Second weekend in Brussels and I am already out. I ended up in Herzele, or it seems that it could have as well been in nowhere. The town truly did not seem to have a lot to show, or to give, but all I wanted was quietness. So what a better place for that than being nowhere.

And then I think of what is Brussels and what is everything else. What is the city, and what is the country. Why do I want to live in a city. Theaters, cinemas, restaurants, people, people, people... Well, it's probably the people I would say. The diversity of people. Obviously there is less diversity in a smaller town, and it gets boring after a while. Or so I have always thought.

But the reality is very different because towns have characters that cities don't. Like people who have time. It's like endless time to talk or to wait, which is even more reassuring. It's like slow food. There is pleasure in doing it slowly.

People also are more interested in what the conversation may bring. In cities it seems that conversations have to end up soon so that I can go and talk to someone else, in the same hurry and hoping to end it as soon so that I can go on... In cities there are far too many people, and probably far too many choices. In a small town you don't know when you will bump into another good talk, so there is always an incentive to hold on to the one you are having right now. And it works.

I wonder if all this has to do with the fact that cities might be confusing, at least in the beginning, like it is right now for me. Far too many choices... I guess this is the point of living in one, the choice of the buzz. I guess the point is to make a little town within the city, like the places you know, where there is an incentive to hold on to a conversation.