EuroTank Pt. IV

Day 4: Monday 11.5.2007
Brussels, Belgium (Yes. Again.)

Our fourth day in Belgium was originally scheduled to be a lazy day of checking out some local stuff in Brussels. Instead, we began the day with a 6:30am trip to the emergency room. Bennett woke up with his highest fever so far. (We knew this because of our newly acquired thermometer!) His temp was 40 degrees Celsius. I don’t know exactly what that translates to, but it’s high. The info we found online said see a doctor if it’s above 38. So, off we went.

The trip itself was a fiasco- the bellhop called us a cab which took us to the nearest hospital for 10€. That’s about $15. And that sucked, because the hospital was literally across the street. The cabbie charged a 5€ surcharge, and then we sat at the only light we could possibly have sat at. Damn bellhop!

Once there, the hospital experience was definitely surreal. The emergency room was hidden in a series of alleyways, and once we found it, we stood outside and talked to the admissions personnel through thick glass with a microphone & speaker. Like we were at a gas station at 2:00am in a bad section of town. Really. One they took our info (and made sure we knew we would have to pay for any services rendered, we sat in a very dingy little waiting room across the alley; Social healthcare… not necessarily better.

But the doctor seemed to know his stuff and spoke pretty good English. He gave us some meds and verified that the scary stuff the weirdo voodoo pharmacist had given us across town were normal anti-inflammatory meds, only they were intended for …uh… the other end. Anyway, once he got the meds, his temperature went down, and he felt much better. That had been the case each day previous as well, but the doctor felt he probably had a virus that was inflaming his throat, and that it would likely subside in a few days- in the meantime, we were doing the right thing.So, since our previous day’s trip to Antwerp had been postponed for this day, and this was turning out to be a rather iffy day as well, it looked like we wouldn’t make it to Antwerp after all. So it looked like we were back to our original plan for Monday- bum around Brussels.

So we made it to the Atomium after all, which is an enormous shiny atom that you can go in. You take Europe’s fastest elevator to the top for a beautiful view of Brussels. Beyond that, I have no idea why its there. Exept perhaps as a means to lure liz taylor to Belgium at some point (there are old pictures of her there). Afterwards, we strolled through a few parks and made our way to the royal palace. Well, like our fourth royal palace, really. But this was the royal palace where the royal family actually lives. Not that we got within a thousand feet of it. But there were pretty parks surrounding it and big statues of lions at the gates. Very regal.

Actually we did almost make it into the royal grounds. As we were walking towards the train, we spied a gate to the grounds that was ajar. We yelled “Ahoy!” and bee-lined it for the gate. As we waited fir a gap in traffic to cross the street, a guard came and closed the open gate. Jerks.So we made our way back to the hotel, stopping for a relaxing beer in a cozy little restaurant off the grand place.

Not a bad ending for such a stressful beginning.