London

I have been very much looking forward to getting to London. I planned to spend a couple of weeks there, a welcome change from the past few weeks of constant movement.

As I was arriving on the airplane to Stansted Airport, I realized that, although my friend Rob had given me good instructions for getting to his home in downtown London, I was out of cell phone credit, and even if I had credit, his phone number was in my email. I didn't have it written down. My plane was about an hour late, so I wouldn't make it to his door until about 2 am. Wow, I sure hope he answers.

I made the last train from the airport by about five minutes, and arrived at Liverpool Street Station to a deserted financial district. I hoofed it about fifteen minutes or so to his door and buzzed.

Nothing. Buzzed again. And again. Then I sat down wondering what I would do next. I had a ton of gear strapped to me and no phone or clue where I was really. Silly rabbit. I guess my luck had to run out some time.. and look at how unprepared I am for this. No idea what to do. He is either asleep or still out somewhere. I buzzed again.

Success! He awoke and saved my sorry unprepared behind. He gave me a quick and dirty tour of his really cool top floor loft, and pointed to where I should sleep.

So pleased.

The next few days I spent being a tourist. Walking along the Thames river, snapping pictures of fuzzy-hatted guards, figuring out the subway system, etc.

In the evenings after folks got off work, I got a little taste of life as a local in London. I got introduced to Rob and Anita's inevitably delightful local circle of friends. We went to see the Dandy Warhols at a local rock club, went to a fun art museum happy hour, and went to see a friend of a friend DJ at a little dive bar in the Angel district. Later in the week, Rob hosted a sunday barbeque at his loft where we gorged on grilled veggies and meats and sipped cider and bloody maries.

London is clearly one of those places that takes awhile to get your mind around. There is plenty to do and it is scattered all over town. I have to say though that I expected the city to feel far more oppressive. I was pleased to see that the city planners limit the height of most buildings, so without having giant skyscrapers, plenty of sun light gets through to the not-so-hectic sidewalks. Clearly a large and busy city. But not stressful or intimidating at all.

So as not to darken Rob's door too long at one time, I contacted some friends Adeline and Peter who I had met in Thailand. They live in Brighton, along the south coast of England, and invited me down for a visit. I will be attending the Big Chill festival with Rob, Anita, and friends the following weekend, so I headed down to Brighton for a few days to enjoy the unusually pleasant warm and sunny weather.

After hearing lots of good things about Brighton, I was not surprised to see that it is a perfectly charming and comfortable town situated directly on the English Channel. England isn't known for its beaches, but Brighton enjoys a healthy number of visitors to its beaches due to its as-good-as-England-gets weather and its convenient one hour train ride from London.

The town feels to me like what San Francisco would be like if the Russian Hill neighborhood was pushed directly on to the sand of Ocean Beach. The 1920's architecture matches closely with light colored three-ish story bay windowed buildings. The streets are lined with bustling mom and pop businesses, from cute sushi joints and lively dive pubs, to organic grocery stores and purist record shops.

Pete is a great juggler and brought me to Odd Balls, a great shop in town where they sell all things circus. I bought myself a new colorful light-up poi set that I can spin instead of fire when it's dark at night. They will look great on the playa this year. Safer and still cool.

Pete and Adeline have taken great care of me and woven me into their lives here for a couple of days. It's a beach lovers life where working is fine, but relaxation and sun time are paramount. It's no wonder that I have enjoyed everyone I have met along the way that hails from here. The vibe is top notch.

I decided that London and Brighton are to occupy the remainder of my trip and so I changed my flight home to leave from England rather than Germany a few days later than planned. It's a little pricey for the change, but worth it for the extra time, and relieves me of a lot of travel and other expenses to leave from Frankfurt.

I will head to the festival this weekend which promises to be a great time, but I will return here for the last few days of my trip.

Melt

I knew before I left for Europe that there is a lot to see here. I knew that there was really no way I would see everything I wanted to and so I envisioned a trip where I would pick four to five cities, and sink into them for a couple of weeks each, much as I have during the rest of my journey. I didn't want to "box check", which is what I call it when folks bounce quickly from city to city, sight to sight, taking pictures, packing up and leaving for the next stop. It doesn't seem fun or relaxing to me. I wanted to spend my time getting the feel of cities, working on hobbies, work skills, etc.

