Belgium

We have been in Belgium for the last couple of days... Or Belgique as the French say...

I don't remember so much French being spoken in Belgium when we were here last year, but on this visit, English seems very much in the minority. Good thing I can still remember about ten words of French. Today saw me say "Je voudrais" (I would like - so far so good) "that cheese on the right. Merci beaucoup". Impressive, non?

Our last few days in London were really fun! Lex had taken most of the week off work to hang out and we went... everywhere. Through the brick lane vintage shops, the Christmas market at London Southbank, Canary wharf, shopping on Oxford st, dinner at a great pizzeria in Soho. We packed a lot into a couple of days. 

To remedy a wrong from the last blog post, here is a(n allegedly) more flattering pic of Lex. (for the record, I liked the photo I put in the last post - I thought it was all cute and wistful):

Cute...

On Friday morning, our European travel companions, Nick and Jo arrived after spending a week in Penang. The plan is to travel with Nick and Jo for the next five weeks through Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Nice, Baden-Baden and Munich, with two nights in London to start. 

We planned out and booked most accom and train/ air travel months ago, but had a lot of trouble finding a nice, affordable place to spend two nights in London. But the apartment we ended up with was amazing - we even had two bathrooms and an entrance hall. The apartment ended up being a great base for our further London travels. We all went to Camden to try Windian (Caribbean) food on Friday night - goat curry and jerk chicken - yum! 

Saturday was spent wandering around Southbank, St James Park - where we handfed squirrels (so unbelievably cute) - and to Buckingham palace. I went off to spend the afternoon my sis for our last few hours together, sob. Then we headed to Brixton's O2 Academy for an Ocean Colour Scene gig that Nick and Jo had organised tix for - thanks again guys!

I hadn't listened to Ocean Colour Scene in a long time. I had liked them back in the day - they were never very big in Australia, but they released an album called Moasley Shoals back in the late nineties that was a really great album. What made this gig special, is that they decided to tour that album and that album only. 

The deal was they put on a series of shows where they would play Moasley Shoals, right through, in order. No filler, no "oh this is our latest stuff", no support, basically no mucking around. Brilliant!!!!! 

Okay, true there are no surprises, but how many bands do I wish would tour my favourite album, play it live through once, at a decent venue, with great sound and then take a bow and leave us all feeling all warm and happy??? The crowd loved it. There were a lot of British men in their mid-thirties enthusiastically arm pumping the night away. Which is also nice - I like to be part of an appreciative crowd, rather than the apathetic hipster crowds you sometimes unwittingly find yourself a part of these days. As you can imagine, it was hard to get any good pics from up in the gods, but I tried:

Definitely a night I will remember. Especially after we got back to Angel (a few mins walk from our apartment), we dropped into a pub to use the facilities and by the time Jo and I found Nick and Phil, Nick had managed to win a modest jackpot on the poker machine! All in pound coins too - which filled a beanie and came in handy for the late night kebab on the way home. I think it may be the height of cheek to walk ino a pub, use the bathoom, clean out the poker machine jackpot and leave - but no one seemed to notice.

Here are some random pics of London:

London eye

Cute curious goose at St James Park

Jo and Nick On Westminster Bridge

Phil in vintage shop...

Sunday morning, we took the Eurostar for a quick, uneventful trip to Brussels for a two night stay. 

I think Brussels gets a bad rap as a not very exciting city. Phil and I first visited last year and were lucky enough to take over a cancellled booking on short notice at the most beautiful bed and breakfast we've ever stayed in - so relaxing. 

The B&B would have been enough of a draw in itself to return, but the city itself is also lovely. There's a spectacular old city area, which on this trip was lined with Christmas markets and mulled wine stalls. And even the streets away from the touristy centre are lovely to walk around fairly aimlessly. And then there's the beer. Oh my god, the beer!!  For most of this trip, I've been off the booze. I got to a point in Bali where I was caffeine-free, alcohol-free and mostly meat free. But I'm pretty happy to welcome substances back in on the European leg of this trip and when in Belgium, that definitely means the beer. Lovely molassesy dark beers, delicious fruity wheat beers and heart-poundingly strong 9 and 10% beers. So good! And so cheap!!

There are lots of decorative bars/pubs all over the city centre which probably date back more than a century, but last year Phil and I found this little unadorned, very local bar that had a great atmosphere so we dropped by with Jo and Nick for a beer on our first day in Brussels. After ordering some fabulous beers, Jo spotted a strange looking vending machine that held small cans. Is it canned fish??? It can't be canned fish... 

Phil went in for a closer look - it's cans of nuts - hey, that sounds good. So he tried to operate the somewhat complicated mechanism which required that you put a fifty euro cent coin in the slot on the left hand side of the machine and a one euro coin on the other side. Somehow tholocals friendly local put a one euro coin into the fifty euro cent slot, got firmly stuck and high drama ensued. 

The whole bar got involved... watching the action as poor Phil tried to pry the stuck euro coin loose with... a toothpick. A group of guys called out suggestions, and one brave soul with a pocket knife came forward to offer his services. All the while the bartender looked on with a decidedly surly expression. I think we all held our collective breath as the hero pried out the coin with his very sharp knife... I could just see him slipping and hitting a vein... But he managed to pry out the pin without bloodshed and we left the bar with a can of hard won seasoned sunflower seeds... 

Wandering around the city centre, we stumbled on the Brussels Christmas market - stopping to soak up the atmosphere, and the mulled wine. Here more stops for beer and dinner and I was starting to feel all that beer just a little. On the way to dinner, we came across this guy busking with a didgeridoo. 

On our second day, the weather was beautiful, so Phil went for a long run and I walked through a part of the city I hadn't previously seen:

And tonight we've arrived in Amsterdam, where we will spend the next four nights. Canals, art, porn and stroepwaffels. Should be fun!!