The Life and Times of the Curious Cockroach

Written on September 7th, 2008
Location: Brussels!!!!!
Reasons for being in Brussels: 1) university exchange, 2) being an angsty eighteen-year-old, 3)  a burning desire to answer the  following question: can the Curious Cockroach survive in another environment?

I sit here in my cozy, dimly-lit room in Brussels, to the sound of running water. I like to pretend it’s an indoor water fountain, built here especially for my own relaxation. On my second day in Brussels, I discovered the shower, and also the fact that it is right above my room. The dainty white pipe runs along the wall in the corner of my room. It’s quite convenient, I like to tell myself, since I can find out whether or not the shower is in use without even getting up, and without potentially awkward moments.

I can’t believe it has already been five days since leaving Vancouver.  In the airport the excitement began, but it was a fantasy sort of excitement. I had a fairytale image in my head that I’d be living in an old building in the center of the student town, drinking cheap beer and chatting away in French with my new friends – simply having fun without worries. And when the plane took off, it was final: I was going to Belgium.

The couple beside me seemed very eager to talk to me. They both had fair hair and were from the Netherlands. The man was so nice that I had to ask him to repeat himself when he said that the Dutch were generally rude.

Thankfully without mishap I was soon sitting on the train from Amsterdam to Brussels. An hour later two young girls sat down across from me. Here was my preview of European girls: thin, pretty, seemingly natural sense of style, and edgy haircuts that were purposely messy. Like the Dutch couple on the plane, they were very amicable. As it turned out, they were getting off at the same station as me – La Gare Centrale. Not only did they point the way to the taxi, but also helped me with my heavy suitcases.

“My god!”, said the one with long unbrushed hair as she lugged one of my bags off the train, “did you ‘ide your boyfriend in ‘ere?”

I thanked them for their help and advice about how not to get ripped off by taxi drivers, and bade them goodbye.

The taxi driver –who was only slightly ripping me off – was also eager to engage in conversation. Initially I had croaked something out in French about where I needed to go, so he soon switched to English. He told me about more places to visit. One of them starts with a G.  He also warned me that taxi cab drivers are often reckless drivers. Grinning to myself, I realized that that wasn’t the first time that day I had heard a self-destructive reference.

“Here is your palace”, he said as he stopped in front of #2 – Rue de l’Été. I fumbled around for some euros in my pocket and payed him. Soon I was left standing alone outside the apartment, unsure of what to do next.

Getting inside the apartment was a bit of an adventure that almost led to tears, made worse by the fact that I had two heavy suitcases, a giant backpack, and a money belt that kept on getting lost in my pants.  Long story short, thanks to nice strangers who lent me their cell phones and sneaked company phones over to me behind their managers’ back, I was able to meet my landlord outside my apartment.

I was pleasantly surprised. The man who greeted me was middle-aged, attractive, and wearing a suit with black polished shoes. His name was Monsieur Christophel Duivelszoon. (His last name, as I found out much later, was actually a reference to the Devil, but if somebody had told me this at the time I would have thought it was purely coincidental.)

“Welcome to Brussels!” he said cheerfully.

Oooh, he has a British accent, I thought. Immediately afterward I wanted to bang myself on the head because I realized why he wouldn’t sound more like a North American.

Finally looking up at the building, I was impressed. The whole Rue de l’Été, like most other streets in Brussels, is tightly packed with three-to-four-storey narrow buildings, each one slightly different from the last.  I couldn’t believe I’d be living in one of these old gems! I entered through the tall wooden doors and went up the spindly blue staircase that zigzagged from room to room.

But soon enough the fairy-tale image of my Brussels exchange came to an end. I can pin down the exact moment when it happened, too. It was when I first attempted to set up my electric power adapter. The damn thing had three parts that wouldn’t fit together like I wanted. I quickly gave up and proceeded to try out my computer. The internet wouldn’t work either. No chance of googling my way out of the problem. So I returned to the cursed adapter. Damn it! I was hungry, alone, with no clue as to when the landlord would return with the heaviest of my suitcases, and completely inept at setting up this small black device.

Monsieur Duivelszoon soon returned. Looking down and speaking too quickly, I told him about the adapter and the internet. He took the adapter and shoved the three parts together in a way I hadn’t even imagined. And that was that. Embarrassed but trying to move on, I asked him about the landline.

“Landline?” he said incredulously, “No, no. Everyone here has at least one cell phone”.

I looked at him just as incredulously.

“Darling, you are a loser if you do not have a cellphone”, he said as he patted my arm sympathetically.

***

The situation was quite pathetic that night. I slept under a bathrobe and a thin summer sleeping bag, and for a pillow, I used some smoky-smelling sweaters I had worn to camping a few weeks before. Periodically I’d wake up and think of all the difficulties I’d be encountering soon: I had to try to set up a bank account, establish some sort of means of communicating with the world, figure out how to register for a residence permit, and complete a whole load of other unpleasant tasks – all in another language. Moreover, the beer I was supposed to be drinking was nowhere in sight, the friends with whom I was supposed to be babbling away were yet to be made, and whenever I opened my mouth to speak French I looked and sounded like I had a sinus infection.

Getting settled in Belgium wasn’t going to be thrilling one hundred percent of the time, I thought sadly, as I picked a pine needle out of my pillow.