But that wasn't my only consideration. From my experience in Buenos Aires, I knew that big cities could be difficult to meet people, and I had a number of friends, both old and new, living and traveling in Europe, so I wanted to meet up or stay with them as often as possible. Also, I am on a pretty tight budget. Couch surfing with friends or sharing accommodations is an important way to keep costs down. I haven't found even a dormitory bed in Europe for much below $30 per night, even in Eastern Europe, which I thought would be much cheaper. I guess I would have to go further east toward Romania or Bulgaria to find better deals.

So, as a result, I have found myself moving around much more than I expected, trying to coordinate with friends' schedules. It occurred to me along the way, that I haven't spent more than two nights in one bed since I stayed at Heather's for a few days in Ghent, Belgium. This is partly due to the fact that, during the busy summer season, it is advisable to reserve a room or bed before arriving in town. Without seeing the place though, it's risky to pay to reserve for more than two nights, so one must immediately start looking for a new place upon arrival if the first place doesn't work for whatever reason. It is exhausting, always looking for my next home just about every day. Also, the truth is, that the past few towns have not been places I would care to stay for two weeks, especially in a dorm bed, so I am motivated to keep moving.

Back in Krakow, I was faced with another decision of where to go next. I had to fly out of Prague to London in a few days, so I couldn't go anywhere too far away. I considered going to Wraclow, Poland. It sounded like another cute Polish town and appeared on a map to be closer to Prague than Krakow. But the map was deceiving. Train tracks don't run between those cities, so it would be a long, complex journey back to Prague.

I learned that a group of folks I had met through Sarah back in Berlin were headed to the Melt! music festival near Dessau, Germany. The ticket was a bit pricey, but given that I would camp with borrowed gear, and not pay for any accommodations for a few days, it was close to a wash. Also, getting back to Prague was quicker from there. And, hey, check out another cute-yet-bleak Polish town, or jump up an down to some great music for a few days.

Sold.

I hopped a train west and soon was in camp with a really nice group of folks who were quite welcoming, considering I was such a last minute stranger addition (who is that guy again?).

The festival is held at the site of an old coal mine, with a number of colossal pieces of mining machinery used as a back drop for the event. There were five stages of music running non stop for three days from early evening until well after sunrise. There was a long list of artists, most of whom I had not heard of. This is becoming more and more common in the new world of obscure yet popular Myspace hipster bands and a bottomless supply of electronic music artists. Or maybe I am just not hip to the European music scene. Maybe that's it. But I fully expected to come away with some new favorite artists, and I did.

One group I was excited to see was Stereo MCs. They have been around since the early 90's and were my first exposure to electronic music back in the day. I was hoping they would put on a good show, and they put on a great one instead. One of the highlights for sure. I love seeing older musicians blow away the youngsters.

One artist, I hadn't heard of before, and now feel quite embarrassed about it, is Roisin Murphy. I don't know much about her or how long she has been around, but she put on one of the best all around shows I have seen in a long time. The music seemed to have many influences, but it felt like it was trying to bridge the gap between electronic music and soul music. My first impression was that she is a nouveau Annie Lennox with a house music accompaniment. Over the course of the show, she showed a style all her own. But mostly I was impressed by the overall show. Her band and her backup singers were outstanding. Her own vocal performance and stage presence was really impressive. She is obviously in to fashion. She had many costume changes with some pretty wild getups. Riveting. Some of her music feels more at home in a dance club than in my living room, but it certainly has its place.

Unfortunately, the event was plagued by some pretty hard rain at times. Any surface not made of concrete became a slippery muddy mess. But on the bright side, dancing in the rain and mud to a Drum & Bass group with a live MC called Commix was the other great highlight of my time there. It wasn't really so much that I wanted to get wet and muddy. It's just that the music was so good, that I couldn't stand to hide from the rain under the bar tent any longer when the music was shouting at me to dance. Good times.

Krakow

I had a choice to make.

