In Brussels and not happy...

I walked from the central station having jumped off the 1258hrs Eurostar from London St Pancras International. I'd had a ham roll and a glass of Merlot from the restaurant beyond passport control and the ride was pretty smooth; it only takes a couple of hours.

Once in Brussels I walked from the station to my hotel (the Catalonia Grand Place, about 25 minutes) and then, after checking in (room 107), I walked all the way to Avenue Louise, another 25 minutes, but I kept getting lost, thanks to the iphone's ridiculous navigation system. I walked around in circles at least a dozen times before the phone ran out of power and I just took a guess. Fortunately, my guesswork was pretty good and I found the Grand Sablon Hotel, where I'd stayed once before, and asked for directions. They've refurbished the place and it looks totally different, but I didn't have time to yabber with the receptionist, I had a cocktail reception to attend although, oddly, you never get cocktails at cocktail receptions. There was wine and beer and Champagne (or something like Champagne) plus a few 'nibbles' and while I was there I said my hellos to various people.

Room 107, Catalonia Hotel, Brussels

It took me half an hour to get back to where my hotel was located and en route I mooched around trying to find somewhere decent to eat. I settled on a Cuban restaurant, the only one in Brussels, apparently. I ordered a Jupiler beer and a chicken dish with rice and while it was alright, I wasn't completely happy with it. To be honest, I just needed to chill out a little.

Meal over I walked back to the hotel where there's some sort of curfew around 2130hrs, but, I was told, there's always somebody on reception and there's a doorbell so I'm not going to be left out in the cold.

Having left my charger at home, my laptop, on which I'm typing now only has so much time before it simply switches itself off. I'm expecting it to happen any second now as a new battery is needed. But until that moment, I'll keep on typing. Downstairs there's a business centre, but all the keys are different so it was impossible to work out which combination of keys (control + this + that) would give the @ sign. I started to get frustrated and banged the keyboard, the whole thing froze so I evacuated the area and headed for my room and here I am typing away, while I can.

The conference starts tomorrow and I'm here until Wednesday. Generally I'm not in a good place: I'm uptight, angry, annoyed, unhappy, depressed, you name it and little things are starting to annoy me, like business centre computers with stupid keyboards and hotels that close up shop at 2130hrs and charge extra for breakfast. Everything is annoying me and I know for a fact that I won't sleep well as I've had a couple of glasses of wine at the reception and a small beer in the restaurant, all in the name of trying to calm down, trying to be relaxed. The last time I travelled – to Vienna – I was totally relaxed, but then I'd been cycling every day and I felt good about life. Not so today. I need a haircut too. In fact I'm looking a mess generally, which adds to my general anger. I need  a decent suit, some shirts and a new pair of shoes. But recent over-spending has left me short of cash so I have to look like a tramp, with my straggly hair. I've noticed, however, that barbers are open late in this neck of the woods. So perhaps I'll have a haircut tomorrow when the conference is over, except that there's a dinner so it'll have to wait until Wednesday morning.

The view from Room 107's window...

The hotel's alright, but it's not brilliant. Breakfast tomorrow morning will be the big decider, although I'm not holding out for much. There are plus points: proper coat hangers and a minibar means the hotel trusts its guests, there's a safe, which took me a few minutes to work out how set the code, but it's working now and everything seems alright. I'm on the first floor and the hotel room is very beige. There's laminated 'wood' floors and I have to put the keycard into a slot in the wall to make the lights work. There's a big widescreen TV over the desk facing the bed, a mirror to the left of the television and a reasonable-looking bathroom, but the vibe in my head is bad, I'm not relaxed, I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.

There is a bike share scheme, but, as always, it's complicated. I might try and work out how to use it, but in all honesty, I'm not here that long, I won't have time tomorrow morning and after that there's not much point, although I'm planning to at least try to cycle to work once or twice a week.

I better post this before the computer runs out of power.