First off, sorry there are no pictures but someday!!!
Let�s start with the nonstop flight from LA to London. It stopped. Apparently a pilot had called in sick and so they woke up another pilot to make the flight but he wasn�t licensed to fly internationally so we had to pick up a pilot in Chicago who informed the plane that the Lakers had won the championship.
I sat next to a woman who was a real estate agent in South Africa and then on the other side of me was a grad student from Stanford who was going to see a possible new lover in Oxford, very exciting.
Dinner on the plane was salmon in a cream dill sauce, potatoes, green beans, salad, bread, crackers, cheddar cheese, brownie and chocolate mint. The fish reminded me of the movie Airplane and all the people who got ill but apparently I�m still okay�We finally landed in London at 4pm and had to leave the plane by stairs because the gates were all full. There was a light rain and I figured, �Well, this is England.�
Took the Tube and met 3 Aussies who were headed to the Bon Jovi concert. They were drinking Stella Artois in large cans and it reminded me that my friend Sharmila lived in the town where the Stella Artois factory was, Leuven, Belgium. I tried to figure out how I could get a beer from them and so I took a picture of them drinking and lo and behold, one was handed to me and my trip had officially started.
I got lost finding the hostel (it wasn�t the only time) and eventually I found the Astor Victoria hostel on Belgrave Road. Paid the 15 quid for a bed only to walk up 4 steep flights of steps and fall on the bed. I knew my time in London was short so I wanted to see some of the city. I put on my raingear and held the handrail my way down to the lobby. There was a girl from Kansas checking in when I got down there and we went out to have a beer and get some food. We came upon the Elusive Camel where I had an Irish beer with the thickest head I�d ever seen. Got a picture with some London policemen and then found some dinner in a small cellar restaurant that was quiet and quite English. I had sliced turkey with potatoes and vegetables. Everyone around us lived in the neighborhood I presumed and it was a meek sort of vibe. I was glad to get out of there in a way�
Back at the hostel, I tried to sleep because I had an early morning train across the English Channel to Paris. I couldn�t sleep. I went downstairs and there were some French guys playing pool, a guy sleeping on the couch and 5 crazy hot English chicks who�d just gotten back from dancing at some club. There was loud house music in the hostel lobby and these girls were still dancing. I tried to sleep again.
No sleep for Jason. I decided that I would get an early start on the day and I did. I was showering in a strange, bathtub-like shower with water that came from the ceiling in a drizzle but at least the water was warm. Dressed and packed (with only waking 2 of my six roommates), I was out the door at 4am for the Waterloo train station.
I was going to take the Tube but it wouldn�t open until 7am so that was no good. Near a newspaper stand, there was a guy who said he�d give me a ride. Immediately my batman ears came up and asked him how much it would cost. He said he was a taxicab driver but I didn�t see any signs on his car but he gave me a card and said, �I don�t give a shit if I take you or not but here�s my card.� He opened up the trunk but I elected to keep my stuff with me in the back.
5:30am I�m at the Waterloo station and the place is a skeleton of life. There are people half asleep and others half awake sitting at tables waiting for the Tube to start and for the train station to open. There is a 6:23 train getting into Paris at 10:30am that I�ve decided to try and catch. I sit for awhile, meeting a couple who had gone to Bon Jovi the night before and as I look around, I notice that most of the people have Bon Jovi shirts on. The Tube stopped at about midnight and so all those people had been waiting for hours to get back to wherever they lived outside the city.
And then I was on a train to Paris, France that went under the English Channel. The countryside was green and slowly rolling with small brown homes in the corners of properties. I could see farmers tending to their land and then a road with small cars heading the same direction as us. Paris began with buildings getting a bit larger and then some graffiti and then a church.
At the Gare du Nord, I was confused and disoriented, from the hour and the surroundings. First and foremost, I needed some money so I went to the ATM and took out 300 French Franks, about the equivalent of $42US. I tried to figure out the Metro system and while practicing French under my breath before ordering an apple, I saw one guy chasing another down a hallway yelling and the other guy was pointing to someone else. I think the first guy had just been robbed and the other guy was the one who had pickpocketed him. They broke past a metro gate and disappeared. Not a good start to Paris.
On the metro, once I figured I was probably going the right way, a couple of guys hopped on, said something in French and then proceeded to play an accordian and a violin and sung a song or two and then hopped off the metro 3 stops later.
