Fascination and Disappointment in Brussels

We awoke again early in the morning, but seeing as there was free coffee I didn't mind. We packed our backpacks with food and water for our all-day trek through Brussels to get the feel of the city that would be our home for the next 3 days. Grandplatz, Royalplatz, the Manneken Pis, and the comic book museum, a long day even for this seasoned traveler.

The comic book museum was by far the most interesting. Comic creators from the beginnings of the craft to now had relics of their masterpieces next to biographies on the walls, and I found out exactly how they put a comic book together. Artists, inkers and scriptwriters all have their special place in creating one of these moralistic and oftentimes archetypical renditions of fantasy lands and talents. The scriptwriter was the most fascinating since he/she writes the story the others simply illustrate. The concept has to be good for the finished product to be good, because no matter how many explosions or creative images of sexy ladies you have there's still an absolute need for a coherent story, and without one the future of the comic will be bleak and uninteresting. This is the charge of the scriptwriter. If he writes a compelling story that is honest and truthful, then the illustrators take it to the next level by depicting the action on paper with help of crayons, colored pencils and markers.

The Mannequin Pis was wholly disappointing, mainly because our expectations had been lifted each time we passed a picture of it on the street. In all honesty we tried to find it last night after one bar visit and before the next, but to no avail. Today we found out why the thing was so hard to find, and that's because of its size. The thing is two feet tall and is hardly anything to get excited about. Sure it's a kid peeing, but really? Why not a twenty-foot kid peeing? Then people'd have a waterfall to videotape instead of just a tiny trickle. We ended up taking a picture of the chocolate rendition across the street because it was more impressive than the real thing.

We went to dinner where I ordered wine pizza and chicken wings in broken French. We talked about the petty arguments people get in and laughed at ourselves for having one earlier when a gum-smacking contest deteriorated to shouting and name-calling and door-slamming. Too long with the same company and it's bound to happen - we were no exception. But the wonderful thing about my relationship with my sister is that we can laugh about it later, both knowing what we said was a result of blood-red anger and a situational causality.

Then we walked and walked and walked some more before finding a suitable bar to drink at. We sat down and not two minutes after we ordered our first drink a man came out from inside the bar. He was dressed as someone of reasonable resource would: silk shirt, fitted jeans, and patent leather shoes. He walked up to me, and without speaking took my hand and shook it. I asked him if I could help him and he held out a piece of paper. The message was written in French, and said something about being hungry and poor, all the while he's motioning to his mouth in the universal sign of hunger. I said I don't speak French in French, and he walked away scowling at me. We decided to leave right then, after finishing our drinks, to find a new place where our luck was better and the atmosphere welcomed us.

Brussels and the Way of the Waffel

The morning came, and my sister and I had to find breakfast. We stowed the bags after checking out, and caught the "5" into city center. We came to a coffee place called "Bagels and Beans," and while we sat drinking coffee and eating, I read a newspaper and reconnected to reality for a short time.

Afterwards we went to the annual flea market, where my sister looked for dresses. I looked around and saw a book stand so, naturally, I made my way to one of the bins doubting there'd be any books in English. I came to a bin and picked up a book, Milan Kundera's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', which was surprisingly in English, and more surprisingly had been recommended to me by Constantine before we parted ways in Berlin. I got goosebumps as I looked in every other bin and found zero books in English. Kundera's book had been the only one in the entire stand in English, and it was the first book I picked up. Throughly weirded out, and thinking it a sign from God, I bought the book and we left.

An hour later we boarded the train to Brussels. On the way we saw pastures and cows, and tulips and corn; and I decided it was a countryside full of rich heritage and hearty people.

About two and a half hours later we pulled into Brussels, and after a short walk had arrived at out "Budget Hotel" which, compared to the hostels we'd been staying in, looked like Buckingham Palace. I took a shower and we left to eat steak and fries at a French restaurant.

Afterwards, we went in search of a good bar. We found many, some better than others. One we found was a smoke joint on a street corner, where there were a few locals and cheap whiskey and beer. The next place was a sports bar, where the men sipped beer and watched the game, and were totally oblivious to me and my sister.

Having come to Brussels for one thing, we went in search of Waffels. We were both pretty sloshed, so the search was not easy. Finally, we came to a stand where women with tired faces served us Waffels with tired strawberries and chocolate sauce. And in no way was that depressing. The Waffels were terrific. We sat eating them on the curb watching the night pass and made fun of each other when we got chocolate on our faces.

