fox-trotting

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Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:53:20 -0400

One of the many bars

Graffiti alley

Home movies of weddings

Ghent

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:48:00 -0400

Ghent is similar to Bruges but bigger, younger, and with less tourists. At the train station I met up with Jana, a friend of a friend who was going to show me around for the day and found me a place to crash. We walk around a bit around the center, went for some beers and food and soaked up the late spring sun along the canal.

That evening we went to Jana’s house with some of her friends still recovering from the late night before and we ate all kinds of animals in varions forms cooked over a grill by Jana’s dad and where Trappist beers, wine and pils were plenty.

The beers kept flowing that night and we bar hopped around the center. The dance floors became stickier and sticker with spilled drinks and broken glass as the evening went on. Bars close late in Ghent, or early I guess, the sun was well up when I left the bar behind and walked to my designated crashing area.

Surprisingly I had a very mild hang over for the amount of strong Trappist beers I had, probably thanks to all those animals I ate and water I drank. I was up and walking around town at noon. Ghent has a lot amazing graffiti, street art, and lots of legal walls. I went to this strange museum with all kinds of objects from 19^th and 20^th century Ghent, with a really interesting section with home movies from the 50’s to the 80’s.

I walked around some more, played ukulele by the castle along the canal, saw a fashion exhibit inside a church were the pieces were actually pretty critical of Catholicism, it was hilarious to see the faces on some of the tourists and church goers as they wandered jaw-dropped, scrunch faced, then walked away in disapproval. I had time to quickly check out the S.W.A.K museum for an exhibit by Koen Theys before jumping on the train back for my last week of work.

I’m pretty sick of working here actually, although its super pretty in the spring time, and the people I work with are generally friendly, they’ve got some pretty racist, sexist, and homophobic views and conversations that I’ve been trying to ignore for the past two months and a half. From next weekend on, I’ll be hitting the road thumbs up thru Holland with not much of a plan other than seeing friends, trying some legal hallucinogens and attempting to catch some surf up North.

Can’t sleep so I did a bad cover of Sleeping Sickness by...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:48:00 -0400

Can’t sleep so I did a bad cover of Sleeping Sickness by City & Colour outside my cabin

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 14:06:04 -0400

Bruges, Knokke

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 14:02:58 -0400

The “Venice of the North” as its called here, Bruges is a pretty little tourist town with the price to match. The city is sits on top of medieval canals and filled with endless little parks, narrow cobble stone streets, over priced souvenir shops and high fashion stores.

The “hostel” I was staying at was basically a vintage rock n roll, kitsch American bar with a few rooms for rent upstairs. It wasn’t all that bad, but I felt no shame stuffing my bag full of food at the overpriced and very lame breakfast buffet, which also had horrible coffee.

I walked around the outside of the city at first, saw a park with sheep, an art squat, played some ukulele, found a good coffee shop (they are hard to come by in this country), and made my way to the market to look for edible trash, unfortunately no consumables as there where mostly clothing and souvenir vendors. The city center was packed with slow moving, inconsiderate tourists, and crying children, so I quickly left the center squares.

I heard of an open mic at another hostel and me and my Australian hostel-mate, Nikki, went to check it out. No luck, no open mic, but plenty of tasty Belgian beer, and other solo travelers. After a few drinks our numbers rose to 6 or 7 people and the beer kept flowing while we exchanged travel stories and talked about our home towns. Nikki and I went out for a lovely joint, and then we all went off for Belgian fries before retreating off to our respected hostels.

The next day I found the cheapest bike rental in the city and followed the canal out to the English Channel, passing thru the flat Flemish country side, stopping in a tiny medieval town, and passing by groups of windmills and cows.

Knokke is a ridiculously overpriced ocean side town where a city by-law exists against Friteries (Belgian fries shop) to discourage poor people from visiting, and there is not a speck of graffiti, street art, or any kind of deviant behavior. Regardless, it was nice to soak my feet in the salty water and sand while playing ukulele and drinking a beer; a very over priced beer, almost three times the price for a regular can at a corner store.

I stumbled onto a very good photo journalism exhibit at the community center before riding back thru the country side back to Bruges for a veggie burger and a delicious kaaskrocket (deep fried battered cheese!) A very sleepy train ride home followed.

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Mon, 27 May 2013 14:34:57 -0400

Jemelle, Cologne, Aachen

Mon, 27 May 2013 11:14:01 -0400

A year ago I hosted a couch surfer in Montreal and we got along well so decided to make the trip to Cologne to go see her. While waiting for my train in Jemelle I found some sort of abandoned train warehouse that needed exploring, thankfully the door was wide open, luck!

