brussels: tasting truffles, cycling cobblestones & chasing ghosts in the rain

"the old man at the café said this city only makes sense when you’re chasing ghosts in the rain." i checked my breath-visible enough to photograph-and nodded. brussels in december feels like it’s waiting for a cover to drop, ¹.⁴ degrees outside, humming like a freezer compartment left ajar. i’d been here five minutes and already heard this: "watch your backend if you eat the eggs at the market," someone told me, followed by "also, the bikes here are cursed-they’ll vanish at 3pm" which… fair. right now, i’m squatting beside a canal, eating a truffle melt i stole from a vendor who didn’t charge me. weird.

street artist vibes hit when i wandered toward the european quarter. there, splattered onto a dumpster behind the belgo-russian café, was a mural of a skateboarder melting into a saxophone. i paused, imagined the artist’s day: flicking concrete stains into a sketchbook, then onto brick. nearby, a local drummer with a/𝜳done skullcap blew smoke rings that looked like they could’ve been scored by slide rule. "you play?" i asked. he spit out his gum: "nah, i just am.💥"

reviews? ha. the last hostel reviewer said something about "the fridge humming like a cat in the electric - woke us at 4am," which… plot twist, right? but i liked it. the fridge and i had a history. it once vibrated my insomnia to sleep in prague. trouble is, brussels’s main market? smells like a trash bin got married to a bakery. someone warned me about the honey-"don’t trust the vendor in the green coat," they’d muttered into a wool scarf. i bought a jar anyway. it’s probably just expired floors, but i’ll pretend it’s artisan until i find a word for that in french.

neighbors? if you get restless, brussels is just a skateboard ride from bristles. no, wait-that’s a rumor. or maybe that’s the sound of asphalt splitting somewhere on rue du broy’.💦 anyway, i’m off to find the ghost of ¹.³⁹°c rubble. or at least a fence that won’t frost over by sundown.

links:
episodeg to skatepark
brussels.live events
youtube bmx bell tower
yelp malakoff bar

weather”, mostly cold, humming, rain-chasing. neighbors”, whispered, like secrets between thrift shop windows.

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