So first off I was not a tourist. I had to go there to renew my passport. For whatever reason the embassy in Brussels handled passport renewals for all people from my country living in Europe. There was no way to renew by mail; you had to show up in person.
I also had absolutely no appointment. If they had turned me away idk what I'd have done. I TRIED to make an appointment but the appointment booking system gave me an appointment on a day when the embassy was closed(wtf?) and then I couldn't change it without using their telegram bot which simply said "Authentication failed" over and over again. I couldn't book a new one until I had canceled the first because the website says there's already an appointment tied to your ID number.
At that point I needed to talk to a human being.. When I called the embassy in Brussels they would hang up immediately but the embassy in Berlin answered and told me to go without an appointment. So that's what I did.
Anyway I had little money and decided I wasn't gonna book a hotel. I would travel on the cheap by taking all the regional trains in Germany to Dusseldorf and from there a Flixbus to Brussels. The regional trains are free if you have the Deutschland ticket, that's a monthly subscription. The Flixbus cost only 12 eur. The whole trip took 15 hours.
I arrived in Brussels at 3am. I walked across town from bus station to embassy. I got there at 5am. They open at 9am. I was starving and really needed to pee so I walked to the nearest Mcdonalds which is the only thing that might opens soon at 7am. On the way there I couldn't hold it in anymore so I peed in a random park. Luckily it was still dark. When I first got off the bus the whole place smelled like urine so I figured it's ok.
I got to Mcdonalds too early and waited in the cold until they opened. Then I had breakfast and a coffee. I walked back to the embassy and there were 4 people waiting. 3 also traveled from Germany and 1 traveled from the netherlands. Only one guy had booked a hotel. It was 8:30am at this point. We waited until it opened.
Surprisingly the actual renewal itself went very smoothly. One hour and we had our recipts and we were told to come back in a month. They even gave us some tea while we waited and took our passport pictures right there.
I left the embassy feeling pretty happy it all turned out well in the end. But then I realized the next Flixbus home was in 1 hour and the station was across town. Google Maps said it takes 2 hours to get there. I ran for a while then got tired and decided to take an e-scooter. I had only ridden one of those once before and not in traffic but i was like how hard can it be. And that's how I ended up racing across brussels panicked trying to catch the Flixbus and I almost got hit by a bus on the way. The stupid e-scooter app kept remotely limiting my speed to a brisk walk whenever I entered low speed zones. If only i'd just taken a regular bike.
Finally I was close and 10 minutes away from the bus departing and decided to park and just run the rest of the way there. The stupid e-scooter app wouldn't let me park in that area even though there were multiple other e-scooters RIGHT THERE. It said if you want to override the parking zone then please take a picture of the e-scooter. So I took out my phone with one hand while trying to keep the e-scooter upright with the other. And that's when it happened.
Dropped the phone
Clink
It hit a rock
Screen went black
No more google maps, no google translate, I don't speak french, no calls, no internet, no buying flixbus tickets, no showing Deutschland Ticket on German regionals, without a phone I am nothing :(
I walked slowly and vaguely until I found the flixbus station. The bus was already gone. I sat at the bench station hoping they got internet I could connect my laptop to. They didn't. Then I realized that the phone was actually working. Only the screen was broken. Through vague clicking around from memory of where the buttons used to be I managed to blindly turn on wifi hotspot and connect my laptop to it. I opened whatsapp and sent a message to my family telling them what happened.
Then I asked the Flixbus guy who luckily spoke English where i could buy paper tickets. He told me it's at a store in some sorta french street name. Rue de something I think. He gave me directions. I followed them. They took me through a shady street with drunk hobos on one side and hookers on the other. Then I didn't find the ticket shop. I wandered around aimlessly
That's when my brother called me. I picked up with my bluetooth headphones button connected to the phone. I told him hey can you open google maps and find where I can buy flixbus tickets. I kept telling him what restaurant or store i was near and he'd give me directions from there until I found it. It was where the Flixbus guy told me to go. I just hadn't seen it initially because it's a small grocery store not a flixbus center that just happens to sell Flixbus tickets.
The store told me the next ticket to dusseldorf was at 6pm. I was like forget it. I'll just take a flixbus directly home. More expensive but there's no way any regional trains run after 11pm anyway so I had no choice. The first one home is also not until 5pm. So I bought the physical ticket and went back to the flixbus station. It was 12pm. I needed to kill 5 hours.
I walked around the city. Found a public bathroom. Thought this could have been handy earlier. Then I walked around some more making sure not to go too far away to not get lost. My brother called every once in a while. He gave me directions to the McDonalds. I went there and saw power plugs. I ordered food hoping I can sit and charge my laptop. NONE of the plugs worked. Felt ripped off. Ate their burger then left.
Walked around over and over again. At this point it was 3pm. I went back to the flixbus station and that's where i saw some of the guys I met at the embassy. They were like dude we thought you left to catch the earlier bus? I said long story. Turns out they had sat at the embassy drinking tea and chatting this whole time and then took a tram here to catch the 5pm bus. Anyway one of them took me out for coffee. It was my third coffee that day. We talked got back to the station. Finally the bus came.
I got in and luckily Flixbuses have outlets that work! FInally I charged my laptop and my broken phone. On the way home I spent hours using blind touches from memory, google assistant, talkback, and the one corner of the screen that wasn't completely broken to remove my pin (because entering it took an hour and I kept entering the wrong one and getting locked out twice.), turning on USB debugging, and connecting to my laptop where i used scrcpy to finally SEE MY SCREEN AGAIN. The other passengers mustve heard me say "turn on talkback" and "turn off talkback" and "go to security settings" a million times.
It wasn't exactly convenient using my laptop to control my phone. And also there were these random touches that came from the broken screen. I'd connect it to the laptop and see the screen only to find out I was about to send an email with keyboard mash to my professor or report my brother for spam lol. But at least I had a lifeline.
I made it to my connection in frankfurt. There i Waited for 2 hours for a bus that came late. It was soo cold. I walked around over and over until my legs hurt. I was listening to Rapper's Delight on loop.
I made it home at 2am. My brother who was supposed to let me in fell asleep. I urgently had to pee again and I did it in a dark corner in a park again. Then he finally woke up and let me in.
The phone screen would cost 200 eur to repair :( that's as much as a brand new phone of the same exact type. I bought a cheap temproary phone for 69 eur. Maybe I'll fix this one day idk. The funny thing is if I'd booked a hotel I'd have probably saved money in the end by not breaking my phone. Who knows?
Anyway that's the story of the first time I went to Brussels. I'll go there again in a month to pick up the passport.