In order to ensure I would be in London on schedule later this month, I had to book the airline ticket well in advance. As you can see from some of my travel, I tend to be more of the wandering type than the scheduling and planning type. This meant that I had to know where I would be flying to London from. I didn't really know several weeks ago which direction I would want to travel from Prague. I heard good things about Krakow, Poland to the north. Kristen and Mary were traveling south toward Hungary. My friends Ashley and Crystal would be in Prague a while longer. So where would I be on the 22nd? I knew I probably wouldn't be in Prague for two weeks, but I also figured I wouldn't get too far. So I booked the flight from Prague, knowing I would have to back track to make my flight.

I decided to go for Krakow, Poland. It was a cheap train ride from Prague and my friend Sarah from Berlin even said she would hop a train to check it out too since it was close by. I checked in to a delightful hostel called Nathan's Villa. It is one of those backpacker's paradise places. A great place to meet people, it has a bar in the basement open until people stop ordering, a movie theater room showing the DVD of your collective choice, free laundry if you don't mind mixing your clothes with others', and a nightly barbecue out on the ping pong deck. Sometimes a hostel can make or break a town in your memory. Although not five star accommodations, Nathan's is there to make it a good stay.

Like every town, Krakow has a big old castle, and lively and touristy town square. Nothing really new there, but right away I enjoyed the Polish folks' disposition. In Prague, we would observe this general feeling of a place we called the "smell of communism", kind of a bleakness. That grey film was still present in some places here in Poland, but the people here were friendly and sunnier than those I had left behind in Czech.

Off the beaten tourist track, there is a nearby neighborhood called Kasimierz which has a ton of nice restaurants and bars. Historically, it is the old Jewish quarter of town with many old synagogues. It has been run down in recent years, but is enjoying a come back now with cute places to eat and drink popping up mainly around its central plaza. It's popular with young locals and travelers alike.

The most historically significant sight to see in Krakow is about an hour out of town by bus: Auschwitz.

I had visited some Holocaust museums and memorials in Berlin where I had seen some pictures and learned about history. It is never an uplifting experience, but I felt pulled to go to the place. The main place. The scene of the crime.

Before now, I had a general understanding of what went on here. But a couple of things struck me as I walked around.

There are a couple of sections to the site. The original complex was a Polish military base the Germans took over. The Nazis converted it into a death camp, but there was a problem. Not enough capacity. They couldn't kill enough people fast enough. So, besides the other camps around Europe, they built two more enormous sections here, complete with higher capacity gas chambers and ovens to dispose of remains. Although the new camp could house 100,000 people, the vast majority of people brought by train to the camp were never housed. They were marched directly to the gas chambers. It was a factory bent on efficiency... a horrible type of efficiency.

Also, the Nazis saved and warehoused everything they thought was of any material value, including hair, medical prostheses, luggage, and clothing. For some reason, the display that had the greatest effect on me was the barracks building that houses a mountain of shoes. The shoes, to me, were a reminder of the individuality of the victims. Some of them were fashionable shoes. Some of them were work shoes. But, for me, it underscored that each of those pairs of shoes also went with a pair of feet, attached to a person with an education, with a hobby, with friends, with a future. Until they got here.

I wondered how a nation of people could allow this. I wondered how many every day people knew what was happening. I wondered who could work at a place like this. I wondered how citizens could vote for a platform of hate. How was this possible? I think that is the point of these museums. It seems so unthinkable. But it occurred only fifty years ago in a highly cultured and educated country.

I met a young Polish girl while traveling. When I mentioned Krakow was on my route, she immediately brought up Auschwitz. Even though she was only 25 or so, the subject brought deep emotion to her immediately. The war, the atrocities, have still left great scars here, even for those were not alive to see them.

Charming

I had originally planned to stay in Prague at least a week. But after a few days of sight seeing, I was ready to see something else. Kristen and Mary were heading south toward Hungary to volunteer on their Habitat for Humanity project. They planned to stop in Cesky Krumlov a couple hours south of Prague. It sounded nice, so I went along for a couple of days.

I'm glad I went. The town is so cute and charming. It's tucked between some green hills and surrounded by the curve of a passing river which winds through part of the town. There are still tourists here, but they seem like more of the "Czechs getting away for the weekend" variety.... kind of like Tahoe City in California. It was quiet, but with plenty to do, and enough night life to keep us busy for a couple of evenings.

