Arrived, and...? (Brussels)

Crossing the final border into Belgium, feeling elated.

Often in life, when the thing that one has been eagerly awaiting for so long finally materialises, it does not feel at all like what one expected. The same thing happened to me today riding into Brussels. After all those weeks on the road, often feeling like I simply could not carry on, that the only thing I wanted was to finally arrive, the arrival felt like, well, nothing. All of sudden, not even noticing it, I had crossed from the Flemish-speaking previous town to Brussels, and the only thing that changed was that the signs were now all in French. Thus, I did not even have a chance to stop and take a pic of entering the city, just kept on riding, slightly dumbfounded by the fact that I had arrived.

Getting into the city center happened amazingly quickly compared to my hours-long wandering in Berlin, and as it took me a while to get oriented and actually place myself on the inner city map, before I noticed it, I had basically passed most of the famous sights, palaces and gardens. I did not really feel like turning back either, and anyway, the tourist pics of those places would not have meant much to me or to anyone else.

The fact is, on this trip as on so many others, what really mattered was the journey itself, and the arrival only signals that it is now time to let go of this travelling state of mind and move back into the more sedentary, so-called normal lifestyle. I do know that it will take a while for this change to really happen, and the transformation is bound to be a bumpy one.

Am now at the house of another tango friend, Oscar, just preparing to go to the opening night of marathon de Chocolate, another tango marathon. It is a nice thought that instead of going to a bar or a restaurant to celebrate the termination of this trip, I can do it by dancing.

Comments

  1. Anonymous17/08/2013, 13:55

    No wonder you feel this way. It was an enormous phisical effort, but I agree the journey was what really mattered!
    May I suggest next time you plan any other long-distance trip you think about any less tiring way. Like this: what if you do it in reverse? You come by plane to Madrid and we drive back to Helsinki. God knows how I'd love to do that...
    Take a good rest dear and enjoy all kinds of "chocolate"!
    ¡Abrazos!
    :-***

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mari18/08/2013, 15:26

    Thank You, dear Thais! You are right, next time I will have to do this in some different way. At the very least, without such a tight schedule.

    ReplyDelete

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