Brussels, and why I hate Belgium

September 13th, 2008
In my day, I’ve been accused of irrationally hating only two things. Those things are Margaret Atwood, and Belgium. Margaret Atwood went to my high school and I think that it’s understandable for anyone to hate their high school’s most illustrious graduate. Especially when that graduate wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale”, which was inexplicably on the Grade Thirteen curriculum. And even more especially when questioning the inclusion of “The Handmaid’s Tale” on the grade twelve curriculum instead of “1984” or “Brave New World” gets you told to sit down and stop asking questions.
My hatred for Belgium however, is completely different from my hatred for Margaret Atwood. Because while I was predisposed to hate Margaret Atwood, I really expected to like Belgium. Two years ago on a drive from Switzerland to Amsterdam, I visited Belgium right after Luxembourg (which is natural, as they are situated next to each other last time I checked). Luxembourg would probably be a really nice place to go for a roller-skate or some other leisurely recreational activity, but my entire time in Luxembourg was spent getting excited to leave and explore a country whose existence I could actually understand and explain.
Unfortunately for myself and my two travel-mates, some transport-minister in Belgium had decided that it’s highways required late-night construction. This wasn’t just any late-night construction either. This was the type of late-night construction that makes you regret traveling with a man who punches people when they try to change the music. Apparently when Belgians do construction on a highway they don’t post signs warning you that your car will literally not move for three and a half hours. Apparently when Belgians do construction they insist on using trucks with flashing lights that beep when they move backwards. And apparently the one thing Belgians don’t think they need to construct on or near highways is restaurants. This ensures that when you get out of your three and a half hour traffic jam and start thinking about breakfast, Belgium makes you suffer that much more.
So needless to say I was not pleased that my flight to India involved a stop-over in Brussels. This time I guess I should take some responsibility for my experience, as I had decided to take sleeping pills roughly an hour before landing so that I could avoid spending any waking-hours acknowledging where I was. However, that does not change the fact that not only would the Brussels airport not convert my Canadian dollars so that I could buy a bottle of water, but for some reason all of the water fountains were turned off. What kind of airport turns off their water-fountains? That’s the sort of thing that jail-wardens do when there’s a prison riot. Or corrupt dictators do when their country's citizens have a general strike. I was literally stuck eating the box of 20 euro chocolates I bought at the Duty Free for four and a half hours, hoping that I could suck some of the milk out and regain my body’s ability to produce saliva.
If those two experiences aren't enough to push a man to resent a country, I don't know what is. I’ve got nothing against the people of Belgium, most of whom I’m sure could write a better book than Margaret Atwood, but on my list of top ten worst places I’ve ever been Belgium comes in at a close second behind Brampton, Ontario.

****By the way It’s debatable whether Margaret Atwood is actually my high school’s most illustrious graduate as apparently Prime Minister Stephen Harper also went to Leaside. However, I’ve never heard anyone outside of the high school confirm this and he seems to believe he was raised somewhere in the general vicinity of Calgary. Also how pathetic is it that the race for most illustrious graduate at my high school encompasses two of the absolutely least charismatic public figures in Canada. I can’t think of a single Canadian outside of the prison system who I would really like to hang out with less.