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Reading All Day

Day: 63

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Got kicked out of my hostel at 11:30, and even though my flight to Dublin wasn’t until 5pm I thought I would go check out the shuttle stop that would take me to the airport. The subway was full of singing musicians asking for change and eight stops later I arrived at the Brussels Midi train stations, where I heard a rumor that there was a out to the 2nd Brussels airport (not the main one) 50 kilometres away. I talked with a charming young lady at tourist information and she sent me off in the right direction to find the bus. I found the stop and the bus driver told me they left every hour from there and it takes about 30 minutes to get there. I had about an hour and forty-five minutes to kill, unless I wanted to spend it sitting in the airport (which I didn’t).

I headed back into the train station and found a bookstore because my copy of National Geographic was just about exhausted. I bought a copy of The Zahir by Paulo Couhlo (he also wrote The Alchemist, which found absolutely wonderful, and strongly recommend it), and went down the street to find a cafe where I could sit and finish my magazine by reading the article about earthquakes, and start reading my new book. Paulo didn’t let me down with The Zahir, and I slammed the first sixty pages sitting in that cafe drinking coffee. I ran off to catch my shuttle and continued reading the entire bus ride, the entire wait for the plane, the entire plane ride, and the entire shuttle ride into Dublin. By seven-thirty when I checked into my hostel I had finished 270 pages of a 290 page book.

I pulled myself away from the book for enough time to go out and find some dinner of an Irish stew and a pint of Guinness. After dinner I walked around and took a few pictures, only to have the book call my name and I headed back to the hostel common room to finish up my book then possible go out. I got through three pages before an Aussie came in and put on a movie, Saving Private Ryan, and I was distracted by scene of war and gore. I watched the whole movie, which I hadn’t seen in quite a while, and picked my book up ready to finish it before bed. I got through four more pages before the hostel staff came in and told me the common room was closing and I had to leave. I ended up reading the last thirteen pages in the stairwell.

After a hard day of reading about the power of love and everything it is meant to be, I headed out to have another pint before bed. I am in Ireland after all, Guinness is my favourite beer in the world, and it tastes so fresh here being so close to the brewery.

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Rain, Rain, Rain

Day: 62

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My day started this morning at 3 am when the guy sleeping above me decided he should begin snorring with wild abandon, and destroy any semblance of a decents night sleep for the rest of us in the room.  I kicked his bed a few times, but to no avail, the rest of the night was just a series of falling asleep and waking up to him snorring. To top the night off, someone had turned the radiator all the way up so the room was so hot I was nearly sweating. When I finally rolled out of bed at 9:30 this morning, still groggy and missing my free breakfast for the second day in a row (they stop serving at 9), and when I glanced out the window what did I see? Rain, and lots of it.  Ok, I thought, it’ll clear up in a couple of hours, just like it has been for the last few days. No big thing. Anyhow I don’t really have any plans for the day.

I started working on some writing and photo editing on my computer for a couple of hours, sitting on the veranda while watching it rain and hoping it clears up.  After a while the rain got slightly lighter and I made a dash to the internet cafe around the corner to get everything uploaded and published online.  At this point I was still hoping that the day would turn out nice (or at least less wet), there was a chance, maybe.

Around noon I went back over to the hostel to put away my computer and see what was going on.  Liam and Dan were about to head out through the rain to see Mannekan Pis (dress as a Boy Scout today) and some statue of Jesus laying on his side, both within 100 meters of each other but about a kilometer from the hostel.  I had seen these sights before, but I had to do something with my day, and besides I was hungry and it was a good way to find some lunch. After our walk through the rain, the Brits were less than impressed with the statues and just settled on finding lunch with me.  Lunch and a beer later, it was still raining and we were thinking about going to the movies to fill this dreary afternoon unfortunately nothing in English started until seven. We decided to go back to the hostel and possibly make it back to the cinema this evening.

As soon as I was back, the disturbed night of sleep I had last night hit me and I crashed for a few hours. When I woke up, it was still raining.  I got up and showered, and decided to wake up some people at home with phone calls because I still had my phone card with like 150 minutes and I am leaving for Ireland tomorrow and this card won’t work there.  I woke Joanna up with my call and she got me caught up on her life and all the Islands gossip and I told her some stories about the World Tour so far.  We talked for about 45 minutes then she had to get ready for her day and I had to get the Brits so we could go down to town through the rain and get a movie.  We made it through the rain and watched The Constant Gardener.

