My Journeys with Paul

45 minutes. That was the estimated traveling time the CityMapper iPhone app finally settled on after I meticulously entered the address of my new place of work into the ‘Start’ bar. “That couldn't be right,” I remember thinking to myself, as I compared my travel time to my peers who had 15 minute commutes, maybe 20 minutes, tops. This seemingly monstrous time came as a shock, especially to me, as I grew up in a town in Florida where highways were not necessary and driving to the beach meant going down a single road until you eventually ran out of land.

My experience with public transportation, for this reason, was non-existent and my propensity for getting lost was concerning to my friends and family when they thought of me navigating a city such as Brussels by myself. To give context, transportation in Brussels is made up of various trams, buses, and metros all organized by the STIB (the Société des Transports Intercommunaux Bruxellois). Its ridership annually reaches almost 417 million, as according to the 2018 STIB Activity Report. My hometown of Bradenton on the other hand, has one bus line that garners 980,000 rides per year.

Needless to say, using public transportation was one of the biggest adjustments I had to make during my time abroad. The 45 minute commute I took eight times a week included a sprint to catch the bus outside my student housing complex, taking that bus to the tram station, taking a tram to the metro, and finally riding the metro for ten or so stops. On some days, I battled bus strikes that occurred sporadically during my time in Belgium, which would increase the number of metro commuters so intensely, it was necessary to have to wait for multiple trams until you could get on.

In the beginning of my work travels, I would hold my phone with a death-grip, constantly checking my Citymapper app to ensure I had not made a wrong transfer or missed my stop completely. Things, of course, got easier with time. I learned that instead of cramming yourself into the already packed metro car, it would be better to wait for the next one that was always two minutes away. I learned that public transportation was extremely sustainable in the long run, with the STIB reporting 200,000 tons of CO2 were prevented from entering the atmosphere per year. Most importantly, I learned that in one of the metro stations I had to transfer in, there was a Paul.

Paul, a bakery chain, became the highlight of my commute, seemingly making the 45 minute journey to get to work worth it. Paul taught me to look for the small things in my commute: to observe the cute baby laughing to the left of me, or the dogs that would accompany their owners on the metro.

Would I myself switch the comfort of my car to the long labyrinth that is the Belgian transportation system? Probably not. Did I thoroughly enjoy the European experience of using public transportation? Absolutely. Without it, my beloved Paul and I never would have met.