Music, Food , Drink, Art, People: The Low Countries

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Music, Food , Drink, Art, People: The Low Countries

The first weekend back in Belgium, Patrick and I head to his studio on the coast in Oostende where we meet Gerda and Gerriet in a chic black restaurant with fondu on the menu. A good friend of Trike's has lent us her caravan. Patrick's first night at the wheel leads us down a dead-end block behind the casino. Maneuvering a three point turn is difficult. The back bumper is scraped severely and a Renault Twingo is dragged half a foot across the curb. The next morning we set off to South Holland following the A19 to Ghent, the A12 through Antwerp. All the while the electrical outlet hatch flaps in the wind amplifying our nervous jitters. My friend has packed two CDs for an eight day road-trip. The car battery is nearly drained. We have forgotten some instructions. The cheeses and meats slowly heat in the frigo.

We persevere, however, and find our way to Camp Strevbeek, a low lush green field turned cheap summer fantasy land complete with little caravans, blond children on bikes, tents, garden gnomes and little windmills and lawn chairs. We walk along the dike into Gouda and reach the town centre, full of people and sunshine, wandering about a wide quadrangle framing the sixteenth century stadhuis. It is market day. Down a narrow pedestrian street I enter a cafe selling marijuana. The warm afternoon lingers on the pavement. Trike and I wander further, admiring the gables and windows and peak through the windows at expensive homes. The other side of Sant Jaan Kirk, we take a seat at a tapas bar and order Heineken on tap.

A day of music. Sunday, early afternoon, the train pulls into Amsterdam Centraal. More sunshine than the day before, tourists scattered in all directions, a grinding organ pumps out a loud and delightful tune. It small wooden figures open and close their cymbals and drums. We ask directions to the old Jordaan neighbourhood. Long legged blonds walk hand in hand, dressed smart, sitting at cafes spilling into the streets and over canal bridges, window shopping windows full of flare and shape, furnishings, crockery, framed prints. Bushy trees lend shade to polished Renaults and Citroens, and sleek facades of the Golden Age. Coffees drunk, beers digested, windows explored, we reach Leidesplein and next the flower-market. Accordionists serenade the day trippers. We backtracked along the gay bar street. Saturday had been host to Gay Pride and the cafes were still teaming with middle aged Nellies from across the western world comparing wax jobs. Vondel Park is usually entered from the main gate at its northern extremity, where a long path hosts some of the most eclectic traffic. I sat on the grass listening for a while to a slim young American playing his sitar. I gave him a euro. Further along the path three young men tapped in time upside down ceramic pot lids creating a deep and gentle trance to which a young Asian woman performed a variety of pipes and simple percussion instruments. For a quarter hour I sat entranced and saw not a single passer by offer gratuity. I gave them a euro. Entering the park proper in search of the rose garden, we happened upon a lively show entertaining in the amphitheatre. I dragged Trike to the front where we danced among the crazies and watched the dark young African singing in a deep powerful voice with two women in bright dresses and head scarves. A third woman with fair skin and red hair blew passionately on her saxophone. Next door Patrick and I refreshed in the beer garden before lounging among the roses to enjoy a puff. Ahhh, Amsterdam!

Monday, noon, heavy threatening clouds, we pull up anchor, and follow a series of country roads south, crossing the Lek, and eventually arriving at Biesbosch, a National Park. Unfortunately, it isn't much. Evening, we return to Gouda to a Greek Restaurant on the square and order a carafe of sour tasting Retsina, the perfect accompaniment to a tray of lamb, chicken, steak, pork chops, rice, vegetables, frittes and salad. Patrick asks our server, a boy of 17 with wide set eyes, if there's a cozy local's bar nearby. He suggests a cafe just after the corner. When we enter, the young patrons all let out a cheer. They are funny people. Soon we are all laughing. Marielle is 18. She is the most confident among her young gang. Dared, she takes the mic, and walks outside into the market. "BOOOOOEEEUUUUUR," the speakers roar with her burp. Daniel, the waiter from the Greek, enters and joins his handsome buddy Tim, a glowingly handsome blond in a white tank top, at the bar. Patrick and I have a good laugh watching them drinking like fish, alternating double cocktails and small beers. The bar tender's name is Paul. He is in his late fifties but looks young forties, a sturdy frame in a light blue polo shirt. Tonight he is playing his favourite MVDs. We sing along to Fleetwood Mac, the late André Hazzis, Talking Heads and Queen. I'm a little carried away, dancing. Tricke talks with an old man, good complexion, balding, in rose spectacles. I take a stroll in the quiet street. It's empty, quiet and not too cold. I light a joint then head back inside. I take pictures of the handsome young girls. "Who at this bar is not a homo," Pat asks me. We are laughing hard and drinking harder. "What you drink next," he asks. "Oh, just hit me, Hit me!" We have missed the last bus. We lose our way and ask some sheep for directions, "Bahahahahah?"

