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Hot Mess
03.February.2011
There’s something about an intended chill day versus one that’s not exactly planned. I guess if I have an item on my bucket list, “drink my way through Belgium” it should be expected that at least one day will go to piss, so I’m not really surprised that today, I woke up at 2pm, only to promptly go back to sleep and not wake again until 5pm. I did manage to eat a chocolate covered butter biscuit before my immediate nap though J I have not the foggiest idea how I managed to make it up the rickety, narrow, spiral staircase of the hostel in the early wee hours. Was the sun coming up? How did I manage to find my way home with no map, in the dark, not wearing my glasses? I get lost and sometimes can’t find my way around when I’m sober, with map in hand and able to clearly see! Aye! Why I thought it a grand idea to leave my hostel at 1am with the bartender to head to the “rock bar” across town is also unknown to me but good times were had!
There was this very nice gentleman who accompanied me to the “rock bar,” whose name escapes me right now, but he’s part of the national army reserve, older guy, loves his beer, was born, raised and has pretty much never left Brugge and gave me a fine walking tour of the entire city as we walked its empty cobblestone streets. I think he knows every inch of history in this city and I can give a fine eating/drinking/entertainment tour of Seattle but I’ll be damned if I can point out anything historical or even give the full history of said historical place. At one point in the night, I was a total hot mess, emotional and I’m pretty sure I cried when the hostel bartender, Evy, made some sort of mention that going to help people in Africa is pointless because they are useless, or something like that. It pissed my pissed self off so what happens when that happens? I cry. Ha. I’m not sure when exactly we left the bar but her hippy looking friend, whose name I also don’t remember, was going to accompany me back to the hostel but he started to get a wee frisky with me and I promptly told him to piss off and that I’d find my own way back to the hostel. Just as he went off in the other direction, I realized I lost the map. Oops!
Prior to the debauchery that was early this morning, I went out with a bunch of the people I befriended earlier in the day.
· Melanie and Lilian - two adorable girls from New Zealand who have been European adventuring since November. They are both 21 years old, Melanie studied psychology and early childhood development, and Lilian studied psychology and Japanese. They’ve known each other since they were 12 and have traveled a few times together, most noteably this trip and also a 6 week journey to Thailand where they had some crazy adventures with “happy milkshakes.” Ha! After their travels, Lil is going to spend a year in Japan studying and Melanie is moving to Manchester to be with her boyfriend and then they are both trying to move elsewhere in Europe. I spent a few hours talking with Mel over breakfast about her a 2 month trip she took to India where she worked in an orphanage and she continued her altruistic deeds in New Zealand and has volunteered with refugees for the past 3 years and has a dream of working at a refugee camp. Some pretty incredible stuff for a girl so young. Her parents have recently divorced and they both started going different places in the world to volunteer. Her mom has been doing work in Cape Town and her dad is going to Thailand or Vietnam to teach for a year.
· Fillipe - Brazilian who is in his final year of university in the Netherlands studying Agricultural something or other. His mannerisms totally remind me of my friend Frank and he cracked me up.
· Anna and Emma - two sweet girls from Sweden who booked the trip to Brugge, drunk one night after Emma’s relationship fizzled to an end. I talked mostly to Anna and she has convinced me I need to go to Sweden in the summer for their slew of music festivals. Ok, fine… twist my arm! They both can’t stand Robyn, who I of course had to mention since Robyn is the only thing I know from Sweden and well, I love her… bad! Anna had this tobacco packet thingy that you stick in your lip/gum area, kinda like chew but it’s not chew. Not going to lie, I tried it and it was WEIRD. They were made illegal in Sweden because they are crazy addictive and it’s basically like getting just the little buzz from smoking but w/o the smoke or nasty chew flavor.
· Brittany – Solo traveler from Winnipeg, who just finished her bachelor program in kinesiology in Melbourne and is traveling for an undetermined amount of time.
A few others went out with us but I didn’t get a chance to talk to them and one is this creepyish guy from Oklahoma who could’ve stayed back, for all I cared. We head to the bar and as soon as the door is opened the overwhelming aroma of cigarette smoke waffs in our face and it was fucking gross. Brittany exclaims, “there is no way I’m going back in that place tonight! Last night was enough for me.” I head over to a club that’s on the other side of the courtyard and stick my head in to take a whiff and it was way less terrible so Brittany and I head in there and it was probably the weirdest bar experience I have ever had. I buy Brittany and myself a beer and we look around and it’s ALL dudes. We counted maybe 3 or 4 other girls and the music was flaming gay dance music so all signs pointed to gay bar BUT the dudes were like beef steak rugby guys, very fratish and we heard glasses breaking, a lot of glasses breaking. We were trying to figure out what was going on and thought the bar back was dropping shit but then we see a guy take his empty glass, raise it above his head and throw it on the ground. Then another guy stacked 3 glasses and pushed them off the table. Mel joined us and we all looked at each other like we had entered some other planet. Brittany asks one guy, “what’s up with breaking the glasses?” “What broken glasses?” he asked. “The ones you just threw on the ground?!?” Another glass is thrown, bounces of Brittany’s leg and smashes on the floor. Immediately we chug what’s left of our beers and leave and decided it was just time to turn in so we headed back to the hostel. Well, they turned in… I already said what happened with the rest of my night.