Traveling different continents this year, I have observed that there are those things in every town along the way that guide books point you toward for a day of sight seeing. In Asia, we used to joke that every town had a waterfall only a day hike away that was a must see. In Europe, the equivalent is castles. Every town has some ancient castle with a few centuries of history, and you simply must go. Krumlov was no exception.

We enjoyed walking the castle grounds in town, partly because the building, although grand, was fairly laid back, had mostly free admission, and provided a great view of the small town. They even had a couple of cute brown bears on the grounds.

It seemed like at every turn during our walking tour around town, Mary and Kristen in their best exaggerated East Coast accents would exclaim "Oh stop it!" or "Would you look at that" or "They have got some nerve", observing some new adorable view or building.

We met three jovial Irish lads who we spent both evenings with drinking Czech beer and generally disturbing the relative peace of Eastern Europe. If there is anything louder than an American, it's an Irishman with a few pints under his belt. Good fun.

Prague

After a much too brief stay in Amsterdam, I hopped a Sky Europe flight to Prague, Czech Republic. Sky Europe is one of the much talked about European super discount airlines. The advertised fare for the flight was 7 Euro (about $10 US). Unfortunately, these airlines advertise their fares sans a laundry list of taxes and nickel and dime fees that end up adding about fifty Euro to any ticket, so you can never get too excited. The flight, no frills as it was, was still operated efficiently and professionally. The big old airlines have a thing or twelve to learn from these guys.

I was excited to meet two separate sets of friends from the Bay Area who coincidentally happened to be scheduled to be in Prague the same week. I was disappointed, however, that I wasn't able to book the same hostel and had to find one of my own.

My arrival was tricky. Even though Czech Republic is a burgeoning, independent EU country, it is still recovering from being a communist, Eastern Block country and is still rough around the edges in areas like efficiency and customer service. The shiny new airport looks great, but getting into the city center was an IQ test I barely passed.

You must take a bus from the airport to a train station or take a private shuttle or taxi. The normal buses and shuttles don't run late in the evening though, and since my flight arrived late, I had to brush up on the late night transit system which is completely separate.

To my surprise, the day bus was still running since I made it to the curb before 11pm, however I wasn't sure if the train station it brought me to would be. Let's hope. I also needed some local currency and to buy a ticket for the bus, but all of the normal human help for this was shut down.

I had a couple of nuggets of wisdom under my belt. One: The money you get from the ATM is rarely in a denomination small enough to take public transportation. Two: You can sometimes get smaller bills from the ATM by requesting an odd amount (1900 CZK rather than 2000 CZK). Three: You might actually need coins, so try to find a way to get some change.

I confirmed that the sole bus ticket machine only took coins, no bills. Since there were no stores open, I looked for a change machine. I only found a machine that took foreign currency (not local) and changed it into Czech Crown. I gave it a couple of US dollars and it spit out a 20 crown coin.

Nearing 11pm, what could have been the last frequent day bus pulled up, and a horde of confused tourists rushed the driver with their naive wads of Euros and huge denomination bills. It seemed like some folks were getting tickets and some were getting turned away. I asked the driver in Tarzan sign language if I could buy a ticket waving a 100 crown note. He waved me away and pointed to the ticket machine on the sidewalk. I ran to the machine but it seemed to be made as a movie prop rather than something for real humans to use. No one could figure out how to operate it, including me.

I thought maybe he just objected to my 100 bill because he couldn't make change. I produced my 20 crown coin for him and he nodded his head and gave me a ticket and a couple of coins back. Success! I got on the bus, the driver closed the door leaving a substantial portion of the horde behind, and drove to the nearest train station. Poor horde. They are probably taxi bound now.

I ran into the train station to catch the last day trains along with everyone else. I asked a local who I heard speaking English where to go and she happily explained the metro signs and how they worked, and also told me which station I should transfer at.

After some aimless midnight wandering in the city center, I found my hostel (my friends Kristen and Mary's too) and all was well.

