July 23rd, 2011

July 23, 2011


It has been a pretty righteous week here in Belgium. I really enjoy most of the people here and the city of Brussels is very entertaining. I have noticed a ton of graffiti everywhere. I don’t think I’ve seen so many varieties and styles before. Many have made me stop and admire for a couple minutes. I have had to get used to calculated dollars into Euro so that’s another adventure in itself. It is difficult really but you just have to remember that you aren’t really spending twenty dollars if you spend twenty Euro. I am certainly thankful for this experience and am trying to soak in as much of this part of the world as I can. Olivie’s parents have been more than generous and it is awesome to have a place to stay while here.

On Thursday it was Belgium day so Bryan and I ventured out into the city and saw a bunch of Belgium day stuff going on. I guess there was a parade and the Belgium King made a presence. Apparently there is no government in place here in Belgium and there hasn’t been one for over a year now. It is the longest time this country has gone without having one stable government. Everyone still pays taxes and stuff but there just isn’t one central power of command. There surprisingly isn’t any sort of heavy turmoil because of this. I can’t imagine the US not having a government for over a year. I mean, everyone gets into a frenzy when the NFL season becomes in jeopardy. I really doubt that we would let the country go for over a year without a government in place. All of this stuff was happening in and near the large park in the middle of the city. After we got of the metro we tried to find it. We found the center square where a lot of tourists go to check out the buildings, but we kept wandering and couldn’t seem to find the park. We did find a carnival that had this really tall ride that swung you around in a large circle. Bryan had the great idea of riding the ride, not only to get the crap flung out of us, but to also see if we could spot the park while we were really high up in the air. This ended up working because we found where we needed to go, and got our stomachs jumbled at the same time. Turns out we were going in the total opposite direction we needed to be going. We found the park and soon after joined up with Olivie and some of his friends.

This is when the night started getting wild. We were introduced to a couple of bars. The first one was called the Toone and they had puppet shows going on there, I think on a regular basis. I drank this large dark beer called a kwak and we continued on our way. The next bar we visited was called Floris. This place had the largest selection of Absinthe ever. Absinthe isn’t allowed in America for some reason, so of course, we had to try some. We heard we could smoke this certain kind so we decided to do that. Bryan went first and oh man, it made me really question if I should go through with it. It looked so painful. Hey, we are in Belgium and there is Absinthe ready to be smoked right if front of me, so what the heck right. I don’t think I got it into my lungs as bad as Bryan did because it was painful but I was still standing. Everyone but me took another shot of some other kind and we decided to head to the disco tech. This was like a bar on the first level and a dance party on the second. We cranked out our sweet dance skills til 3 in the morning or so. To say we went hard is an understatement. Luckily I don’t get hung over so the next day I felt great. Everyone else was hurtin so we all took it pretty easy.

It was awesome to experience all of this and I am certainly excited to see Amsterdam on Sunday. We are planning on taking a train into the city that morning and then going to a concert that evening. We will stay one night at this hostel place then catch a train back Monday morning. I’ve never been to Amsterdam before and am glad we get the chance to go now. Apparently the city is trying to wash itself of its bad rep by changing a ton of rules by next year. Guess we snuck in our visit just in time....