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Published: September 25th 2006
REWIND!!!
I left my laptop in Belgium about a month and a half ago. Before I had the chance to put these photos up. I've got it back now...so here's a little flash back to Belgium.My oh my, it’s been a long time. In fact, it’s been such a long time, that we’re back two where we were several blogs ago. We’re in Antwerp, Belgium again, with the ever generous and helpful Lotte and Stu.
I’m going to very briefly let you know where we’ve been and a few highlights since we last caught up:
Belgium (Antwerp, about one week):
Hung out with Lotte, Stu, Lotte’s brother Bram and his girlfriend Tessa, Bram’s best friend almost brother Danny, and a few other people, and truly felt like we were part of a real-life episode of Friends.
There’s lots of dropping by for tea and coffee and a visit, and you never have to call in advance if you don’t want to.
Bike riding is a very common means of getting around, and J and I found it most fun after a night of drinking Duvel and Schnappes.
Went to a jazz bar, a wine and cheese party, a tiny bar with over 200 types of Belgian beers. We played Uno for hours with our buddies and played in a huge park with lots of little lanes, and trees and people
Beer and church...
Two great beauties Belgium offers. riding bikes, walking dogs and being with their families.
We’ve wandered through the cobblestone streets and a huge Saturday market and watched street performers.
Very “European” here, and history meets a vibrant, youthful atmosphere while maintaining a completely laid back mentality and enjoyment for life.
The Netherlands (Amsterdam, three nights)
Just the two of us, and broker than we’d been yet. Stayed in a tiny, bare bones cabin in a campsite about 15 minutes from town. As has been reported, we lived off of salami, rolls and nutella for a few days.
Walked around A LOT, both day and night. Criss-crossed over canals and lost ourselves in the maze of tiny lanes. Constantly worried a tram was going to run us over.
Visited another market and a park where their was some hippies playing music, which was really good. Could afford one museum and I insisted that it was the Anne Frank house. Shed a few tears there, but it’s not like Auschwitz where you feel like every nerve in your body is exposed to the sadness and death.
Joined the rest of the tourists to weave in and out of the red
light district, staring into shops that sell all kinds of drug paraphernalia, the drugs themselves and plenty of information to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. And of course there are the doorways of women, some of whom are just….. WHOOF!! But, you know…what do you expect.
Took an overnight bus from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, and listened to people snore and got sore necks.
Germany (Frankfurt, about two hours)
Arrived on the bus at the central train station, and the sun was about an hour form coming up. Chilly air pulled us at least halfway out of the surreal fog we were in.
Had a coffee and a mint tea, and I powdered my nose and curled my eyelashes (no matter what time it is or where in the world you are, curled eyelashes will always make a girl feel beautiful). We set off towards the city center with our big old backpacks, and passed several sets of drunken people, as well as a bar where two men were begging outside of the window “please, we just want one beer.”
After about a twenty minute walk we arrived in the center of the city, and checked out a few statues, a church and the typical German architecture with the pointed brown roofs and brown shutters around the windows. We watched the sun come up and headed back down the river towards the station.
At 7 am (on the dot), Isabel (a friend from the school), picked us up with her mom and dog Emma Lou. By this point, Jason aren’t sure where we are or what the heck’s going on, so we try our hardest to make conversation but wind up dozing off in the car during the 2 hour journey to Isa’s parent’s house.
Germany (Gumpelstadt, about one week)
Had a very organized time, covered lots of territory, and learned a lot about history. Isa’s mom is an awesome cook and made three meals a day, and served them up like we were royalty. She made lots of traditional German food, and we tried lots of new stuff. Most we loved, but the blood sausage wasn’t a huge hit.
Spent lots of time with Isa’s parents who were really fun and eager to please. We also spent two nights in Dresden, and made a few younger friends there as well.
We saw: Wartburg Castle (where Marin Luther translated the Bilble), town of Eisenach, Point Alpha, Dresden (where we saw LOTS of historical places, as well as ballet of Carmen with music from Bizeth in the courtyard of the Zwinger), Pilnitz Castle and the Elbe River, Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Erfurt town and LOTS of beautiful countryside.
And mmmmmm…we love the sausage and the mustard.