After, we stumbled into a bar called Delirium. My sister had read about it and they were playing good music, so we went inside. The place was an absolute zoo of younger people dressed for the night, and sitting in what looked like hollowed out beer kegs. The walls were plastered with old beer signs, and it felt both worn and welcoming while having the commercialism of a CheeseCake Factory. But we bought beer and sat watching the madness around us, and getting slightly more drunk. After a while the signs on the wall lost their color, and the people seemed to turn grey. We were tired, so we paid our bill and slipped out of the organized madness.

Sick/Amesterdam

In the morning I had never felt so sick, but I knew we had to leave soon for the train that would take us out of this sad-luck country. I was retching in the bathroom when my sister walked up, freshened and fully rested. We walked down stairs -- well my sister walked and I slumped. The attendant gave us directions to the nearest bus station that would take us to the train station, and my stomach did a flip.
Once we had walked to bus station I sat head in hands while my sister told me not to look so sick. When the bus came it was crowded with people and faces and fumes. I stood swaying back and forth while the bus swerved around corners and dodged little cars. Once we finally stopped my stomach couldn't take it anymore, and I elbowed my way out to the street where I let forth a steamy mixture of 'shitzle and beer.
On our way out of Berlin I slept in my seat while my sister ate strawberries and passed incredulous looks at me.

That evening we arrived in Amesterdam, and caught the tram to the street out hostel was on. That hostel wasn't nearly as bad as the last one, and it seemed our luck was turning. We left the bags and went to dinner at a Thai place down the street. We then set out to see the town. Narrow streets and lengthy canals winded our way to the Ben and Jerry's on the main drag, and then to a Irish Pub where we watched a duet play and I sipped whiskey while tapping my foot.
I was surprise that the city hardly smelled like weed, and there was no cloud of smoke rising from the streetside cafes. I knew also that we'd get into that sooner or later, but it'd have to wait. We were going to Brussels tomorrow for a few days, but we'd return, and when we did I expected to indulge in the one custom that set Amsterdam apart from any other country.
We turned in early, and my stomach almost felt normal again.

7-25-09 Berlin

We woke up in the morning and met Constantine for a five star breakfast, or at least it seemed five star compared the the recent breakfasts served at other hostels. Constantine told us about a free tour being given at the Brandenburg Gates at 11am. We left our bags at the hostel and walked to the famous square. When we got there we saw a giant group of people congregated beneath the gates. This turned out to be our group, and after a while a women came around and broke us up into languages, and appointed a guide to each language. Our tour guide was a four foot Scottish belle who was studying history in Berlin.


Yeah, that one

She led us around Brandenburg Gates, and pointed out the famous hotel where Michael Jackson dangled Blanket over the railing of his hotel room in 2004. Our guide led us to the Holocaust Memorial, and to Hitler's Bunker, which had been turned into a parking lot. We saw the Ministry of Finance, which originally housed the air force headquarters for the German army. This was later to be called the Ministry of Ministries (pretentious much?), and was the seat of Nazi power. Our guide informed us that this building could be seen in the blockbuster film Valkyrie.

We were examining the remains of the Berlin Wall when our luck took a turn for the worst. It started raining, but not like Oregon rain, which is 10 months of a steady drizzle - prompting Oregonians to endure perpetual dampness for a few fleeting moments of sunshine; no, this was a quick hard rain that turned the sky black and our shoes to squishy sponges. We waited it out in a coffee shop where I had a most delicious chocolate croissant. The rain left as quickly as it had come, rising to a crashing crescendo only to recede over the skyline, and leaving only a memory of its violent nature. Sound familiar?

A picture of one of my shoes-------->

After the quick storm, we checked out Checkpoint Charlie, Babelplatz (where we saw a troop of speedoed bicyclists), Museum Island, Humbolt University (Einstein's old stomping grounds), a Cathedral that housed a melange of different architecture types - the name of which has escaped me at the moment, impressive but forgettable. After that the tour was over, and we had to find another hostel to stay that night.

Before that we went to the train station to find a ride to Paris, my goal being to visit a French speaking country before leaving Europe, and my sister's goal being to celebrate her birthday on the Seine. However, fate had other plans for us. The attendant didn't speak English, and was thoroughly rude. She blabbered away in German, leaving me and my sister helpless, and fearing we'd be stuck in Berlin forever! Thankfully a young bilingual German man helped us. He translated the woman's blabbering, and said it wasn't good. All trains in and out of France were booked, and the only way we could get out of Berlin was to go to Amsterdam. We took it, and also booked a hostel for the night. It was cheap, but out in the boondocks. We decided to check it out and drop our bags off before dinner.