In Cologne, Mariella made some delicious food which she claimed was “burnt”, her room mate and I claimed it was delicious. That night rode bikes to a music show with a good band called Bikahara Trio, then danced our pants off to the DJ set that followed.

It was a pretty lazy morning with some delicious breakfast, and we rode bikes around all day in Cologne. The city is fairly busy, and has very narrow streets, lots of traffic, a pretty complicated bike path system, and not too many tall building or landmarks to orient oneself. I followed behind as we went to thrift stores, the 800 year old cathedral, and the Ludwig Museum with a great exhibition with work from Saul Steinberg .

That night we went to the “hipster” part of town for the Saturday flee market in some warehouse in a industrial looking neighborhood. The market had bands playing, we got some free ice cream, and

I found some pants for 3 euros, which was good because the state of the crotch of my current pants resembled the thickness of toilet paper, and no amount of patches would have prevented my whole crotch from eventually being exposed.

Later that night we biked in the rain to the other side of the Rhine river to a re-purposed industrial building turned into a radical community center housing all kinds of events, groups, workshops, art, anarchists, feminist, and a bar in the basement. I’m pretty sure every surface, inside and out was covered in stickers, tags, art, posters, slogans, beer, vomit, or other wonderful things.

The next day another great lazy breakfast followed and I jumped on the train back. I had a bit of time to visit Aachen, and walked around in the rain visiting a very pretty church where almost every surface was covered in glass mosaic and a giant park were I found a wonderfully overgrown frame of an old greenhouse.

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Wed, 22 May 2013 12:02:44 -0400

Photo

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:55:31 -0400

Antwerp, Mechelen

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:41:00 -0400

I didn’t get much sleep during the week on account of over a hundred university students occupying the cabins in the park for the week as part of their studies and who partied every night until sun rise. Thursday in particular my night with them was pretty long and I got 30 min of sleep, went off to work, and then took a train in the evening to Antwerp.

The lowest rated hostel, turned out to be amazingly cozy and reminded me of the flat I share with my wonderful room mates in Montreal. Mismatched furniture, posters and art covering walls, hundreds of books, and always interesting transient folks hanging out at the kitchen table. The 2.50 Euro breakfast felt more like having lazy Sunday breakfast at a friend’s house with candle lights chill out music playing.

The city rent-a-bikes here look like vintage choppers, I rode them around the city the whole weekend. Antwerp is a port city, and is particularly more gritty than other Belgian cities, and also much more multi-cultural. I was staying in the Hasidic Jewish part of town, just like my neighborhood in Montreal. In other words this whole weekend seems like a parallel universe of my life in Canada.

I biked around the first day, stumbling into some open galleries, beautiful botanical gardens, stuffing my face with the free samples at the market, then dumpstering more food than I could carry, and riding my bike across the nearly 1 km underground pedestrian tunnel under the river.

The next day I made about 20 Euros busking, hung out with a very chatty and interesting homeless man and his cuddly dog, and looked up some abandoned buildings I had researched earlier. Said buildings were never found, but I did find these two underground cement silo bunker thing and some kind of yard with lots of graffiti and some abandoned cars.

That night I met up with two great Dutch guys I had met at the hostel who had promises of Dutch greenery and hang outs in the city. We added a Spanish guy from the hostel to our team and went out for fries. I skipped out on the movie they offered, preferring to bike around the city high, it was pretty wonderful. Met up with them later that night for more shrubs, a walk thru the red light district, and a Kapsalon, this crazy Dutch meal that has fries, cheese, meat, and salad on top. (Very reminiscent of poutine, parallel universe!) We stumbled back to the hostel laughing until our sides and cheeks hurt mostly on account of the younger Dutch kid’s bowel troubles.

The night was late, I missed the early bus to Mechelen, making it there in the afternoon. It was a holiday so much of the city was closed. A large group of tourists mistook me for a statue, which made for a good laugh by all. I found a 6 story parking lot with a great view of the city for lunch. My pack felt very heavy, but I walked around as much as I could; the small medieval cobble stone streets, along a very pretty boardwalk that follows the river and ducks under the bridges, two very nice gardens, and to the train station were a very dozy train ride back home followed.