After the film we went on a waffle hunt, it was Dans last day in Belgium, he hadn’t had one yet and knew his life would never be the same if he missed out on this experience . We meandered the streets in the rain for a few blocks and found a little shop selling waffles, we both ordered waffles covered in chocolate, and started our walk home through the downpour.  I made it back to the hostel a little after 10 and wasn’t really in the mood to drink (everyone gasp!), so I read for a little while and called it an early night.  At least the snorring guy had left our room, even if the rain never let up for the whole day.

Drug of Choice

Day: 61

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I know everyone swears by Amsterdam for being the party city of Europe, but unfortunately my drug of choice isn’t weed.  I love my drinking and I don’t think I could have settled in a better city for my habit than Brussels, it is easily the beer capital of Europe.  Most of you may probably think of Germany as soon as beer comes to mind, but they are known for quanity (It’s good I won’t lie) not quality, if you want the best beers in Europe you have to head to Belgium.  I have so many choices it’s slightly dangerous, yet so tasty.

I woke up this morning and gathered my camera to go out to take some pictures, it was too bad that it was overcast and gray and I only found a few thing to take any pictures of, like the Mannekan Pis (See Jo’s comment yesterday for a history lesson).  But I did go in the museum and learned all about the history of Brussels, how the city was founded, and saw many of the costumes of the Mannekin Pis (which they always dress up as hundreds of things and have fun with). No pictures unfortunately because the museum wouldn’t allow it. Rain looked like it was on the horizon, so I just grabbed a panini and headed off back towards the hostel.

After reading for a while (this months National Geographic, which I bought in the airport when I left Prague) and watching the hail, I got to talking with Dan and Liam. We decided to head out and have dinner then go back over to Delirium (same bar as last night) for a few more random rounds of beer.  For dinner I had a bowl of mussels and fries (a Brussels specialty), and mentally prepared myself for another night of drinking.  When we arrived at the bar it was less crowded than the night before, most likely because it was Sunday, and our first round only took 15 minutes to get.

The hours of the night moved quickly and before I knew it I was chatting up all sorts of girls and getting them to pose for me.  Some of the young ladies I have pictures of I don’t even really remember talking to.  After about twenty minutes away from our table I take a glance back and what do I see? Liam (21) and Dan (20) hitting on these two “healthier” women (30 and 32) from New York who came complete with the “We’d fuck them up” (actual quote) attitude.  I left the boys to there own vices for a while and found a table of hot Finish girls to talk to for a while.  After a while I realized I was too drunk to carry on any sort of decent conversation, so I set a new goal of trying to save the boys so we could head off and get a kebab and stagger back to the hostel.

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Wandering… (Happy B-Day Dad)

Day: 60

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I started my day with a lack of sleep but still gathered enough will to take a walk all over the old town city center and try to see some of the sights. I started in the main square and worked my way out trying to set myself straight in this city. A few hours of this and I came across an internet cafe where I could upload the last couple of entries and check my email. From there I was near one of Brussels main sights, a foot and half tall statue of a child pissing. I am not really sure why its so amazing, but everyone wanted a picture and they sell replicas all over town, so there must be a great story behind it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go to the museum and try to find out the history about it.

Around two in the afternoon, after I had enjoyed a cup of Belguim hot chocolate in a cafe, I headed back towards the hostel for a little siesta. A few hours of sleep worked wonders and when I woke I remembered it was dad’s birthday and I went off to find a phone card to call him. I bought a 5 euro card, which in most countries is about 20 minutes, but after I entered my pin number the automated woman told me I have 250 minutes to the U.S. Score! But it means now I have to call everyone I know because I just can. I had great conversation with Dad about his birthday party (his 50th) he was setting up, and how I’ve been doing.

I was able to talk two british guys (Dan and Liam) in my room into going with me to the bar I was at last night to try some more of the Belguim beer selection. When we got there, the bar was pack (I forgot it was Saturday) and we had to wait for 15 minutes for our first round, which I just ordered six random beers (2 each) hoping to have a varied selection of what they were offering. With 2000+ choices how am I to know where to start, I’ll just trust the bartender to choose well. Most of the beers we got were around 9%-11% alcohol, so it was closer to the alcohol content of wine than beer, but it was incredibly tasty. Since I had bought the first round of two beers each, Liam and Dan just naturally assumed we each would buy the same amount and get slightly drunk (well more than just slightly). The only bummer today was that my trial version of Microsoft Office expired and I need a 25 character password (hint,hint) or my grammer and spelling will begin to suffer as I write everything on wordpad.


