continued…