Tuesday cost me a hundred and fifteen euros. Armed with a coffee, pastry and ticket, we hopped the wrong train for Den Haag, had to change in Rotterdam. A strong wind heaves heavy clouds and the sun scatters light. Sint Martinshuis, an all wood and moulding mansion, three floors, some eighteen rooms hung with art charges a steep ten euro entry. Tourists wrapped in headphones listen to Spanish and German and Japanese discourse. We people watch in the Binnehoff's high walled inner courtyard, arrive too late for the Escher exhibition so window shop along a couple blocks famed for their art nouveau shop fronts and building facades from the 1920s. Glassware and china in a similar retro stand on display. I purchase a large white Chinese lantern. I'm handed an A4 size receipt in exchange for thirty euros. The no.1 travels through Scheveningen Bosjes to Scheveningen. The sunshine and forests' shadows flickered inside the tram, danced across the passengers and baby carriages. We let out at the second to last stop, below the strandweg. A fresh wind sailed over. The sun shone thirty degrees above the lapping waves. Feathery clouds advanced like waves. Tiny figures strolled the tide, minding the parachute surfers. Patrick nestled into the sand. I enjoyed my stone, went wandering and took pictures. Nearby, in a restaurant on the beach, tables behind protected glass, we ordered coffee and Heineken and pannekoek.

Wednesdays, in summer, Gouda's central markt hosts an antique market. Table after table of odd kitchen wares, glasses that have outlasted their sets, wood puzzles from the fifties, lego from the eighties, art nouveau light fixtures and vases. I inspect several tables displaying albums of old postcards and find three dating from before the war and coloured over decoratively. I lose Patrick in the crowd of ponchos and umbrellas. In the afternoon we drive to Blijswijk to the sauna. The complex is enormous and crowded. We test each bath, a silent sauna, a roman bath, a Byzantine cave sauna, a salt bath, an infrared sauna. Following on the heels of a gorgeous young man, Patrick drags me into a small glassed in garden. There are only four chairs and I am nervous sitting inches from this tanned, muscular, wet nude with shiny hair the colour of a wheat field just after the rain. In a far corner of the "well being centre", the last rays of sun peak over the trees lighting three small jacuzzis where I rest in the jets and can finally relax. We take a walk in the park outside, rabbits bound into the underbrush. Pat and I can spend hours in silence. It is a great comfort. Dinner is served in the caravan back at Camp Strevbek, patatjes and cordon bleu.

Thursdays, in summer, Gouda's central markt hosts a cheese market. An odd day to fill the town with tourists, flood the cafes and galleries and impede the weekday progress of the locals. The weather is for shit but still it is crowded and for a few festive hours of costumes and 15kg cheese roundels, all is jovial. Late afternoon, Patrick and I find an old cafe behind the market. The sunshine falls into the bar through large glass panes. We order a couple pints. The walls and back room are cluttered cleverly with antiques and oddities and old beer adverts. The bartender's name is Renee, a quiet red head with an agreeable character. His mother, Magda, manages the place. She keeps on the mover serving drinks and sharing laughs with the regulars. She introduces us, first to her daughter and her daughter's Sri Lankan partner. I recognize two men from Paul's standing across from us. A tall robust typically Hollandse woman sits mid-bar tall on her stool, swivelling, catching my eye when her husband looks the other way. She has a bounce in her step, high healed, throws a mink over her shoulder and's out the door for errands. The next blond with darker roots and a more generous mid region tells Pat and I she can play the accordion. My video is ready. Line dancing ensues, washboard rubbing, all accompanied by the accordion which I'm later informed was a fake. A man with a long frizzy hairdo passes in his metre and a half long legs. I recognize from some other cafe. Patrick and I joke that we could move here. We have already met most of the locals. The handsome blond, Tim walks in with his equally gorgeous twin, Tom, sporting a little stubble and a piercing in his left brow. The music and merry making and rounds of pints continues. Some town gossip reaches my ears. Pat and I stumble outside like a couple characters in a lousy Hemmingway novel, and crossed the market now cloaked in twilight. I rolled a spliff outside Paul's while Patrick spoke with the young Daniel, asking him why he was scared of me. Daniel was already three sheets to the wind, exclaiming, "I am scared of nobody. You see these Moroccans (at the next-door Kebab shop)? I can take them all." I sit next to the two boys and we drink three sweet cocktails in fast succession. I admire them. Tim has let his stubble grow. Daniel has cut his hair short. His backside sways like a pendulum to the music. I recall myself at their age.