The next few days we toured the city, checking out its sights. Here are a few observations:

• The city center is as picturesque as everyone had told me. However it may be a bit too picturesque. We kept commenting that (especially tourist areas) looked more like a movie set than a place where people live and work. We were constantly joking as we would walk down a less travelled road and saw no people, that the town forgot to cast extras for the street. The buildings, as old and beautiful as they are, all seem to have a less than authentic finish of stucco and pastelish paint. It just plain looks like Disneyland. This isn't really a complaint. We had just never seen anything like this before.
• Everything here costs extra. There are some sights you can see for free, but even some cathedrals charged an entrance fee. Public restrooms all cost money, even at MacDonald's. Sitting at an outside table at a cafe might cost extra and those pretzels the bar puts on your table may seem free, but think again.
• Many of the local folks we had contact with were not the friendliest sorts. I am not sure what attributes to this, but even at our hostel, simple requests for common things were met with the body language equivalent of an eye roll or a heavy sigh. Come on, now.
• One understandable reason for this is that the place is just crawling with tourists. This can't be too fun for the locals, and honestly wasn't super fun for me either. I am beginning to develop a distaste for hordes of people. I sort of miss the days of mostly deserted beach towns.
• There are plenty of bars and restaurants. Prague is definitely into beer. It is the home of the original, authentic Budweiser beer. Each bar tends to be loyal to one beer in particular, so that makes ordering one simple enough. As prevalent as the establishments are, though, we had trouble finding too many places open after 10 pm. It's a pretty quiet place at night. I imagine if we knew some locals, we could have done better. I actually had the name and number of a local who is a friend of a friend, but I dropped the ball and never called.

Within four days, we all felt that we had seen all there was to see. The general atmosphere of the place was not holding us there, so we moved on sooner than I had originally intended.

Vices

Besides bikes, Amsterdam is known for its permissiveness. Coffee shops don't look or smell like Starbucks, and red lights aren't meant as traffic signals everywhere, especially in dark allies.

I arrived on an historic week, however, as it pertains to permissiveness. The European Union demanded that, starting July 1, Holland stop allowing smoking inside places of business. I was a little confused when I read that the ban only includes tobacco smoke. The famous coffee shops still allow smoking of pure marijuana indoors. I was aware, however, that the vast majority of Europeans that smoke pot, mix it with a fair amount of tobacco - partially because it makes a joint burn better and partially because it dilutes the extremely potent local varieties. So those wishing to smoke weed in a coffee shop had two choices: Smoke outside, or smoke it pure.

The ban did not just affect coffee shops though. As I walked or rode my bike around town in the evening, I would see a familiar sight to someone from California... a crowd of people outside each bar smoking their cigarettes. Although this was familiar to me, I suspected this was a totally new sight to see in Holland. I confirmed this with a bartender at a nice jazz club I stopped in. Before getting in though, I had to push my way through a couple of people smoking directly in the doorway - a practice that hasn't sunk in as rude yet here. Most of the Dutch people I spoke to about hadn't seem to have given much thought to the consequences of such a ban. I wondered if anyone thought this might hurt tourism or business at the coffee shops. I wondered how anyone would know if there was tobacco in your joint. I wondered if the ban would cause people to start smoking pure joints thus becoming far more incapacitated. Maybe they would stop rolling joints, and use bongs and pipes with smaller amounts. Maybe folks all over Holland would smoke less altogether. In any case, I knew it would affect the feel of the town and I was a little disappointed I got here after the imposition of this little corner of the new world order.

Some Dutch folks I discussed this with were delighted with a tip I handed down to them, which is that, with such a ban in effect, you can gauge the crowd in bars before you go inside by the number and makeup of the folks out on the street smoking. It beats walking in and out of places.

Another signature aspect of Amsterdam is the red light district. Prostitution is legal here, but mainly confined to this one neighborhood in town. I took a field trip down to the town center in the daytime to take a gander. I found the spot on the tourist map that indicated the general area and parked my bike. The neighborhood looked more or less like the rest of the city. The street was bustling with locals and tourists and I wondered if I was in the right place. I took a quick right turn down an alley to check another street and immediately had my whereabouts confirmed.

Before I arrived here, I had a vision in my mind of what the red light district would look like. Maybe dark and seedy with women doing some kind of slinky pole dance or maybe just sitting on stools filing their nails or something.. all in a room lit so that passers by could see them and then maybe ring a little bell if they wanted to get inside.