We showed up to our hostel, which smelled like cigarette smoke, beer, and body oder. They gave us two beds in separate rooms, my sister would be sleeping in a room with two guys from Germany, and I would be in the room with a Serbian family that smelled like cabbage. We dropped our bags and left to get authentic German cuisine, weinershnitzel.

What I was expecting, but didn't get

The place we went, which seemed authentic enough, served us the equivalent of a battered shoe sole. I was thoroughly unimpressed, and instead of finishing it I sat back and drank beer instead. We decided to go into town after dinner, which was a great because I wanted to at least see the night life of Berlin before we left.

We did our pub crawl, and ended up in a bar that was decorated "Under the Sea" style, complete with a pirate for a bar tender. Now this is what I remember it being, however, at that point I had enough beer to drown a fish, and was having a hard time sitting up in my chair. On the tramride back to our gritty hostel my sister sat next to a gentleman who had fallen asleep. As soon as the tram stopped the man suddenly snapped awake after flinging himself in dramatic fashion across my sisters lap. Bleary eyed he looked around, and then bolted out of the tram and down the street, leaving my sister and me in a fit of laughter. We got back to the hostel, and I had no problem falling asleep.

7-24-09 Berlin Nightmare

We awoke early in the morning in our Prague flat, got ready and went upstairs for breakfast. The breakfast was buffet style, but they weren't serving coffee! "Egads!" I exclaimed to a packed dining hall, "where is the coffee!" "Looks like they don't have any," said my sister, a look of forlorn on her face. We loaded up our plates and took a seat near the window. As we ate, I noticed the French guy I had met the night before sitting with a few friends. Before we left I gave him my contact info, and said that if he's ever in Oregon he should look me up. He never did, sadly.

In order to feed our coffee addiction, we checked out of the hostel, left our bags with the front desk, and ambled up the street to the nearest cafe. As we sat outside to enjoy our coffee, the firespinner I had met last night walked by carrying his staff. I called him over and introduced him to my sister. He said he was going to Charles Bridge to "spin" for an hour, and if we had time we should check out the free tour given at 11 o'clock because the guides took you everywhere in Prague, and told you all the history. "You can't miss it!" he said, so we agreed to check it out. Hell, what else were we going to do?

When we got to the square there was a folk festival going on. Women dressed in traditional garments danced around men
wearing leiderhosin and clogs, while a band played songs that sounded like mixes between polka and Irish folk music. The smell of cinnamon wafted over the scene from a cart selling a Czech version of the "elephant ear."

The tour began with a bang as our guide came bounding into the group of tourists speaking a mile-a-minute. Most of the people didn't realize the tour had begun until she was half way through recounting the 9th century. Those who hadn't done their reading were left scratching their head wondering what the term "Bohemia" meant, among other things.

Our guide took off at a healthy trot stopping only at the major landmarks, talking constantly and waiting impatiently for people to catch up. Prague, she said, is full of mystery and tales of ordinary and extraordinary madness. My favorite being a story about a withered arm found in St. Vitus Cathedral, in short they never found the rest of the body. I decided it must have been the gargoyles behind the whole thing.

After three hours of walking through Prague, our guide left us at the foot of Charles Bridge. She wished us bon voyage as she
disappeared into the crowds moving back to Old Town Square to meet a new group of tourists to do the whole thing over again. We walked across the bridge, touched the statue of St. Luthgard and saw a troop of gypsies.

With our Prague trip complete we returned to the hostel, got our bags and made for the station. The train to Berlin wasn't for an hour, so we killed the time by drinking some beer with a fellow backpacker named Constantine. He turned out to be a medical student from New York who had been doing rotations in Prague for the past three weeks. He said he was heading back to the states, but not before hitting up Berlin for a three-day drunken party with his friends. His shoulder length curly black hair framed his smiling eyes and large mouth, and he was funny in dry, clinical sort of way, so we invited him to sit with us on our way to Berlin. "Great!" he said, offering us another beer.

That was when the bad luck began. Our train to Berlin was delayed two and a half hours, and we were informed that it no longer would be picking us up at the our current station. "Bad luck!" I said to myself, not knowing this bad luck would eventually follow us all the way to Berlin. We finally caught the train at the other station, and weren't all that surprised to see our cabin would again be full, promising another sleepless late night ride. However, instead of a bunch of old, stodgy people, as was the case from Rome to Vienna, we were accompanied by a group of young Spanish ladies. One of which lived in Berlin and spoke very good English. We talked all the way to Berlin while passing around a bottle of red wine one of the Spanish ladies had snuck on the train.

