Brussels
by Paul · 18 June 2026 · Biography & Memoir
Brussels: 170 rainy days. That's not an argument. In the rain it looks like a painting someone left out. Paul knows which arcades are dry — knowledge that takes years and leaves when you do. He has no plans to leave.
It rains in Brussels 170 days a year, which is less than Bergen but more than Amsterdam and considerably more than Barcelona, facts I mention only because people bring them up. As if rain were an argument.
Brussels in the rain looks like a painting someone left out. The grey stone goes darker. The cobblestones — and there are still cobblestones in Brussels, which is either preservation or stubbornness depending on your knees — reflect the lights in a way that isn't romantic exactly, but makes the city look like it means something. I've walked home in the rain probably a thousand times. I know which stretches under the arcades are dry and which aren't. This is a kind of knowledge that takes years and leaves when you do. I have no plans to leave.
Read in the app, leave a resonance, discover more stories.