It wasn't exactly like that, but I wasn't far off. The most jarring thing for me was that, while walking down the extremely narrow allies, I found myself eye to eye with the ladies with just a pane of glass between us. Also I could hardly see the ladies until it was just them and me directly in front of one another. They are not passive either. They are salespeople and they wink and wave folks in, and will even open the door and come out to throw a verbal sales pitch occasionally if they think it will work. Oh and some of the ladies aren't really ladies at all, which they were not shy about demonstrating. I was a little bit shocked by the whole thing, but intrigued at the same time. I never once broke my stride, afraid that one might try and latch on.... but I did walk up and down a few allies. Crazy!

All in all, I have to say that, although this part of town clearly caters to human vices, it didn't seem all that seedy. However, I did note on two occasions, shady characters in darkish corners, who as I passed by actually said "Pssst". Really? Pssst? Nothing screams seedy like Pssst.

Amsterdam

At the last minute before I was to hop a train from Ghent to Amsterdam, Heather came to her senses and decided to go along at least for a day or so. After all, it was 4th of July weekend. So instead of buying a train ticket, I bought her a tank of gas, and we drove over. It's about three hours in a car or a train.

We parked the car out of town and took a free ferry into the town center. Like any good Amsterdamer, my first task and hand was to obtain a bicycle. I knew bikes were commonly used there, but I had no idea to what degree. Bikes are king. There is almost as much pavement devoted to them as to cars and trains. And they are always bustling with riders. Bike lanes are not necessarily just white lines painted on the road, but a separately engineered roadway altogether in many cases. Special street lights, street signs. In fact, Heather pointed out to me that, since Holland is a pretty flat place, you can get around the entire country by bicycle and still enjoy the same road accommodations you do in the city.

After awhile, I noticed that, for such a large metropolitan city, it was pretty quiet. There are cars driving around, but not very many. I remembered how loud Pai, Thailand was and it was a tiny little town. It was just jammed with loud motor bikes. Here people mainly bike, walk, or ride a street car.

The central part of Amsterdam is organized like a half wagon wheel, with a series of spokes (roads) and pretty canals that arc around the town as cross streets. It struck me again, as it did in Barcelona, but more so here, that EVERY building in the half wheel was charming, historic, and beautifully kept. The buildings are narrow and a few stories tall. Taller than they would have been had they not been taxed based on their footprint. This also makes for tight spaces inside, and narrow, steep staircases. Since space is so tight, most buildings have a pulley attached to the roof to hoist up residents' belongings when they move in and out.

I didn't find out why, but many of the buildings tilt. Since they are all jammed together, their tilts in relation to one another are obvious to the eye. I thought maybe they tilted forward so that when you hoist stuff up, it doesnt smash through your downstairs neighbor's window, but they tilt sideways too, or don't tilt. I don't get it really, but the effect makes them look like kooky Tim Robbins cartoon houses. It's very cute.

I also noticed quickly that much of the town, as charming and beautiful as it is, looks the same everywhere! I kept getting lost because one street and canal looks more or less like all the others. Good landmarks are few and far between, and for me, the Dutch street names were hard to remember.

I got lost more than once. But no worry. Just keep riding around until you run into something you recognize. You can't get far in a wagon wheel.

Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived on Friday afternoon, I felt a virus taking hold of me quickly. I tried my best to fight it off, but I couldn't do it. I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time in bed, and not having any big nights for a couple of days.

Sick on my only weekend in Amsterdam.

Damn.

Brussels

For kicks, Heather and I took a train trip down to Brussels, the Belgian capitol, to visit with Daisy, Heather's long time friend and Brussels native. Daisy's family has operated a dry cleaning business in the center for a number of years.

We all met up at Daisy's favorite bar downtown for some Belgian beer (of course). After arriving in town, I immediately noticed something was different. Even though Brussels is only about an hour from Ghent, the language spoken by folks here is French, not the Dutch I was used to in Ghent. Huh?

Another history lesson for Miles. There are two main regions of Belgium: The northern area of Flanders which is Dutch speaking, and Wallonia in the South which is home to the French speaking Flemish people. Somewhere along the line in history they both ended up part of Belgium, along with a small piece in the East that speaks German. (Note! Heather has informed me this is all wrong... I will repair it. sorry Flemish folk!)

