Indian style @ Brussels (Part 1)

In addition to visa for travel, foreign currency to spend, hotelto stay, maps to get around, you still need more on the list to make your tripfeel secure and complete – a friend in the land you plan to travel. I had no plans to travel to Brussels,but that changed when a long time friend messaged me on Gtalk and invited me tovisit him for the weekend. And I was confused if the Schengen visa was enoughfor me to travel into Brussels. Within minutes, he checked on the visa and evenbooked my ticket on Thalys from Gard du Nord, Paris to Brussels therebypostponing my planned trip to Versailles. And the excitement ended and so manythoughts crossed my mind when I didn’t find him at Brussels - Gare Nu Midi.

 

The Indian style welcome

I walked up and down the platform twice, I came down to the gateto see if he was waiting for me and I even re-read his email multiple times to make sure I was waiting where asked me to. I even asked the ticket examiner it if was Gare Du Midi. It was not a planned trip and I hadn’t done any reading and I completely relied onhim to take me around Brussels. And I imagined giving him a big hugon the platform, we hadn’t met in 7 years and he had so many things in commonfrom music to food to experiences. But he was not there :-(

And when he finally arrived 15 mins later, I was welcomed to half-a-dozen apologies and it was truly an Indian-style welcome to Brussels. Another 10 mins delay I would have goneon my own to find a place to stay and explore the city.

 

The Indian style welcome also comes with the Indian stylehospitality, which means multiple cups of strong piping hot milk coffee, Pongaland Sambar for breakfast and Paruppu usili (ground lentil, steamed and panfried) and Avial (mixed vegetable in coconut gravy spiced with green chillies)for lunch. There is more to Indian hospitality (athithi devo bhava - God comes onlyafter guest) and you need to wait till the last to understand what we really meanby athithi devo bhava.

 

Wait for a few more daysto read about my trip to Brussels and see it all in pictures.