Austria (Vienna, about a week, by way of Bratislava Airport in Slovakia)
Arrived about midnight in Vienna, and our friend Timon (another one from Kingswood) and another one of his friends from Montana (America of course!) came to pick us up. Lots of happy greetings before calling it an early night.
The next day, went on a walk through the city center (District one) and Timon showed us all the important historical monuments and stuffed us full of facts and more history. Among the favorites were: St. Peters Church, the university of Vienna (where Timon studies), a butterfly garden, a huge and tempting market with the most unbelievable fresh vegetables and fruits, bread, olives, wine, seafood…mmmmm…everything! And so I got inspired to cook, got everybody excited and then couldn’t really afford anything! Woohoo!
We visited an exhibition in the Museum Quarter called the Summer of Love, hung out and played pool with Timon’s cousin and her boyfriend from Australia, had homemade Vienerschnitzel at Timon’s moms, went to a music festival, went for a few runs through the vineyards near T’s house, visited the wine bars also nearby.
Had a chilled out, awesome time and met some great people. Watched a couple of movies, played some bongos and the guitar, drank Absinthe (but didn’t overdo it), went for a breakfast on a hill overlooking the Imperial Homes, and then went to the zoo. Ate a couple of these really great sausages in rolls…okay, here’s how it goes. This is just too good not to explain. So you walk up the street stand, and pick the type of sausage you want. Then they grab a roll, pull off the top, stick the roll on a long, hot spike which makes a hole in the bread and makes it warm. Then they put whatever condiments you want in the hole, stick the sausage in, and even give you the end of the roll. It’s yuummmmmmmyyy.
Vienna is next in line after Antwerp. There seems to be an endless list of affordable things to do involving music, art and theatre, which of course we love.
England (Good old Tunbridge Wells, about three weeks)
We left Vienna, by way of Bratislava, got into London, and because it was about midnight by the time we got to Stansted Airport, there weren’t any trains into the center of the city, whichis where needed to be in order to get another train to T. Wells. So…we set up a little homeless shelter on the cold airport floor and caught some Z’s!
It was pretty fun actually. There were lots of young backpackers scattered about the place, sleeping on towels and sweaters, splayed across their belongings so nothing got stolen. I put on J’s stinky socks that he’s been wearing for three days…my feet were desperately cold, and my socks were way too far down in my bag…and several layers of clothes, and an eyemask and we just set the alarm clock and curled up in the midst of the stansted shantytown.
By the time we arrived at mary’s we took showers to wash off the floor grime, and had the most delightful nap ever.
But the resting didn’t last long. We needed jobs, and fast. Visited a couple of pubs, lied about how long we’d be there, and got a job downtown at The Office. Love the people there and had a good time soaking up English pub culture. I took the bus in to work every day, and worked from 10:30 to 6 for a couple of weeks.
J busqued at first, and made about twice what I made per hour, and got asked if he had a home by a teenage girl. He contemplated bringing Mary’s dog tied up on a rope to make himself look more pathetic, but decided against it.
Mary took great care of us and made some yummy Sunday roasts. We went to church with her too, and saved our souls at least for the time being.
Melinda, Ben and Haike also took good care of us by feeding us occasionally and providing us with a small social life, so that every night didn’t consist of planning what to eat for dinner and looking through the TV guide to see what was on the boob tube (to be honest, the break and routine was what we needed).
And, J had his 24th birthday on the 20th of Sept. Haike had us and some other friends over to hers for a night of fun. It was great to be in England where J could have some comforts of home and familiarity. Carrie and Andrew arranged to make an internet video for J, and J’s mom/sister stepdad brother-in-law and the rest of the fam got to sing happy birthday and say hello. My family sent there wishes also, and he got a video tour of some of his favorite places in the burg. It was great for both of us, and made his b-day extra special.
Besides singing and playing, J worked at a sales call place with Melinda, so we both made some money.
The ever amazing and helpful Lotte and stu picked us from Mary’s on Saturday, and now we’re back in Antwerp; our favorite! We felt at home when we walked through the front doors, and we’re already having a great time.
We’re going to buy a very cheap little travel pass to share so that we can make day trips to Bruges and Brussels, so we’re excited for that.