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Kicked Out of Amsterdam

Day: 59

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So hopeful that I would be able to stay for the Holiday weekend in Amsterdam, first thing in the morning (8:30 or so) I went to reception and hoped for a cancellation.  When I got to the desk there were four other Japanese kids that had the same idea as I.  Unfortunately there was no room for any of us and I just decided to pack my bag and head on over to the train station and pick at random where to go.

A side note, about three weeks ago I had found a ticket on Ryan Air for $1.99 plus tax ($24) from Brussels to Dublin for May 2nd and since I had so much fun in Ireland last time I went (in Feb. 2005 with Francisco) I decided I couldn’t pass up such a great flight and snatched up the ticket.  So it wasn’t completely random the direction I was headed, but I didn’t really have the intention to spend four nights in Brussels before Ireland but that looked like what was going to happen.  Lonely Planet-less I jumped the train to Brussels hoping I could find some trouble.  (Lonely Planet-less is referring to the fact that I have absolutely no information about the city I was headed, not even a simple map.)

Two hours later, just outside of Brussels the conductor comes around to check our tickets. He looks at mine and says “You need a supplement, this ticket is for the regular trains and this is a private train line”

Great, I thought.“How Much?”

“Eighteen Euros.”

Freakin A! I had already paid thirty just for my regular ticket.

I shelled out the extra $22 and Thought about the good old days last month when I could cross half of Eastern Europe for the same price a supplement to the train ticket in the west.  This part of the world is hurting my budget. I arrived in Brussels and started looking around for tourist information.

Closed. Damn.

I took a look around for similarly lost looking backpackers that might have a clue. Nope. Damn.

Found a little internet café in the train station and searched for a hostel in Brussels and got directions. Sweet, I was on my way.

Eight metro stops later I was checked in and had paid for four nights hoping I would find stuff to do in this city for that much time. It doesn’t really have the tourist vibe that cities like Amsterdam, Prague, and Krakow have.  Maybe it’s just waiting to be discovered.  I took a walk through the park nearby and headed into the old town section (by sheer dumb luck, still no map) and was astounded by what I found. Waffles! On every corner, no wonder I can’t stay skinny.  I had been here before for two nights in 2001, but don’t really recall much of those few days and am already slightly impressed with the city. I mean, Waffles! After my walk and dinner of Panini and waffles, I headed back to my hostel and ordered a beer. “What kind?” the bartender asked.

“The darkest you have.” He gave me a smile and pulled out a bottle “made by the monks” that was 9.2% alcohol. Monks sure are nice.  After a couple of those I was talking with a Californian girl (Nor. Cal.) who was on a school break from Spain.  It was around 9pm now and we decided to go out and see the Brussels night life. She knew of a bar where she had spent most of the day which is in the Guinness book of World Records for the most beers offered in the world. 2004 beers as of two years ago, but the bartender said it was currently around 2200 beers, and he had only tried 900 of them. I didn’t know where to start, I wish Josh was with me for support in this endeavor.  I had three different beers, all spectacular, and we headed out to go dancing.  I promised myself I would remember where the bar is since I have four days here in Brussels.  We dance for a couple of hours to a shitty DJ, and grabbed a cab back to the hostel.

I had my doubts about this city but it looks like I’ll be able to fill my days with something. Most likely Waffles, Beer, and twenty year old Californian girls although that one (can’t remember her name) leaves in the morning so I’ll have to find some more.

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Beer…

Day: 58

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I had decided to take a tour of the Heiniken brewery today and had convinced (with little effort) Brooks and Hannah to come along.  It was only a few blocks from the hostel and by 11:30 we were learning about the wonderful world of brewing.  About ½ way through the tour we got to sample our first glass of the best part of brewing, beer.  A few minutes later we were back on the tour and playing with all the fun things they had to offer, like emailing pictures of yourself at the brewery to friends (Sarah and Aaron check your e-mails). After a few other cool things we learned about beer and the Heiniken family we headed to the bar near the exit for our other two beers that came with out 10 euro admission.

Sitting there during our first round a guy we meant on the tour came over and dropped an extra six beer tokens on our table. Score for us.  All the sudden our pre-lunch beer intake had doubled.  Then we made friends with a lone girl from Chicago who also had a couple of extra tokens, so we came up with a plan to get even more beer for free.  Every time you went to the bar you dropped your tokens into a glass and said how many you had just dropped.  We started to go up to the bartender, drop two tokens and say “four”.  With our surplus of beer tokens and our foolproof system this granted each of us roughly eight beers instead of our designated 3 that came with the tour. Just before we left we thought it would be good to send Brooks to the bar with no tokens and see if he could say “Four.” And get us more beer, unfortunately I think the bartender had caught on and asked him where his chips were. Bummer.

