I hadn't yet sipped mint tea at Cafe Belga or waited half an hour in the cold for the best cone of fries in Brussels. It would be months until I noticed the statue of Fernando Pessoa on the corner (ma patrie c'est la langue portugaise) or wandered through the weekend market.
I just knew.
---
It's Thursday, a few minutes past 9. We've been at Belga for three hours already. I have ingested a cappuccino, Le Soir and El Pais.
R is fighting to stay afloat in Meyer's philosophical quick-sand (Le comique et le tragique: penser le théâtre et son histoire). AD conjugates in preparation for tomorrow's French class. AG swigs his way through the extensive menu of Belgian brews.
In the meantime they have dimmed the lights and turned up the jazz.
It's canned today, but on Sunday it'll be live.
This is the sort of thing I jot in my journal, when my brain needs a break from the mind-numbing Meyer.
My very scientific cafe classification rests on criteria like type and volume of music, brand of coffee, foaminess of milk, yumminess of accompanying treat, smokiness, natural light, opening hours, variety of international press, whether the puzzles are normally blank, etc.
Belga doesn't have the best cuppa, but I forgive it because it scores so well in all other categories. Good soundtrack for reading or socializing, biscuits with the hot drinks, non-smoking, plenty of window seats, open until 2 am every day, newspapers in languages I hardly recognize, always with a soduku to be done.
My kind of place.
AD, the newspaper and I at Belga on a Sunday afternoon...when we could still sit outside.
Photo courtesy of R.
4 comments:
:-)
oh my, that sounds wonderful. I mean, fries, friends, and feer (beer, but I wanted to keep up the alliteration)
If I ever find myself in the belgium I will come visit you and you will have to ply me with a history of the unhealthy concoctions those people have made. (while they seem incapable of forming governments, they have prodcued waffles, french toast, french fries and a horrific occupation of the congo. The last wasn't as delicious as the first few.)
horray! keep it up
-M
SUDOku...get your Japanese straight! (although apparently it's not really a formal Japanese word, but an abbreviation from "Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru", which translates to: "the digits are limited to one occurrence" )
...Mahmud sucks! (yo I'm going to watch NOFX this Friday! getting pumped to rock it out with a bunch of old people, thinking we're still all teenagers! wish you were here, I'd have a better chance at not getting my ass kicked in the pit -- actually, were you even into NOFX? I can't remember...)
Carla! I think it whispered to me too that day! That picnic and nap in the park was is one of my favourite memories. I'm so glad it's come through for you.
PS: Alberto, you are such a nerd! but I still love you.
pps: Carla I love you too
Thank you JULIA for remembering that this is MY BLOG and all comments should be ABOUT ME.
Perhaps messages to other people would be better reserved for a private e-mail?
I'm just jealous that all I got was a spelling correction while Mahmud got a whole mini-update. :P
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