This city is fantastic for aimless walking, which I’ve done tons of. At the beginning of the day I managed to finally get some French fries from the cart on the right and good god these people love their mayo. Imagine an ice cream scoop w/ whipped cream smothered all over it. Now replace the ice cream with fries and the whipped cream with mayo. I ate chocolate at the Chocolate Line, which is one of 4 chocolate shops in Brugge that actually makes their own chocolates and Mel, Lil and I grabbed a drink at the oldest bar in Brugge, since our plan to do the brewery tour failed due to them being closed.
Currently I’m sitting in an Italian type joint now, which I wish I would’ve walked passed. As soon as I entered it smelled like a blanket farts that were left marinating for a few hours. It’s too small to just turn around and leave and I’m not feeling like being a dick today. This may be the worst vegetarian lasagna I’ve ever had and the music, oh god the music! They are playing adult contemporary so that means lots of terrible MJ (his bad stuff), Celine Dion, Shania Twain and only god knows what else. The low hum of the Laundromat is much desired right now.
Not Quite the World at My Feet
Sunday, 06.02.2011
I was done with Brugge. It’s very cute, medieval, I met some incredibly awesome people, but it was time to move onto the next city, which at first, I didn’t think I wanted to do. I mentioned to Anna and Emma, my new friends from Sweden, that I was contemplating a trip to Antwerp and Anna boldly exclaimed, “COME WITH US!” The excitement was a bit much for my cocktail of Belgium beer soaked hung the eff over brain so I said I needed to sleep on it. No, I didn’t! Well, I did but I really didn’t. I woke early the next morning, showered (first time dudes were in the shower area the same time as me.. WEIRD!) grabbed some of the free breakfast from the Snuffle Hostel, where we were all staying and booked a hotel for the next 2 nights in Antwerp. The cost was a bit much but I justified booking the Park Inn, just outside Antwerpen Central Station, because I wanted a bed to myself (no bunk!), a room to myself and a shower that was hot, powerful, had a continuous flow of water and didn’t leak all over the floor. Holy heaven on earth!
I told Anna and Emma when they came down for breakfast and excitement was in the air. We hung out with Brittany for a bit more while the girls did some laundry, said our good byes, or in my case, “see you in a few days in Paris” and headed to the train station. I managed to FINALLY get a waffle on the way and stopped by the post office to gather the small item I’m collecting from each of the cities I adventure and THEN we hit the train platform. I love ALL the graffiti along journey from Brugge to Ghent to Antwerp. It’s everywhere, on the bridges, the side of the platforms, the trains themselves and it just all awesome. I’m trying to snap as much of it as I can but it’s hard.
We get to Antwerp and are in complete awe of the shear beauty of the train station. I thought the train station in Koln, Germany was impressive but WOW. It underwent massive construction over the past 5 years and it’s completed state is really quite beautiful, inside, outside, looking up, down, to either side of you, it’s just incredible. I checked into the hotel and then we headed to explore on foot, which is pretty much all we do everywhere we go. On Meir Straat is where all the major shopping is and it houses a massively gorgeous mall with stone work out front and gold tile inlays in the entrance. Waffles were the mission though, with strawberries and whipped cream so we stopped at a few on the way towards old town and finally found what we were looking for, in the midst of getting blown over by the ridiculous wind. This is not typically a windy city, just like Lesotho doesn’t typically rain like a bitch for days on end in the summer. I’m apparently lucking out left and right with weather, which is probably preparing me for whatever madness will be India in June-Sept and SE Asia during the typical monsoon season.
As we get to old town I see a perfume shop and I’m dying to go in so we do and find it’s an exclusive store of In Fine where they have this extensive sales pitch and “experience” they want to run you through with breakfast, wine, sniffing, your psychological profile based on what you like and blah blah. *sprits* *sprits* and we’re off. Anna is fiending for some Asian cuisine so we head back towards my hotel and enter China town, which is just on the other side of the square. I was telling them about the China town in San Francisco, which is unbelievable and unfortunately, Antwerp’s is probably worse than Portland’s. It’s about a block or two long and there is probably one “happy endings” massage parlor and a handful of really expensive restaurants. China town, expensive?? What?! Usually these types of places don’t excite me much but Emma had never used chop sticks before, nor had she ever received a fortune cookie post a meal, which baffled me, until we didn’t get a fortune cookie at this place. Mother! Time wound down and they needed to catch their train to Essen to meet some guys so we said our good byes and it was weird since we had just spent the last few days together and now, who knows when we’ll see each other again. I wasn’t sad though because I know we will, whether they come to the States or I head to Sweden during a summer to attend a music festival with them. We will see each other again!
