what about the traffic jam?

apart from chocolat, frieten (NOT French fries), beer, René Magritte, Adolf Sax and Tintin, Belgium is known for its traffic jams

or let’s say infamous for its traffic jams

each and every morning (6h to 9h30) and evening (17h to 20h30) highways in Belgium are filled with walking speed traffic, resulting in many frustrations.

but apart from these normal times, there are as well abnormal times for traffic jams

22h30 in Antwerp for example

three weeks ago I got end up in one of these unexpected traffic blocks

in particular from the ringway to the highway (direction Germany)

we were just a bit too late

… or just a bit too early for a major, but timesaving, detour

it took us 45 minutes to cover a distance of 2km... walking speed in other words

now, you have a choice what to do in those 45 minutes:

- driving yourself insane of frustration and anger (in my opinion, not the best idea… not healthy)

- anything else

sing along with the radio for example, also here convinced about your superstar qualities

play the license plate game: make funny words or sentences with other peoples license plates (little catch, since you’re in a traffic jam, you tend to be surrounded by the same set of cars for the whole time... in other words, it gets boring (btw, I suck in this game))

read your newspaper (and when you’re done, switch newspapers with your neighbouring driver... because of the irregularity of this phenomenon, you make other people smile! ...funny...)

get into the most animated and fantastical conversation with your passengers (if you have them of course)

on the subject of those figments of imagination:

what caused the traffic jam?   oh... your fantasy goes wild!

you're imagining a deer crossing the road, almost hit by one car (the driver had to turn his wheel to avoid the animal, making a 360° spin, while scarcely touching the side of the road and avoiding three other cars), but hit by a second one (which throws the deer into the air, bouncing on a third car and landing on the side car of a motorcycle, bruised but still alive) the driver of the third car got of course involved in a hit with two other cars; the motor cyclists lost his side car in the mean time and drives on a couple meters, flabbergasted because of what happened

...

in other words: a spectacular accident

the traffic jam moves a bit, your car 12 meters

you stand still for 5 minutes

the traffic jam moves again, your car ... oh wauw... 300 meters

you stand still for 7 minutes

...

this goes on for, as I said before, 45 minutes

while approaching what might be the end of the traffic jam, cause you see orange lights flickering, your curiosity grows... and grows... and grows...

yes, you’re a disaster tourist

you’re indeed approaching the end: you have to merge

and then, as a needle to a balloon, a big grumpy fat ass to a little brave flower or an abrupt interruption of a movie slow motion, you see what happened

...

nothing

absolutely nothing

ok, good for the deer, but after 45 minutes of queuing, I did expect to see something good...

no no just construction workers, not actually working, no no!

construction workers posing for the photograph... of the traffic jam they caused

...

asses!