In Antwerpen

What a trip. Left Saint Georges des Coteaux at six am. Boarded train to La Rochelle at six thirty. Because of the great storm that hit the Atlantic coast, the train could no longer go to La Rochelle, so we stop in Rochefort. Wait for a bus. Bus arrives in La Rochelle a bit past seven fifteen. wait. Get a coffee and croissant, three dollars equivalent. Get a newspaper. Montpelier, number one city in France to live in. Polish President is mourned over. Walk around a bit, read Gravity's Rainbow a bit. Text message my carpool ride, no idea what car she is driving. Smoke a cigarette with a fellow carpooler who is going to Bordeaux. My carpool host pulls up, we wait for everyone, get in the car. I drift in and out of sleep half of the drive until we get out for a pee pee break. Then I am more awake, talk a bit with another passenger, snack, read newspaper.

Arrive in Paris after approximately four and a half hours. Get out at the south end of the city, go and eat Vietnamese. Walk brisquely towards Cathedral Notre Dame, rapidly taking in the sights and sounds. The city reminds me of Rome, full of tourists, similar architecture. Enter the Cathedral with my backpack even though there are signs in six languages saying backpacks are forbidden. I decide to just act normal and do it anyways. As a result of my time limit in the city and my general state of mind, I can't bring myself to slow down and see if there is something to soak in in the Cathedral. By now, sorry, all these Catholic Churches seem the same, candles, donation boxes, holy water basins for crossing yourself when you enter, most people there just to see the art and architecture superficially, probably more just to tell others they were there, take a few pictures. I look for where I can climb the tower to the top, but don't find it. Exit. Ok, let us find the Eiffel Tower. Two hours or so left. Walk fast, keep checking map. Hungry, lets find a bakery on the way. Walk along the river, keep going east, east east. Finally I see the tower in the distance, behind countless buildings. Find a bakery, get a loaf of bread. Find the park surrounding the Eiffel Tower, sit and eat. Ask the man beside me where the nearest subway station is. Head for it, get a ticket, find out I have to go to another station 400 meters away. I go, make my way to the rendezvous station for my next carpool ride. Find him. We wait for almost an hour for another passenger, who went to the wrong station. Finally he makes it, and then we are stuck in traffic for fourty five minutes.

When we are on the road, the driver and late passenger, both Maghreb Arabs, one from Morrocco, the other Algerian, enter animated, rapid conversation about the issues between their countries, the difficulties of life in France for Arab immigrants, racism, Paternal pressure and strictness. I find it very interesting, and try my hardest to understand the rapid, accented French, often sounding like a FAMAS (The standard French sub-machine gun used in the military). Start to realize I am going to be late. Will there still be a train from Brussels, our destination, to Antwerp, after midnight? I desperately fire off text messages to everyone I have the number for to ask if they can check the internet.

We arrive, and one passenger who I had amiable conversations with inbetween the machine gun fire, a fellow organic agriculture enthusiast, accompanied me to discover that I missed the last train by half an hour. What am I going to do now? I don't know, but I need internet access to tell my uncle not to worry about me and not to wait at the Antwerp station for me. Vivien, the fellow passenger, invites me to stay at his cohouse, where I could sleep on a couch. We make our way there, and I meet a bunch of his roommates. Everyone smokes tobacco and marijuana mixed spliffs at a rate of one every fourty five minutes, munching on junk food and downing tiny coca cola cans. We talk, joke, I speak lots of French. I notice how tiring it is for them to listen to me when I try to articulate myself in French. They are nice and polite. Finally I sleep at 4pm, and wake up at nine. Going to sleep late doesn't feel good. Coffee, breakfast, conversation, where I learn of the various ways these guys avoid taxes and get paid for unworked hours and get money from the government when they shouldn't and how they religiously watch the simpsons until eleven thirty am. I get their contact info. Who knows? Then Vivien and two of his roommates accompany me to the station, and I wait in line with various foreigners to get a ticket.

Take the train, with a smooching couple sitting behind me. They smooch in a terribly irritating way the whole ride to Antwerpen. My pet peeve is when people eat with their mouth open, making sucking noises. The kissing was very similar. I even start to curse softly under my breath. Not that bad, don't sweat the small stuff. We arrive in the first station of Antwerp, but I need to wait to get off at the second. The doors open briefly and then close. The train doesn't move. Everyone assumes it will go to the next station, and there are no announcements. We discover that the train is going to go back to Brussels. All these African ladies in exotic clothing start panicking and making a big fuss. The doors don't open. Increased panic. I decide to let them get me out of this mess ("bordell" in French, I am frequently reminded by an elderly French lady). They catch the attention of a train conductor, who doesn't know how to speak French, or, considering what I have heard of the Flemish from the Francophones so far, chooses not to. He is bombarded by aggressive, nervous African female energy and feebly responds by opening the door. He looks like he wishes he was at home watching TV drinking good beer.

We wait for the proper train, and board it. I sit down, and three of the loudest African ladies sit in the surrounding seats. I try to listen to what they say, but it is a sort of pidgin French. I wonder where they are from. I like them. We arrive in Antwerp, and I see my family in the distance up a hundred steps waving at me.

Antwerpen is quite similar to Toronto. Multicultural, cold weather, efficient, social aid actually aids. I am here with my uncle, Stefano, working his butt off to support his baby boy Phillip and wife Sophie. They made a big risk and moved here from Pescara, Italy, where there was no future for them. Here, they are closer to Stefano's other kids, Alessio and Roxanne, who are both in their early twenties and live in and outside of Amsterdam.

A tiny country Belgium, few hours from one end to the other. Famous for beers, actually probably has the most beers in comparison to any other country in the world. In the south French is spoken, in the north Dutch and Flemish, quite proudly. In Brussels, the capital of Europe and of Belgium, French is dominant, although it is surrounded by Flemish country. So far, all the Brusselites I have spoken to consider the Flemish proud of their language and identity distinct from the Francophones, in some ways like the Quebeckers are in comparison to Anglophone Canada.

A country with an average of perhaps 300 days a year of rainfall. Apparently the only wild spot left is in the south near the French frontier. I asked Sophie, a native Kenyan from Kisumu, if she missed Kenya. She said she misses it right now, so much, in a way she can't express. Then I asked if it is worth it to live in a cold, foreign country without nice beaches and wild spaces and animals, which has good schooling, health care, social services, economy, in comparison with Kenya, where it is warm, beautiful, wild, but with limited infrastructure, health care, opportunities. She said to me the health care is the most important factor. If you lived in Kenya but had enough money that if you needed to you could immediately hop on a plane to Europe for medical attention, it would be worth it. But otherwise, it is worth it to live in Belgium, or other northern European countries similar, for that matter. Kenya is nice to vacation in. She perhaps almost died of a persistent pneumonia which infected her right lung and was not properly treated for a long time until she went to the doctor in Antwerp. He obliged her to take strong antibiotics immediately, and now she can breathe well, is starting to regain her appetite, and is heading from darkness to light. Phillip has asthma. This is where she is coming from with her perspective of the importance of good health care.

Us young, invincible, adventurous ones might have the opposite perspective (at least I have) about where to live, but in recent years I am starting to experience the limits to my invincibility, and starting to be more cautious.

Nonna is here too, fantastic nonna, seventy five or so years old, still like she was since I can remember, cooking like every nonna should, loving interacting with and caring for little Phillip.

Talk to you soon,

Maurizio