My wife and I walked away from the area after observing the undesirable scenes and ended up in an open space where there were hundreds of pigeons.
An Indian man approached us and offered some grains for feeding the pigeons, of course, for a certain amount of money. Without hesitation we accepted the offer.
As soon as I threw some grains, the pigeon came crowding around me and some came sitting on my head and shoulders. Although clouded by pidgeons, I could see the name Madame Tussaud on one of the building nearby. I thought it was a shopping mall, but, was told later that it was a very famous wax museum. That incident open my eyes to the saying that;“Ignorant made a person unconcerned, and knowledge made a person curious.”
While my wife and I was busy attending to and entertained by the pigeons, we saw a group of Middle-Eastern family taking video shots. The Indian man quietly told us that they were the family of a Turkish movie actress.
As the evening drew near, we went to the Centraal Station to book train tickets for London. This trip to London must come as a surprise to you, because, it means we had to cross the English Channel, which was known to be very notorious and unfriendly. How can we cross safely across such an unfriendly sea by train?
Let us ride the train slowly together.
We rushed back to the hotel, checked out and came back to the Centraal Station to catch the late evening train. At this station were also the terminal for public buses, coaches and trams. Water taxis terminal was also nearby and within a short walking distance. Therefore the name Centraal really fit the infra-structure of that place.
The train crawled along Harlem and Den Haag, 2 Dutch cities at the shore of the English Channel. Of course the rail was not by the shoreline. We did not get to see the sea at all. Then it crept into Rotterdam, the famous port of Holland. It stopped here for quite a while, perhaps to load up goods and taking more passengers.
From Rotterdam the train sped up to Antwerpen, a port and border town in Belgium.
Along the way we saw gigantic warehouses and containers storage. The towns and cities of Holland and Belgium were known for their unique and modern building architectures. I was there to witness the truth of their claims. Unfortunately, it was not easy and feasible to capture them in the camera from the train.
From Antwerpen the train moved into Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. The Belgian spelled it as Bruxelles, which is a mixture of French and Dutch slang. It was in Brussels where many important historical events took place, especially for peace treaty meetings and for Nobel award presentations.
Like Switzerland, Belgium was also known to be neutral in many wars and political conflicts. I felt at peace when the train ploughed slowly inside Belgium.
From Brussels it crawled westwards to Gent and a small town Roosendaal. Doesn’t the double ‘a’ remind you of Centraal in Dutch?
I did not miss the opportunity to go down to the station floor and caught a picture of Roosendaal and I. Finally we arrived at the last station Oostende. 544 words
Drafted on 07.04.2007
Edited on 22.07.2007 at 1011hrs
At Woodlands Avenue 5
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