Quite inebriated we headed out to find some lunch, everyone’s first meal of the day.We (Myself, Hannah, Brooks, and our new friend Laura) had sandwiches and beer in a pub about a block from the brewery and after lunch headed down to chill out by the canal and have a smoke.  The day was flying by with fun activities.  After a relaxing hour of so (except for Hannah, who couldn’t handle her booze and threw up in the grass), we headed back to our room where I passed out and Brooks and Laura spent a couple more hours indulging in Amsterdam’s primary tourist draw.

When I woke up around 6pm I headed out to get some afternoon pictures and find an internet café to get all my posts from the last couple of days up.  I spent an hour or so doing that, went out to dinner alone at “Zorba the Greek” then went back to the hostel to see what everyone was up to.Spent the night just hanging out in the hostel bar, drinking beer and smoking a little until it was time to head off to bed because I wanted to be up early for tomorrow when it looks like I’ll have to leave Amsterdam because there is no room for me on this holiday weekend (Queens Day).

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Not Following in my Fathers Footsteps

Day: 57

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Woke up thinking, “Wow, that was an interesting night”. I really am taking in all Amsterdam has to offer…

I went downstairs to the kitchen/bar and started my day with some toast with Nutella on it and a cup of juice. I wasn’t half way though my toast when it started being passed from the right. About an hour later, slightly stoned but still motivated to see the city, I was able to pull myself away from the group that sits there all day and make my way into some other parts of Amsterdam. I wandered around for a few hours just checking out the buildings, canals, and the Dutch. Bicycles wiz by you almost every minute in this city and if you are not on you’re toes you seemed to get clipped. Fortunately I didn’t. I made my way back for an afternoon nap that lasted until 5pm.

I took another evening walk to the Van Gogh museum and spent a while seeing roughly 200 of his paintings and learning all about his short life as an artist. I was significantly impressed. I was on a mission at this point to find an internet café because my blogging has been getting a couple of days behind and all the drug use is not helping me stay focused after about an hour of walking I found a little café that was open twenty more minutes, I was able to get my images uploaded but couldn’t get my writing online. Kind of bummed I headed back to the hostel to see what was going on.

Brooks, Hannah and I headed off for a Italian dinner and went of to the “Grasshopper” (before rthe reference to my fathers own story there) for a late evening smoke (I didn’t pass out, Dad). We walked around for another hour and when we finally got back to the hostel I just crashed hoping to get more accomplished tomorrow.

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(Sorry about the bikes, they are everywhere and pose so nicely)

The Best Laid Plans…

Day: 56

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I woke up after 4 hours of sleep and realized I had to make it to the airport to catch my plane to Dortmand (Germany). I shouldered my bag and made my way to the bus station the whole time watching over my shoulder to see if the police were coming for me (as per last nights criminal activities). I made it to the shuttle stop and the rest of my day was a blur of bus, plane, bus, train, tram and walking. I arrived at my hostel (The Flying Pig) in Amsterdam exhausted thinking about calling it an early night so I can partake in everything the city has to offer tomorrow. I headed out, found dinner and went back to the hostel just after nine. Now I wanted to call it an early night but this was far to oearly for a city like Amsterdam so I headed down to the bar in the basement for a beer and just to chill out.

Before I knew it I had made some friends (two Brits, Brooks and Hannah on vacation for a couple of days) and one of Amsterdam’s primary attractions started to burn. Slightly stone the question was put forth to me.

“Do you want to do some laughing mushrooms?”

Now this is a moment of truth…

“…Sure…”

The next four hours I spent laughing my ass off eating Pringles and cheese, the world became the funniest place ever. The laughter was unending and the world was the most excessively interesting place, every texture, color, shape, surface was brand new and enlightening. So much for an early night but it was one of the craziest experiences of my life.

Now in the post script I know some of you might be astonished with my choice being that I am not the biggest drug user. But the day after as I write this I don’t regret a minute of it.

Criminals in Czech

Day: 55

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Another day spent wandering this magically crowded city, being trampled of wave after wave of tourists trying to get to the bridge or the castle or Kafka’s house, is not my idea of a great time. Yet it is hard to complain when the city is this spectacular and you have no responsibilities in life. The daytime passed quickly (probably because I didn’t get up until 10) and before I knew it I was rounding up a group of people to go out for dinner and possibly a few drinks.

