Brussels thoughts (#0184)

This not particularly inspiring photo is of the Midi/Zuid train station in Brussels. The station is the Brussels end point for Eurostar so I had been through here on my way from London to Amsterdam, but this photo is from my hotel window when I had come back to Brussels to start off a couple of days of exploring in Belgium. The reasons for exploring Belgium will be noted with subsequent pictures, what I want to focus on here is the station itself.

Coming into the station on the Eurostar, and then coming back into it on this segment of the trip, the atmosphere in the station was surprising. Nowhere else in northern Europe had I had such a sense of tension as seemed to exist here. Admittedly this tension was probably in part due to the attacks in Brussels in March, 2016, but it felt like something more endemic.

What was surprising was that the social atmosphere in the station felt similar to some U.S. transit stations that are not only places for catching trains but also places of shelter for quite a few folk (mainly men) with nowhere to go, the unemployed, and many others who don’t quite have a fit in society. Combining this high number of such male non-travelers with the very strong presence of heavily armed guards created a situation that seemed to be a silent ‘dance’ between these men trying to exert (through posture and voice) their right to be there, while at the same time not drawing the attention of the guards. Having had my own experiences with police harassment when I was much younger, I found the station environment to be something that I wanted to get out of as quickly as possible.