We arrived in Berlin at one o'clock in the morning, tired and hungry and slightly drunk, and in the middle of a train conductor strike. Nobody was going anywhere, and so we were stuck in East Berlin without a hostel reservation and no idea where to go. This sort of thing happens only once every four years, and it just happened to start at the moment of our arrival. "Bad luck" I said to myself as we descended the train. We talked to a couple of Americans who were handing out pamphlets telling people where the nearest hostels were. They told us to check out one hostel called "The White Rabbit" which was only three or four blocks down the road. We said thank you, and entered the cold Berlin night.

This is how I felt at that moment of time

Every hostel we found was either booked solid, or impossible to find, so by 2:30am we all sprung for a cab that would take us to City Center Berlin Hostel where Constantine had reserved a bed. When we arrived we asked if they had two spare beds, which thankfully they did. My sister went upstairs to sleep, but I stayed up and thought about how incredible it was to be stuck in a foreign country with nothing but your mind and perseverance to guide you. Then I ate a Snickers bar and went to sleep.

7-23-09 Prague

Our train left early in the morning, so we grudgingly dragged ourselves out of bed, careful not to disturb our roommates. We shared our room with a couple from Spain, and that meant sharing a bathroom. The shower was poorly designed so that splashing water collected on the floor. My sister and I wore flip-flops in the shower to avoid flesh eating bateria, which we just knew was seething between the discolored tiles. In fact everyone wore shoes to the bathroom because it was the "sanitary" thing to do. However, wearing tennis shoes to the bathroom meant that the pools of water would mix with shoe-dirt and you'd be left with muddy footprints and pools of discolored water. Unfortunately, this had happened this morning, and it was brought to my attention by the lovely Spanish woman. She proceeded to explain to me in a half-English half-Spanish transcultural rant that I had muddied up the floor, and that I should clean it up, and that I smell bad. Ok, so she didn't say all of that, but she did yell at me for the shower as me and my sister packed for the train station. All we said was "We're sorry" as we closed the door and headed downstairs to check out.

We arrived in Prague in the hot afternoon, and went to our hostel. We dropped our bags off, and hung out in our four person room. My sister called our mom to tell her we hadn't been abducted yet, and that I had been able to piss off every Spanish person we had met so far. I hung out the window of our room, and watched the sky, which was clouding over. Suddenly there was a crack of lightening, and the boom of thunder as the heat, which had followed us ever since Italy, finally reached its boiling point. It started to rain, and soon it was a torrential downpour. The wind ripped through our narrow side-street, banging the shutters of windows as it passed. We waited while until the rain eased, and made our way to dinner. Welcome to Prague.

It was understood that there was an authentic Czech restaurant just up the street. I was in the mood for beef tongue, so we went to Kovics. Kovics had an underground fight club feel mostly because the bar/restaurant sat in the basement of a building reserved for offices. We ordered a plate of beef tongue for an appetizer, which I can say from experience looks exactly like it should. Ours was sliced lengthwise, however, you could definitely tell what it was. It kept the same shape, and consistency of what you'd think beef tongue would taste like, and I've got to say, it was really good. For dinner I had steak and my sister had chicken. We paid for the meal in Krowns, and everything added up came out to be roughly $30. Prague, I think I'm starting to like you...

We left in search of another bar, and walk around Old Town Square. After awhile we stumbled into a place called Chateau Rouge. We went in partly due to the rain, which had returned, but also because of the beer prices, ($.50 beers are always worth a try in my opinion). Halfway through our second beer, two Belgian women began talking with us. One was a 25 year-old speech therapist, and the other, (much cuter one), was a 26 year-old teacher. We told them that we were brother and sister traveling across Europe for a few weeks. The Chateau Rouge (sorry for the sizing)
They asked if we were going to Brussels, their hometown. We said we hadn't thought of it, but we might if time permitted. The teacher started flirting with me, and offered to buy me and my sister another beer. We didn't have any more money so I said yes, my sister said no. The teacher's name was Leigh, while we were talking, Leigh kept on playing footsie with me under the table. Though, just when Leigh and I were getting closer, my sister told me she was tired and that she wanted to go back to the hostel. I couldn't have my sister walking around alone in a foreign country, so I escorted her back, but not before I told Leigh I'd be back soon.

When I got back to the bar two guys, who looked like competitors on MetRx's World's Strongest Man, were talking to Leigh. I decided not to die, so I used the bathroom and headed back to the hostel.

