Watch were you walk

The other day I was walking to the grocery store and saw a shadow over me. I of course looked up assuming it was a bird that was going to poop on me and saw that I was actually standing under the arm of a crane carrying a plank. I looked around to see if I missed a cautionary sign, but there was none. If I remember correctly, in the States any construction is blocked off completely but here you can just hang out around it apparently. I guess Brussels is more on the laxed side. I'm sure the crane had a good hold on the plank, but its like walking under a ladder, its just better to walk around it.

The yellow and black thing is the hook of the crane, its picking up the big green dumpster thing, look at all the cars and people around it. If it was windy I swear the thing would smack you in the head.

There are the other usual things to watch out for when your walking around, dog poop, holes in the sidewalk and of course cars. Now when I say cars it might be a little different here when you look out for cars. The pedestrian crosswalks are a little different here. I'm not a world travel by any means, but in my travels I've come to understand that the power of the pedestrian in a crosswalk is different in every country. In Minnesota the pedestrian technically has the right away (even though sometimes cars forget that) and generally people are happy to give you the right of way. When I was in Peru, it was like being in a pack of geese. The cars didn't necessarily want to give you the right of way, but they yielded because they didn't want to ruin their cars. If you were at the side of the road waiting to cross, it might take awhile because nobody would want to stop for you.

Here seems like a compromise of the two. Cars will give you the right of way, but they are in a hurry and you better cross the street like you are in a hurry too. If you give the courtesy wave and raise your hand to thank the driver, they'll give you a look that says "what are you doing, and why are you still in my way?" The other thing to remember is the driver will give you the right away if they see you and can stop in time. Being in the city, there's cars parked on the side of the road obscuring the drivers site so its hard to see around the corners. They also drive pretty aggressively so you're relying on the driver to have good brakes and good reaction time. I've seen several drivers make hard stops that would have definitely hurt somebody if they were in the crosswalk. My method is to look around the corner, and walk as quickly as my 3 foot legs will take me.

The blue car couldn't find a parking spot, so they just parked on the sidewalk

Do you see the tram tracks? No? Neither do any of those people walking on them...

Additionally, the sidewalks here are sometimes also roads, parking spaces or metro tracks. Since a lot of roads are cobblestone, they blend in with the sidewalk.  So you'll be walking down the sidewalk and there will be car parked there or a car will almost hit you as are walking. One time Steve and I were walking around a big square and realized that we were also walking on tracks. There were no warning signs that at any minute a big tram could be ready to run you over.