Saturday we leave for Malaga, along the S. coast of Spain for one of work arrangements. After two weeks of that, we’ll meet a friend in Barcelona, and stay there for about five days. Then all three of us will head to Sardegna to meet a fourth friend. We’ll stay with her for a week, and then J and I will go to mainland Italy and see Pisa, Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice and Rome. Then we fly to Paris for two nights, jump over to London, and have a few nights before our time is up.
As a few of you have inquired about, yes, there have been some realizations had and some decisions made about the future. Nothing’s far off from what you might expect; music, writing, photography and travel will continue to play important roles in our lives, and we are confident in saying that they will be important in our life, together.
When we return home, it’ll be back to the parents houses, back to our non-career jobs, and back to saving up money for our next adventure, which we’re planning already. We want to do America next summer for a few months (about two), camping and seeing our own country. I’ve had an idea for a book for a year or more, and that will hopefully come in to play during our journey, for both of us.
We both plan to pursue our creative talents and more “career-ish” type jobs, but expect that while we do that we’re going to have to work in restaurants/photography shops in the meantime, at least to get us through the holidays. But we’ve pinky sworn to really make efforts to pursue writing/photography/art etc. We’re a pretty good creative team if I do say so myself, and I’m excited to see what the two of us can accomplish, both individually and together.
Jason is looking forward to putting together a group of musicians to play traditionalc Celtic music, for jam sessions, gigs and fun. He’s been remembering what it’s like to truly love playing music again, without stress or expectations. Everyone’s been missing CSC music, so there has been no grave dug for everyone’s favorite local band.
Part of the internal struggle has been between the desire to settle down, get my own place and a steady job, and the desire to travel and be young while I can. At this point, I’m still wanting to be free, so to speak, and traveling and putting money towards that is still victorious. I feel like I can safely say that J feels the same way.
As I said, there will be movements made to more professional, lifelong careers, but no pressure or disappointment at this point.
So…for those of you who’ve been sniffing around for information like that, there you go. And moms…don’t worry. There are no plans to leave again for five months at a time, and I can’t imagine there will be any time soon.
Guys, sorry this is rushed and maybe boring and less fun than usual. Now that I’m caught up, we can update and have some fun again.
Even if I wasn’t rushed, I could never have the time or words to express how thankful we are to all of the friends who have taken us in, shown us where they come from, fed us amazing food, and have generally just made our loves better. Our experiences have undoubtedly been enriched by all the time, energy and love you have so generously put into making our adventures so memorable.
A list of names here, of people to whom we hope to be able to return the favors:
Mary Forrester (Queen Mum)
Melinda Forrester and Ben
Haike Hutchings
Simon, Lindsay, Emma and Matt
Amy Hurst and all my buddies at The Office
Arek Maliszewski
Robert Maliszewski
The Juszczak family
Lotte Reps
Stuart Scott
Mr. and Mrs. Reps
Bram Reps, Tessa and Danny
Przemek Klosiewicz
Isabel Ruck
Stefi Ruck
Heinz Schober, and his parents
Frank, Karl, Thekla, Beatra and Senta Nichterlein
Timon Mikocki
Monika and Kay
Joanna Mikocki
And all our friends from Kingswood Hall, especially Lella and Claudia, who we will see in a few weeks.
And thank you to everybody at home for your comments, enthusiasm and support. Don’t forget to send money.
One more thing…It’s hard to believe life goes on without us at home, but congratulations to all the exciting things that have been going on in the lives of our family and friends. One best friend just had a baby and another best friend is about to get married and another best friend just bought a house. My cousin got engaged a few days ago and my uncle is now officially judge. My sister has a new job which I gather she loves, and another close family friend has also just had a baby. Couldn’t ya’ll have waited for me to get home??
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Sheryl
non-member comment
Take a breath!
Hey, that wasn't long or boring. I just felt like I got the whirlwind tour! It all sounds amazing and wonderful. It is fabulous that you are not only enjoying the trip, but that you sound like you are truly enjoying one another. Send more pics Jason...not that I don't absolutely love to read your stuff Katie. Talk about a creative team to be reckoned with.