On my way up to the room I ran into a three people sitting in the common room. Two had guitars, and the other was sitting at the end of the table listening. One of the guitarist's name was Howlin' Howie. Howie had been playing guitar for 58 years, he was traveling the world playing guitar and singing for anyone who'd listen. The guy at the end of the table was a Frenchman, he was quiet, but I managed to find out that he was going to Vienna next, so I told him about the Belvedere and the crazy drivers. The last guy was a redhead who went by Brian Policoff. He was from Arizona, but lived in Prague as a street performer. His craft was fire-spinning. He had done it in The Ringley Bros. Circus for years, and before that he had been a singing gondolier at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
Firespinner: Exhibit A

After a few hours of guitar and singing and talking, I said goodnight to them and went upstairs. I was careful not to wake either my sister, or the two girls, who were our new roommates, after all I'd already pissed off that Spanish couple, I was determined not to have a repeat in Prague.

Vienna! (7-22-09)

It was 9:30am when we arrived in Vienna, Austria and never in my life had I been happier to get off a train! We had been traveling for 12 hours straight, most of which I spent lodged in the corner of a stuffy compartment with 5 other people, and my sister! You can only imagine the horror. We got off the train stretching our limbs, our joints popped and cracked like a Regal Cinema's popcorn machine. It took us a while to gather our surroundings: 1. We were in Vienna 2. We were on the train platform 3. We didn't know how to get to our hostel. Luckily the maps were written in German, which made it easy to find our way. But, I thought, we're in a new country! Let's ask for directions! Thankfully a nice Austrian couple knew how to get to downtown, and so off we were off to find our first hostel!

At the place they call Westend Hostel we booked two beds, however, they told us the beds wouldn't be ready for about three hours. This we took as a formality. Since we were already sleep deprived, what difference would three hours make, right? We paid the locker fee for our bags, and left the hostel to visit the Belvedere.

Since we were downtown, the streets were very busy. One thing I noticed about Austrians, especially those who walk downtown, is that they NEVER jaywalk. My sister and I found this out the hard way when we tried crossing a street without a walk signal. We had made it halfway across the street when a psychotic woman in one of those tiny European Vespa-turned-automobiles came ripping

Looked something like this| down the street. She actually accelerated having seen us jaywalking in an attempt to scare the living shits out of us. Well, it worked, and from that point on we always paid attention to walk signals.

|Wrong Belv, Bro
We made it to the Belvedere, no not the Polish one, (or the Vodka). But the Viennese palace built for Prince Eugene of Savoy. It's a massive dual palace, with Upper and Lower sections, which both house museums. The grounds are organized in baroque style landscape to match that of the architecture of the buildings. Having time, we meandered through the gardens, and one museum in the Lower section. Beautiful as it was, (my sister snapped roughly a million pictures), we left to take showers at the hostel and catch some sleep before heading to dinner.  

We were both in the mood for something a bit heavier than Italian food, but we weren't too keen on Schnitzle just yet. So we had dinner at an Australian themed restaurant that reminded me of an Outback. Afterwards we walked around Stephansplatz Square where there were a bevy of street performers and dance crews. Stephansplatz Square is the heart of downtown, and it's where you'll find all the nightlife necessities for locals and tourists alike. At the center of the bustling square is a giant gothic church called Stephen's Chathedral or Stephansdom (appropriate right?). This was our first opportunity to see gothic architechture so far on our trip, as everything south of Venice is mostly baroque or classic architechture.

That's me!| We left Stephansdom to venture farther away from the central square, we visited Mozart's apartment, which looked like any other apartment, but with a hint of historical importance, I could've sworn to have heard the first few notes of Symphony n.40. We then walked to the church where the Vienna Boys' Choir performs, but it was closed. Those poor lads. On our way back we bumped into a few Americans, one was named Atella, (no not after the Hun unfortunately), who was visiting Vienna on his way to Rome. His buddy, Morice, was from Boston, and was working at a law firm in Vienna for six months. Together we walked around the city talking about the things Morice had seen, and about Atella's plans for his trip. Then Morice showed us all a one euro gelato bar a few blocks from Stephansplatz. Afterwards though, both Morice and Atella had to leave. Atella would be leaving for Rome in the morning on a six month trip around the world.

We got back to the hostel, but only stayed about twenty minutes. It was too hot in there, so we found a pub around the corner and ordered a few beers. They had a huge projection screen showing a soccer game between two rival teams. Whenever our team scored a goal, the pub would erupt in a frenzy of cheers and hugs, and the pub across the street would boo and yell at their team in German. After a while we left, and went back to the Westend, and I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.