For the long weekend, a group of us decided to travel to Brussels for two days and, on a whim, I decided the day before we left that I wanted to do a day trip to Paris and a couple of others wanted to tag along. Getting to Brussels from Delft was a breeze, it was such a far departure from the train systems of the United States like Amtrak. The general impression that I got for the train system in Europe—specifically in the Netherlands—is that it felt more like getting on to the metro in New York City, except, instead of going from Broadway to Brooklyn, I went halfway across the country from Amsterdam to Delft, and then from Delft to Brussels in only one transfer. Schengen is a beautiful thing. The ease of international travel within Europe has continued to amaze me because taking this “meh” approach to borders would seem like such an insane idea to even entertain in North American politics—it would be political suicide. While in Europe, I was able to be in three different countries in the span of fifty hours.
Arriving in Brussels, there was a massive torrent of rainfall while walking towards the hostel that our group would be staying in for our time in the city and everyone got soaked—especially me because I did not pack a rain jacket. After drying off, settling down, we set forth on our way to the city center, it was immediately evident that I was no longer in the Netherlands. Everything seemed more hectic and moved faster. It felt like I was back in the New York City metro system, but it was more confusing because it was in a language I did not understand. Our group took the wrong metro more times than acceptable to be completely honest. After getting to the city center, I immediately noticed a stark difference between Brussels and Amsterdam—the city center of Brussels was much louder than Amsterdam. While there were people busking on the streets in Brussels, obviously creating more noise than usual, I found that people walking around were generally louder than in Amsterdam. It felt more and more like New York City than your stereotypical European city. If there were skyscrapers instead of centuries old buildings surrounding me, I would believe that I was back in New York City. My time in Brussels was enjoyable, even if I almost got pickpocketed. I love witnessing the intersection of old and new in the sense that these ancient European cities have to adapt to emerging technologies and cultural shifts and I love observing how they try to fend off these changes or acclimatize and embrace said change.
I would say what amazed me the most about Paris was not the city itself. While the city was beautiful and all of the amazing institutions—like the Louvre—were amazing to experience, I found the Thalys train to be the most impressive thing about my entire weekend trip. Coming from the United States where the train infrastructure is in shambles, to say the least, it was very refreshing to be able to cover great distances in a matter of hours for a fair price. I wonder how different commuting would be in the United States if trains were actually a viable form of public transportation, even if it was concentrated in the cities. The Thalys would be a crazy feat to behold if it were ever to come to the United States.