Sprouts

I flew in and out of Brussels last year on the way to a wedding in Northern Germany.

This was only because flights were considerably cheaper in and out of there than they were in and out of Frankfurt. And the drive was only about 20 minutes longer.

Plus, with the new EU rules, going through Belgium, Holland, and Germany no longer means much. Instead of border crossings with armed guards and stops, there are now just simple signs (the same type you'd see if you're on a highway in the U.S. and pass from one state to the next).

On the way home, I had to wait in a horrible long line, which I assumed was for security.

It turns out, this was just the line for Passport Control. So you went through, showed your passport (and maybe your boarding pass, I can't remember) and then were sent out into what essentially is a gigantic mall.

To get to Security (which was a five minute walk from the start of the mall), you literally had to walk through about a dozen stores selling everything from lingerie to men's suits, to everything else. You weren't walking through a corridor with shops on either side. You were walking literally through the stores.

Security took almost no time (at least compared to the 45-minute wait at Passport Control) and only then was I off to the gates.

I told everyone at the time that I couldn't decide if it was evil or genius that you had to go through shops before even hitting security (where you and your bags were examined and X-rayed before you got to the planes).

I can't tell from the photos I've seen, but it seems likely to me that the recent attack on the airport in Belgium happened in the "mall" area between Passport Control and Security.

It was shocking to see the areas I'd walked through (relatively recently) all bombed out and blacked by fire and destruction.

This song first appeared in 1987 as one of the B-side demos on the 12-inch single for The Meeting Place. And while I've always been more partial to "Let's Make a Den," which is kind of the sweeter sibling of this song, I've found myself listening to this a lot this past week.