Too Obvious

Today, Monday, is my last scheduled day in Brussels.  Tomorrow morning I am going to fly to Budapest in order to see that famous city.  Because it was my last day, I had some travelling logistics to figure out, but I also wanted to capitalize on my last opportunity to see more of this European treasure.  I am required to be at an airport south of the city in the morning, and I knew that tomorrow would be too late to find my way without stress.  Charleroi receives shuttles from Brussels Gar du Midi every twenty minutes or so, and I wanted to secure my ticket ahead of time.

Before heading out, I checked the time on my I-pod.  I wanted to be sure that tomorrow I would have enough time built into my schedule so as not to miss my shuttle.  At a brisk pace it took me 26 minutes to arrive at the station; a large and complex, multi-storied center is where I found myself.  I soon found the ticket assigning area for the train, but tickets for the bus were sold at another location.  A man on the lower floor told me to go to the second floor to purchase my bus ticket.  Once on the second floor, the person at the information desk told me to go downstairs to the bus ticket office.  Once down stairs, I realized that I had been there before, and that I was circling like an ass following a carrot, dangling from a string tied to a stick wedged firmly into my own saddle.

I returned to the man in the upstairs office, and asked if I might be able to complete my business by train, since I could not seem to locate the bus office.  He informed me of my three options by train, before realizing that I was talking about the Charleroi Airport and not Luchthaven.  “You need to take the bus,” he told me.  “Up the escalator, turn left and go to the end of the street to buy your ticket.”  It all sounded very reasonable.  Brussels is the capital city of for the European Union, certainly their system was not too complicated for a foreigner to understand with relative ease.

Once outside, I found that the street did not terminate at any particular building or government office.  An open-air line of shops stood opposite dozens of black, idling taxis, and there were no signs indicating a bus station, or the governmental office of a bus station.  I walked into what I think was a bank, and put up my hands for the teller and said “bus ticket?”  “Bus ticket that way,” she said, pointing with all of the fingers of her right hand like a karate instructor.  “Thanks,” I said, tapping on the countertop in embarrassment.  Once outside again, I found where the buses were idling.  I went into the most prominent building and asked the lady how to get a ticket.  “Don’t understand,” she said with a disinterested shrug.  “Merci,” I said with a tired smile.

Outside again, I decided to see if one of the bus drivers might know where tickets are sold.  “Escou vous comprenez l’anglais?” I asked a man in seated behind the wheel of a touring-style mammoth.  The bus driver replied with the international sign for “sort of, but not very well.”  “I need the 5:20 bus tomorrow morning and I need to buy a ticket,” I said.  “Pay the driver of the bus,” he said.  “Pay after on the bus.”

There is not a ticket office for the bus in Brussels for the same reason there is not a ticket office for the Space Shuttle to Neptune.  No ticket is required for either, it turns out.  At a brisk pace, it took me 67 minutes to arrive at this conclusion.