Myokei and I met each other at the airport in Brussels without any major incidents. I fell down in the terminal and then couldn’t get back up but thanks to the kind hands of the Belgium police, the Belgium army, and Belgium customs agents they picked me up and got me steady on my feet.
We caught a train headed to Drongen but missed the stop, there were no announcements nor any signs. But because we missed the tiny little platform that serves as the Drongen stop we went to Antwerp and saw the beautiful old train station there. Gosh they don’t build like that anymore.
We then caught a train heading to Ghent but it turns out it wasn’t the right one. A train ticket agent wrote down the instructions to go to the Drongen station but his handwriting was actually worse than mine and who knows exactly what he wrote.
We met a kind gentleman on a train who spoke English and he showed us where to get off and then took us to the correct platform to catch the proper train.
As we were walking I noticed on his bag the Buddhist Eternal Knot. I asked about it and he said he was Tibetan Buddhist and thought we might be Buddhist priests, though he didn’t know what sort.
When we got off at Drongen we had no clue where to go. I looked up the Abbey on Google maps and that gave us a clue. Boy, I do not like using Google maps for walking. After a few misturns and lots of wasted precious steps we made it to our destination.
That journey took the entire day. We were the first to arrive. Not even the conference organizers had arrived. The kind lady in the reception office thought I spoke French when I greated her. Quickly though we reverted to English. She assigned us rooms and I immediately fell asleep.
I fell asleep on the train and Myokei had the dickens of a time waking me. I told if I fell asleep again I wouldn’t wake up so don’t let me fall asleep.
Sometime during the night I think Myokei brought me a dish of grapes and bread which I found when I woke up at midnight local time. I’m eating them now along with peanut butter I brought with me for just such occasions. I have now eaten two cups of peanut butter, two slices of bread a handful of grapes and a granola bar. I am not full but I am at least satisfied.
I’ll try to lay down and sleep a little more but the timing is all off for my body.