Myself, TJ, Nicky and Sherry all headed out around eight for a night of great food and great conversation about Dick Cheney shooting somebody in the face. I am really disappointed that news this funny took so long to reach me, this is the kind of thing I really shouldn’t hear about two months later from a Canadian. So all you out there in blogland remember, next time any major governmental figure shoots anyone, Rob needs to be informed so he can laugh his ass off too. After dinner, which was a little pricy but very tasty, we started to walk back the two blocks to our hostel when I came up with a ingenious plan. We were going to have a drink at every bar all the way back to our beds. Now this being the Czech Republic means that in two blocks there are 5 or 6 bars.

The first bar we was a little dive with a coked out lady bartender, our drinks took her 10 minutes to make (1 beer, 3 shots of vodka, and a Red Bull), and she looked lost the entire time. We slammed the first round. While TJ, Sherry and I were waiting for Nicky to finish her beer we ordered another round (2 vodkas and a Jager for TJ), which took another 10 minutes to get. As a former bartender I was slightly frustrated. After our second round we grabbed the check because we knew we had a few more bars to go to get home. When I looked at the check it was about half the price it should have been, she had forgot to ring in some of the drinks. We gave the bill to TJ to pay (He owed us from dinner) and the girls and I headed outside to let him deal with the bartender.

When TJ came outside and we started to walk downhill he had a big old grin on his face and I glanced down at the 1000 Crown note he had gone to the bar with still in his hand, and quickly gave him a glance and realized he had just turned us all into criminals in Czech! When the girls realized this they both started to walk really fast and I just kept pace laughing my ass off. TJ had just drank and dashed. Now at this point I recalled The Plate Hurling incident and all the shit I took for making Americans look bad in Turkey, but here is this Canadian (the world loves Canadians!) that walked out on a $9 tab in a bar! Stupidity while intoxicated is not just limited to Americans, it is a universal truth.

After about ½ an hour on the run from the law, we found another bar that TJ had to pay for the shots before we were served. I was slightly relieved. Until he also showed us the Jager shot glass that he stole from the last bar! Free drinks and complimentary shot glasses, this 19 year old is a clepto. Anyway we never finished our pub crawl and just headed to the market to get a bottle of vodka and some sprite to drink at the hostel. The night passed quickly and I was asleep in no time (by “no time” I mean roughly 3 am).

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Another Day at Work

Day: 54

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I wasn’t quite sure how to spend the day when I woke up this morning. After breakfast I sat down at my computer and started to edit yesterday’s pictures and write my blog entry. I was in a good mood and I was able to accomplish much, so I spent until about 4pm sitting in front of my computer editing, organizing and photo-shopping a back log of pictures that I’ve been procrastinating on doing for the last two weeks. I now have, up-to-date, two hard drive and one DVD copy of everything that I have deemed worthy of importance (roughly 300 pictures). The daytime was kind of like a work day for me, and even though I was sitting in Prague I still was putting business first. I am not going to lie, I was slightly proud of myself.

Around 4pm the days rain had cleared and the sun was starting to give a wonderful light to the city. I grabbed my camera and headed out for a couple of hours of photo-ops. I climbed the tower on the Charles Bridge and captured some beautiful rooftop shots of the city. The mobs of tourists were still everywhere and moving around the city wasn’t the fastest process, but I wasn’t in a rush for anything. I found an internet café, uploaded my blog and bought a ticket to fly to Amsterdam (actually Dortmand, Germany with a train to Amsterdam) on Tuesday. This upcoming weekend is the Queen of Holland’s Birthday and the Party in the streets of Amsterdam is supposed to be intense. I made a reservation at a hostel for Tues, Wed, & Thurs, but I won’t know where I am staying for the weekend until I am there because they stopped taking any reservations for the weekend. I gave the hostel a call and they let me know there would probably be room for the weekend if I was coming on Tuesday but there were no guarantees. I’m not excessively worried, if I can’t stay in the city I’ll just head to the Dutch countryside for the weekend. I had some leftover phone time on a calling card I had bought so I called my sister and dad each for a quick chat.

I made it back to the hostel just before 8 and settled in for a beer and to watch two guys from Minnesota drink two bottles of Absinthe through the course of the night. I made some new friends and enjoyed the generally inebriated environment. We never even managed to go out, we just hung out buying beers from the hostel receptionist.

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robertpaetz

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