Friday, pissing down rain. We have spent the night camped in a pay parking. We wake early. The toll gate is open and we make haste. Unfortunately we have neglected to close the bunk's window hatch and with a loud clang, the toll bar swipes the Plexiglas and plastic hinges clear off. Patrick is irate, "okay, I go home," he says with disgust. I gather the broken bits and try to string it all back together. The rain falls incessantly most of the day. We take a few wrong turns, backtrack, and early afternoon turn off the highway at Epe, a mysteriously dead mid-sized town, where Patrick orders a coffee and lays waste to their small WC. From here, a small country road leads to Otterlo, a recreation domain hugging Hoge Weluge National Park. The tourist bureau guides us to Camping Kikkergat where a dozen trailers share a wet strip of well kept lawn. White haired couples lounge in lawn chairs, nibbling, chatting, playing with their dog. Tricke and I slip into our new 8euro ponchos and take a walk through the farm lands. Down time.

Saturday, I wake earlier than usual pestered by mosquitos and the cold. I practise my tai chi in a corn filed where the golden stalks breathe in the day's first rays of sunlight and let warm their dewy leaves. After breaky and strong coffee, we climb on our rental bikes and make for the Park's gate. There is a line of tourists several dozen deep. One woman operates the ticket counter. I am soon ranting to myself, it seems strikingly illogical in such a forward thinking nation that a machine could not do this job faster or that two employees could work on a Saturday in summer. For the next several hours we peddle along the many routes connecting Otterlo, Schaarbergen and Hoenderlo, winding through pine forest and stretching across low rolling sand dunes. Soft purple clumps of heather grow frenziedly among tall clumps of wild grass. Trees in measured rows extend to the horizon. We find a quiet field where I sketch the trees and Patrick reads his books. Later we sit outside the park gate in Hoenderlo, sipping coffee, watching the world go by. The cheeses and pastries, sweets and beers and joints have taken their toll on my face, now covered in pimples. The afternoon does not go as planned. Outside the Kroller Muller museum, Pat and I have an argument about our finances and who's paying what. He goes off in a harrumph, leaving me to tour the museum on my own. It's incredibly fun for a stoned Art History major to look at original Van Gogh's, post modern sculpture, art deco wall hangings, Golden Era portraits and Flemish Masters, and how visitors interact with the work. My friend and I eat dinner in silence in the camper. Soon we are laughing again. Our neighbour's showed great concern when they saw Patrick return without me. "How will he find his way back?" Some people cannot travel further than their garden gnomes.

Sunday, the sky over all South Holland is overcast, windy and drizzling shades of slanting grey. We are on the road early. After five hours of pavement, petrol stations, traffic signs, on ramps and exits, fly ways and byways, windmills, pastures, rivers, back tracks an downpours, we arrive safely back in Oostende. The wind off the Channel is fierce and takes great effort to unpack the caravan into the seaside flat. I spend the evening alone helping Patrick move into his new place while he returns to Leuven to recharge for another Monday work day.

The holiday feels ended. The next week has a bittersweet edge, wandering my old college haunts. Patrick is all day manning the newspaper shop so I am left to my own devices. I am proud he has sold his cafe but I miss our times together there. I lodge in his wee house in the old city centre. All the furnishings, kitchenware and groceries have been removed. I eat breakfast at one of a dozen bakery cafes, lunch at the frituur stands, a vending machine beer and dinner I order at the kebab shops. The last night of Markt Rock floods the city centre with revellers and beer gardens. Each square hosts a concert. I wander to Vismarkt where a couple thousand are entertained by a Belgian group, Sweet Coffee. They're pretty good. I bump into an ex-boyfriend, Wim. We are both shocked to see each other and make plans for coffee the next day. Another evening, over pints with Patrick and his buddy Jules, I am introduced to Ian, a soon to be unemployed alcoholic originally from Newcastle.

My last weekend in Europe, Patrick and I return to Oostende. The sky is filled with fluffy clouds and the terraces are crowded with coffees and pints. Gerrit joins us and we drink all afternoon and late into the evening. We order dinner, retsina, and ouzo at our favourite Greek restaurant with live entertainment and the cutest waiters. Long after Gerrit returns home, Pat and I are still going strong in the packed dungeonous gay bars. We lose track of each other and before I know it, I'm stumbling out the bar into a bright clear morning. I am a wreck with blurred vision, heavy feet and a stiff gate walking back to Trike's, a half hour expedition along the gusty seawall. We nap til mid afternoon and catch the train back to Brabant. Patrick and I are the same thing from different backgrounds, in different generations. Our beliefs: life is simple, don't make it complicated and don't let others complicate it for you. Enjoy those around you, learn from them. Work for your own happiness. Enjoy what makes you happy.

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