Sitting in my window seat on the fast train back to the Netherlands, I watch the Belgian landscape zip past and try to figure out what makes it different from the Dutch landscape. Probably the same thing that made Brussels so different from Den Haag or Amsterdam -- the French influence.
It was a real pleasure to hear French spoken again, and to watch the lips of the women speaking it. There is something about the French language that makes me think it was invented by a God who -- unlike the God of Shankara who saw women as corpses or bags of feces -- LOVED women and wanted to see them at their best. Speaking French causes one's mouth to move in ways that no other language I am familiar with does, ways that are tremendously flattering to women. Add to that the fact that the women were on the whole dressed more in the French style (uh...stylish) than the Dutch style (uh...not so much), and I had a wonderful time. It was just a short business trip, but the business part was over by midday yesterday, so I've gotten to spend the rest of the time as a guy on vacation, doing what a guy like me does while on vacation. That is, walking around taking in the sights, visiting a couple of Brussels' treasure trove of Art Nouveau museums, and sitting in cafes writing. Not everybody's idea of a holiday, but it is for me. One of the high points of the journey was sitting on the Grand Place and connecting real-time over the Internet with a friend who was sitting on the front porch of his new house in Arunachala, India, former home of Ramana Maharshi. He described the view of his street, filled with beggars and saddhus and (according to him) siddhas, and I described the view of my street, filled with tourists and women on their way to work or (judging from the looks on their faces and the lilt in their walk) to an assignation with their lovers. Different strokes for different folks, different spiritual paths. :-) I miss Joe here on FFL because he, more than anyone else I can think of, would enjoy hearing about the beers I got to taste while there. To my sorrow, should he appear and be curious, the piece of paper on which I carefully wrote down their names has now disappeared. The only one I can remember offhand was something like Westmalle, a Trappist Tripel beer that was both wonderful and powerful (9.5% alcohol). While I may not be much of a monastery kinda guy, my hat is off to the monks who came up with this one. If their inner life is a tenth as cool as their beer, they are happy froods indeed. Can you imagine the beer that Purusha guys would brew, were they into that sorta thing? Like yak piss, and drinking a few of them gives you a nasty hangover, but no buzz. Beer as tapas. :-) The other Belgian things I had to try while there were chocolate, of course, and moules (mussels). There is really very little as satisfying in life as a big bowl of moules with frites and a cold beer. Then again, some wouldn't consider that satisfying at all, and would say that the only thing that is satisfying in life is enlightenment. Their loss. And my satisfaction only cost me ten Euros. What has their pursuit of enlightenment cost?