Photo

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:54:00 -0400

London

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:57:00 -0400

I had a four day weekend ahead of me, and a vague plan to somehow get to London and crash at a friend’s place I haven’t seen in 6 years. In Brussels I met up with Julian, a friend I met 4 years ago in Tofino, living in Rotterdam. We drank some beers and smoked some weed on top of a 10 story parking lot, filling each other in on the years past and reminiscing about our time on the west coast and in Montreal.

The next day we hitched our first ride within 15 minutes from a gas station to “somewhere close to the ferry” to the UK. This Romania guy did not like the weekend highway traffic and was eager to get some fishing done on the coast so he drove thru the small Belgian town streets at 120km barely avoiding the parked cars.

Second ride we found within 10 minutes, and said he would take us to the ferry, but not across, explaining to us the complete rip off that is the English channel ferry. Not buying a ticket in advance will make the price jump up about 100 euros per car. We chatted with this Lithuanian fellow in the ticket line and jumped into his car to cross the ferry, so we could all save some cash.

The UK boarder guard was not so amused at our plan and did not find our story “credible”, she scolded us like an angry mother making me shrink into my 8 year old self. 30 min later, 4 more boarder checks and we made it onto the ferry, Julian had some words of wisdom, “If the boarder guard says your story is not credible, than you know you are having fun and traveling right,” I shared the sentiment.

Lithuanian guy had a hard time driving his car on the left, which made for some scary moments but also great laughs. We got to London too late however, every hostel, B&B, hotel, or inn around King’s Cross was booked, but a nice cleaning lady at the train station told us we could sleep on the station benches without getting kicked out.

The plan was to take a bus back for Sunday, I had work, Julian had a presentation at university. No chance, every bus booked, and the bus company’s website gives no indication of availability unless you go thru the entire check out process. Lots of walking and searching for Wifi and power outlets followed as we searched for a way back home in our budget. After 5 hours we finally found a ride share and we were able to enjoy some fish & chips and beer along the Thames.

I hadn’t seen Oli in 6 years but he was exactly like I remembered, humble, no nonsense, chatty fellow, with a great sense of British humour, and a great person to have beers with, and it was great to reminisce about our time at the Skiboard World Cup in Romania. He is getting married and moving to America, so he had a farewell party with his swing and blues dance class mates. It started off with some grilled animal meat, and swing dancing, followed by many shots of things I can not remember, and blues dancing until the sun got up and cuddle puddles spread out over the dance floor.

The next morning Oli cooked up some deliciously heavy breakfast as we all soaked in our hangovers. Julian, Oli and I managed to drag ourselves out of the house after 3pm and made our way to the free Science Museum. I’m pretty sure all our feet felt like they had bricks, especially Julian, who left us to have a nap as we went to a pub for some drinks and food.

That night Oli had to make it out to his folk’s place, so his flatmate Jeff, Julian and I went to another blue dance party in a flat in Mile End, (coincidentally the name of my Montreal neighborhood.) This one had live music, was much more crowded, but lots of interesting people to chat with. We had to catch the last tube which is at around 12:15am in London. I’m not sure if Jeff ever made it back from the party, but at 7:30am we got up to get our ride share. The French boarder guard waved us through behind his glass box and we rode the Euro Tunnel.

I got dropped off in Gent and Julian went on a little further to hitch hike up home (he ended up getting picked up by some guy who gave him free weed!), I then shared some bread, butter and honey with some Spanish transients and their three dogs, and walked around for a few hours before catching a train back home.

First 5 from Dinant, last 5 Brussels

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:20:00 -0400

First 5 from Dinant, last 5 Brussels

Brussels II

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:17:00 -0400

Holy hangover, and no poutine to heal it with.

Friday I took the train back to Brussels to meet up with some Germans I met last time I was there. They hitched to Amsterdam and then down to Brussels for the weekend and said they might know someone who might have a place for us to crash, maybe. That’s a lot of maybes, I was fully prepared to possibly have to sleep in a park.

But fortunately the time and place we had decided last time we spoke earlier in the week worked out, so did the mysterious place to crash, a guy from Spain living in Brussels who they met at a bar.

I suggested noise punk show in a divey bar. I enjoyed it, the others didn’t as much. The rest of the first night was spent drinking beer in public places and smoking weed at the Flemish university, finished off by sneaking into our host’s bed room to crash as he had not told his room mates he was having 3 random people over. No sign of the room mate the whole weekend.

