ORIGINALLY POSTED: APRIL 25



For those of you who don't know, Drew left last Monday. It was a

slightly stressful departure because the train conductors decided that they

were going to go on strike that day. So after waiting an hour, there was

finally a train to Brussels, where Andrew had to catch a cab. He

arrived one hour before his departure.

I then had a visitor for a couple days. A girl who was a Biology major

with me came to Europe for her vacation and I was her first stop. After

showing her Mons and Brussels, we went to Paris for the weekend. She

then proceeded to the south of France. I spent a few more hours in Paris

with my friend Nesrine before I got on my train back to Mons.

I sat there, book in hand, not in the mood to talk to anyone. I hadn't

had any alone time since Tuesday and I hadn't really had the time for

it to sink in that Andrew had left. So I was not too chipper. But that

doesn't stop people when you wear a sign that says "please tell me your

life story".

I was sitting in the train, attentively reading my book. I didn't even

look up when the man sat down next to me. The train starts to move and

I hear, "What are you reading?". I look at the cover of my book and I

translate it to French for the man. Then I turn back to my page. Then I

hear, "are you English." I respond, "no, I'm American." He then says

before I can turn back to my book, "Where do you think I'm from?". As

soon as he asked that, I knew that he wasn't going to let me be, and I was

too nice to say otherwise, so I closed my book. "I don't know." He

says, "Guess, but don't consider this," he points to the small gold cross

that he saw me looking at (for those who are confused here, this man

looked like he was from the same group as the other immigrants here, but

they are all muslim. And I was confused as to why he was even asking me

to begin with). I respond, "I don't really know but based on the fact

that we are in Belgium, I would guess Moroccan or Algerian." He's

Morrocan, I then learned. He made it very clear he wasn't hitting on me

as he proceeded to share the fact he was actually born in Belgium; he

believes in practicing all religions because it's the same god; he has

problems with his father; he has an ex-wife who had married him only for

the right to live in Europe; he found himself and his true friends when

he was in prison, etc. I don't think I was able to say anything. He

would ask me a question, like how do you get along with your father, I

would start to answer but he would interrupt and continue on some other

tangent. He was nice and he did buy me an ice tea, but why me?

For those of you who haven't heard, this is not the first time this has

happened in my life. No matter how busy I make myself look, someone

will try to talk to me and they are always "interesting". One time I was

on a bus with my headphones on when I was headed home from Chicago. Next thing I know there was a tap on my shoulder. I can't avoid it. I think

I got it from my mother.