Day45, 3016km: Brussels, Belgium.

AN APPRECIATION OF SCALE : Sizes of countries matters. It is a fact. It is not because of wars, not because of ethnic histories, not because of economies or even because of population sizes. The size of a country matters because of scale. We crossed into Belgium on a Thursday afternoon, having learned that Dutch is spoken in the north- the Belgians prefer to call it Flanders- and that French is spoken in the south. In a small town north of Antwerp, as we set up our tents we had been encountering the Dutch language. The next evening in Brussels with Jean Francois Kalka, an old friend from Alexandria who lives here now with another friend and wife Jaycee, French was what our ears heard most. As we were treated to a dinner of North Sea mussels Friday night and ventured Saturday morning to one of the city's morning markets for 1 Euro coffees and equally inexpensive [Belgian] waffles, it has been the predominant language heard today in the de jur capital of Europe. We are here for the experience, and with 370 kilometers to London, we have a week to travel through a few more urban centers and along some beaches where, in the greatest cataclysm of modern war, the fate of the world once hung in the balance. We are surrounded by history, and it makes us yearn to see it back home as such a typical aspect of the daily lives by whose routines we are merely passing. The Hague in the Netherlands was a wonderful visit with John's friend Irold and family and allowed for a day of sightseeing and rest, but Brussels here has allowed us to stop and to follow one of its own on his routine through the weekend. We have therefore become citizens for a moment of this city. For all of the political and legislative importance that this capital of Europe possesses, Belgium, like its Dutch neighbor to its north and Luxembourg and Lichtenstein to the southeast, is almost provincial in size. We can cross it in just two days; and that we can do so would be just another anecdotal fact if we did not simply come from the United States. It is because of our own country’s immensity through which we find Europe so wonderful to travel. More specifically, it is the number of different cultures that we have encountered over this land mass in such close proximity to one another. For example, there are many different subcultures in the United States and its major cities; but the first language encountered anywhere in our own country will always be English, and a Little Italy in anywhere, USA is still not Italy of Europe. In America, other than the occasional historical building or even a particular town’s neighborhood, we will not find the millennia of history that have influenced European cities and towns, most established uncountable generations ago as ancient hubs of trade. We will not find the endless tapestry of dense urbanity or country towns that are many centuries old; and we will not be able to travel slowly among all of it and to see it all in one continuous line, one near nation after the other. The fact that this has been a realization for us has been an immense education and a great gift, both of and from our shrinking world.