The next day we abused free samples of Belgian chocolates, went to see a photo exhibition for Pride week called Queer Kids In America, and looked for some derelict places to explore, one was a brewery that looked like it was being converted into a hotel or condos, and the other place we found reeked too much of urine to even step thru the front door. That night we went to some bars of which I’m having a hard time remembering the order of and I think we had fries, or maybe that was the night before…

We spent the whole time skipping the fair on public transit, and eating assortments of whatever food we found at the bottom of our bags. They hitched back Sunday morning leaving me to walk the street alone which was a nice change cause I much rather explore on foot or bike. I killed time until my train home by drinking caffeine in hopes of drowning down the weekend hangover, and playing a bunch of ukulele, but when I tried to busk, was told by some cops a license is needed to play music in this city.

Dinant

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:23:00 -0400

I had the day off for Workers Day and decided to take my child sized mountain bike 25km to the city of Dinant, home of Leffe beer and the saxophone! There are barely any street signs outside cities here to the directions I wrote down became totally useless the first street corner I got to. I managed to make my way thru the valleys to the city tho. Its tucked into a deep valley on the Meuse river with at times only enough room for a single street between the two.

I went to the free Saxophone museum, drank a Leffe, joined some tourists for a visit in one of the nicest caves in Belgium (I stayed far back away from the tour group), checked out some castle ruins, and ate some dumpstered cheese on the edge of the river.

On my way back I tried to avoid the huge hill so I followed the Leffe river out of the valley. It was actually super pretty and you could see traces of medieval stuff here and there in the tiny narrow valley. I got lost on my way back, the road i took in the general direction of home turned to gravel, then dirt, then tracker path, then no path at all and I found myself biking thru basically a field.

I followed the sounds of the highway, found my way back, and by the time I got home my crotch felt like it had been pummeled by brass knuckles for the past few hours on the account of the seat being made for a 14 year old.

Namur, original ukulele and kazoo song in an abandoned church in...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:07:36 -0400

Namur, original ukulele and kazoo song in an abandoned church in Leuven, Belgium.

Ukulele cover of Tallest Man On Earth’s Bluebird in...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:47:03 -0400

Ukulele cover of Tallest Man On Earth’s Bluebird in Luxembourg.

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Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:32:00 -0400

That's a 6-way bike path round about bottom center!

Creepy operating room.

Ivo editing my song.

Leuven

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:25:00 -0400

I had two awful days of shoveling about 3 tons of dirt last week. My back felt like shit, I decided to go to a student party town for the weekend as I was in desperate need of some good human interaction after a fairly lonesome time last weekend in Luxembourg and spending all week in my cabin.

Leuven is a Flemish city near Brussels, and has been a university town since the 17th century. And now its a city that boasts having Europe’s longest bar, which is really a square with a couple dozen bars. It’s also home of the Stella Artois Brewery. Seemed like a good place to go!

I found a couch surfing host, a couple living close to the city center, they seemed pretty rad. They picked me up at the train station, and we pretty instantly felt comfortable around each other. We spent the days walking around Leuven, hanging out on their balcony, smoking shisha, drinking way too much coffee, playing music, eating fucking orgasmic carrot and pineapple burgers and at night we sampled all kinds of tasty Belgian beers at their flat and at a local jazz and blues bar. Hang overs were actually surprisingly mild.

Lana and I went to a Hospital Museum with all kinds of freaky early 20th century medical tools and rooms, and Ivo who is a music producer recorded and edited a song of mine.

I walked around Leuven alone Sunday afternoon leaving Ivo to recover from late night drinking and Lana had to go to work. I went straight for the first grocery store dumpster I could find as the weekend had been pretty expensive for my usual travel budget. I found a bunch of cheese and yogurt and walked up to eat my prize with some fries at the top of this secret dirt mound with a view of the city.

I crossed a squat on my walk, it was the first squat I’ve ever seen, a nice big house behind some student housing, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Leuven is surprisingly clean and lacking in street art and slogans, so it was nice to see some deviance!

Down the street I found an abandoned church! A really big gothic one. The door was wide open and inside there was all kinds of art installed. The place looked like it was barely holding together, and there were all these metal beams put there to make sure it didn’t fall. I was able to climb up all the way to the bell towers and look out at the city. The wooden, bird shit covered floors and ladders up there were pretty sketchy but luckily I didn’t fall thru. I rang one of the giant bells when I got to the top and it made a really huge sounds, much louder then I thought so I hurried my back down the bird shit.

On my way to the train station I tried to busk for the last hour I had but my ukulele playing only managed to make a few Euros, and got on the train back home.

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Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:39:00 -0400

Black Mary and Jesus!

Best cheap coffee and bagels in the city!