At first I was confused at why the street names on street signs were so darned long. Then Daisy informed me that they are written in both French and Dutch since Brussels is officially a bilingual city. This is confusing since that means all streets really have two different names. Depending on whether it is a proper name or a common word (like Oak Street) the translation might be completely different when written in Dutch or French. Fun.

We had fun that night, and crashed at Daisy's until the next day when she gave me a personal guided tour of the city while Heather headed back to work in Ghent. We walked up and down the city to each neighborhood, stopping in her favorite spots for food and drinks. I especially enjoyed the street cartoons that are all around the city, many in the style of Herge. She is clearly quite proud of her home and also an amazing and hospitable hostess.

Thanks Daisy... and I love your French accent.

Belgium

Waffles and chocolates and beer... Oh my!

My lovely friend Heather Rae lives in Ghent, Belgium with her boyfriend, Jurgin. They were kind enough to invite me up to their home for a few days for a taste of some Ghent life and tasty BBQ. I took them up on it.

I had planned to check out Amsterdam while in Europe, and Ghent is only a couple of hours away by train.

The night before I left Barcelona was the much anticipated European soccer final between Germany and Spain. I was a bit torn who to root for since earlier in my trip I had spent a couple of weeks watching the games in Berlin and pulling for Germany with the rest of the crowd. Now I was in Spain feeling a bit sheepish about waving a white, red and yellow flag around, but I was (not so) secretly hoping Germany would win since I know more people there.. .and besides.. who likes a flip flopper, anyway? I watched the game at The London Bar in the El Raval neighborhood of Barcelona. I chose the bar because I read that Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway used to get drunk there.

When I rolled in, there was one seat left at a table of six or so folks who I soon learned were all from San Francisco. What are the chances? Pretty high I suppose. Barcelona is full of tourists, and the two guys I met at the Turkish food place right before I headed for the bar were also from SF.

Spain ended up winning and I celebrated along the Rambla with the rest of the Spanish for a little while before heading to bed for my early flight. Some folks reminded me that the celebration in Barcelona was not nearly as large or as passionate as the party in Madrid. You see, folks from Barcelona are Catalan, and barely consider themselves Spanish at all. In fact, many of them support seceding from Spain altogether. But they were still excited anyway.

The next morning, I flew from Barcelona to Brussels and hopped on a train to Ghent, St. Pieters station. Heather had given me some instructions and I managed to navigate the trains and crazy street numbering system in Ghent, and arrived at her door without a hand-holding cell phone call. Woo!

She fed me and then sent me out to check the nearby town center. Hey... this place is, like, medieval! Barcelona had some buildings from that era, but Ghent has a whole town center that conforms to a period spanning a time between the 14th and 16th centuries. Very charming old buildings filled with shops, outdoor restaurants, and cozy pubs. The town center also has a system of stone canals running through the town, so many of the buildings are right on the water. There is even a town castle. Neeto.

After realizing that Belgians are known for their chocolates, I made a bee line directly for the tastiest looking hand made truffle shop. For only about 7 Euros, I got a quarter kilo of fresh hand picked scrumptious chocolates which I intended to bring home to Heather as a gift... Unfortunately, it was mostly gone by the time I made it back to her house. Probably the best chocolates I have ever had. I probably bought a full kilo by the time I left.

Later, after a big big BBQ dinner, Heather took me out to sample one of the other Belgian delights. Beer.

My friends know that I am not a big beer drinker. I generally stick to vodka and wine. But when in Belgium...

I especially liked the Rodenbach and Orval beers she pointed me toward. Orval and other beers are brewed by Belgian monks. They take their brewing very seriously, and since some brew only in small quantities, their beers can be as sought after as fine wines. I'll be looking for those brands at Toronado, a bar in my neighborhood at home that specializes in exotic beers.

I found the people of Ghent quite pleasant. It is a university town, so it was tough to tell how the outskirts might look. But I found the folks quite stylish, attractive, and friendly. I was surprised at how great their music scene is as well. They have a fantastic radio station, UrGent.fm and I did some listening to their local DJ's. Awesome.

I was disappointed that my travel schedule didn't allow me to stay for their jazz festival nor for their ten-day town party, Gentse Feesten. Heather told me they set up music stages on the canals. It sounds great.

I could certainly hang out there for awhile. It has an easy, mellow feel to it.

News Flash: I posted new pictures to my Flickr site.