Yesterday felt like I did nothing until I wrote it all down on my Incredible while sipping a De Konik at a gay bar. Here’s what it looked like:
Woke early to darkness (it doesn’t begin to get light until about 8am), showered, blew dry my hair AND put on make up (first time in 2 months), walked outside and almost got blown over, surrendered to wearing my beanie, yet again. I walked to the diamond district, expecting to find everything a bustle but it was dead and apparently closed Saturdays BUT open on Sundays, headed to the open air market in the Theater Plein and was completely blown away by how amazingly incredible it was. I bought ingredients for a later park sitting lunch of duck sausage, cheese and freshly made bread then a quarter kilo of apple filled, HOT AND FRESH waffles then found a place that was selling small and large bowls of Escargot soup and filled my tummy with a small one of those for my breakfast. Oh my god it was all so delicious! I found a fruit stand and wanted to purchase an apple and the kid, who barely spoke English, looked at me like I was crazy for not wanting a full kilo but he weighed my apple and then sent me on my way with a gift of a free apple for my snack. Walked in a accidental circle, AGAIN, god damn you Belgium, found the main theater that has a café in the breath taking foyer, drank a mocha, read my book but the place was too posh and snooty so I left. Walked towards old town and saw a cool shop with clothing from a Belgium brand, Chosen, made by a female designer, talked to the sales guy, Tony, who enjoys going to Hermosa Beach, CA to surf during the summer months and he told me about some club night and wrote the name of the place for me. Walked towards the river and saw a poster for said club, Café D’Anvers, and it said there was some circus performance that night… SOLD! Proceeded with my very blustery walk to the river promenade, looked out at the water for some time and then decided warmth was needed and entered a gay bar called Popi where an adorable boy, Lennart, was working behind the bar. I grabbed a De Koninck, local brewed Antwerp beer, and talked to Lennart for some time about world and local politics, health care and unemployment for our respective countries and whatever else. He suggested I go to the Fashion Museum where Steve Jones had a display of his hats and also that Café D’Anvers.
Some wretched guys came into the bar, who looked fun at first but after talking with them, were complete dicks. A few anti-Semitic comments were made, one of the guys said something lewd to me in Flemish, which he then translated, and I gave him a look of disgust. They made some comment about me being a solo female traveler and that they commended me and then my desire to leave promptly made me a bit nervous they would follow me. I looked at Lennart and told him the stuff they were saying and he said he’d kick them out but at that moment, the guys finished their drinks, I’m pretty sure they heard what Lennart and I said, and they bid a farewell, a much much welcomed farewell. It was the only gross part of my day but made me realize I am really going to have to stay on my toes and watch myself and what I do and make sure I don’t get myself into any sticky situations or if I do, can manage to get out of them. I’m by no means a man hater, some of my best friends are men, gay or straight, but this bull shit would NEVER happen with a woman to a man or a woman to a woman and it makes me feel slightly disgusted with dudes. I don’t want to feel like I can’t trust any of them but really, I don’t. We’ll see how that transpires over the next few months and additional journeys. Maybe I need to spend 3 months in Seattle learning Krav Maga prior to leaving for India?
Anyway, I left Lennart’s bar and headed to the fashion museum, which I had a hard time finding because the first floor looks like any old store front. Lennart said it would only take about 30 minutes to go through the exhibit so I gave myself about 45 but found that even that wasn’t enough, to really enjoy the different pieces, look at the descriptions of each and watch the video of Steve Jones. I may go to a masquerade party when I’m back in Seattle and I did get a wee bit of inspiration from one of this hats. That man is just amazing, the exhibit was quite wonderful, and I highly suggest it. Maybe don’t go with only 45 minutes left of them being open though J
I stopped by some restaurant in an alley, that was nothing spectacular so I didn’t catch the name, and grabbed a caprese sandwich to go and headed back to the hotel to check out the club night. Called my sister on skype and talked to her for a bit and finally managed to get in touch with Martina, even if only for a hot second. I found the site for the club and after learning the event they throw on Saturday was from 11pm to 7am, I decided against it. I’d already pissed away a day in Brugge, I much more enjoy day time activities at this stage in my life and from my world travels already, a club scene is a club scene so I opted for an early night in. Plus, the 3 beers at Popi were enough for alcohol ingestion for one day. Oh and watch where you step in Belgium. Dogs shit EVERYWHERE!
xxxo
not so dirty but still bruised
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