I got lost finding the hostel (again) and it was hot and humid. I found it, and it was off a side street from a major boulevard in the 11th arrondisement. The hostel beds were being cleaned so I had to put my pack down in the cellar that was dank and dripping. I walked the streets of Paris with a girl from Texas. We walked through some markets and smelled and saw fishes and fruits and clothes and flowers. We found a caf� called the Viaduc Caf�. It was built inside one of the arches from the old Roman viaduct that was built 2000 years ago. The ceiling arched very high and in the corner was a jazz band with a violin player soloing like mad. It filled the room under the clink of glasses of orange juice and forks eating crepes. I left the girl at the hostel and traveled the inner parts of Paris for hours. I sat on a sidewalk of a bridge crossing the Seine River and drew a lamppost that later would illuminate lovers heading back to their hotels and apartments. After that I walked through the Jardin du Luxembourg and after getting lost again, found the Ile de la Cite where the Notre Dame sits old and unassuming. I had a beer at a caf� with a view of Notre Dame and then decided I�d better get a closer look. I did and then I was after a real �Paris meal�. I got on the metro going in wrong direction and after asking a few different people if they speak English in French a college couple told me about a street with some good restaurants so 10 minutes later I get off near Mabillion and find a great street that is sans automobiles and is just restaurant after restaurant. I was overloaded with which one to select but eventually I decided on Strapontin Caf� on rue Princesse. I sat at the bar and ate a dish of rabbit with a couple of pints of Leffe. It took me an hour to walk home that night, and I passed a few of the major sites and was back at the hostel by midnight, just in time to sweat and sleep for 9 hours. Day 2 in Paris brought me to the post office to change some traveller�s cheques and to send some postcards and after that I was on a mission to find Oscar Wilde�s tombstone in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in the 18th arrondisment. The cemetery, which holds Jim Morrison�s gravesite as well, was full of famous people from the last 500 years and for some reason that made me hungry. I took the metro towards Montmarte and went to the Sacre Coer. The steps took a lot out of me but the view was well worth it. Along a small street that is on a ridge of this viewpoint of the city is the Place de Tetre, a small square with restaurants and artists, all selling what they have an exorbitant price because it is tourist central. Still though, the place had its charms after after eating a cheap sandwich overlooking the city, I had a Leffe in the square before going to the Salvador Dali museum. I was a bit disappointed with the museum because it only had water colors and sketches and none of his oil paintings. Still though, the guy is an artist. I met a few girls (trust me, they�re all just friends!!!) who happened to be staying at the same hostel and we walked the slightly dangerous and colorfully dirty area of Montmarte. The area is filled with strange shops and dirty apartment buildings and the occasional bar and market. I snapped some great pictures of some things that day and the colors add a lot to the type here. We walked almost to the outer ring road on the north side of Paris before turning around and eventually going our separate ways. I spent the night walking around Paris, having beers with an Aussie and then crashing out early as the jetlag was finally ending. The next day had me on a train for Switzerland, Zurich to be exact. I took a TGV from Paris Gare du Lyon to Lausanne and from there an Intercity train to Zurich. The view from the train in Lausanne of Lake Geneva was incredible. It captivated me for at least 10 minutes and I made a mental note that Lausanne was a place I would visit again in this life. At 19:30 on Tuesday, June 19th, my Swiss friend Karin picked me up in her pop�s car and we had a few days to explore her country. I met her two summers ago when I was bussing tables at Yankee Doodle on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. We ate Mexican food in downtown Zurich and that was my first taste of expensive Swiss culture. I paid about $10US for a taquito and some rice! I couldn�t believe it. I decided not to eat anymore Mexican food in Switzerland. By now it was 21:00 and we listened to Swiss German radio as I looked at a large map of the country trying to figure out where we would try and camp for a night. We got lost around Kerns, Switzerland and we stopped at a bar in order to ask for a possible campground and found the place was called Karin�s Bar. I had to take a picture of that. We had a drink in there and continued up a hill and along a ridge until we found a quiet dark road that overlooked a huge valley. We made a left and stopped at an abandoned house. Karin figured this was a good place to camp and since it was her country, I wasn�t about to argue with her. We set up the tent in the dark and each drank a beer and tried to sleep. We soon found this was impossible because the ground was very hard and it was FREEZING up there on the hill. At 5:30 the next morning, awake and shivering we broke down the tent in search of a warmer place in Switzerland. We passed the beautiful town of Bergen(?) and before knowing it, accidentally passed it again while looking for a different road. We drove around Brienzersee which was beautiful but we had no idea what we�d see once we got to Locarno. At this point we were beginning to get desperate for a hostel to stay at because everything seemed booked and we kept going from town to town. We didn�t have a guidebook so we were blindly driving towards Italian Switzerland (it was about this time the radio stations changed and they were only in Italian now). And that�s when we found Locarno. I immediately loved it and there were a couple of hostels in town. We got lost in the small windy, steep streets trying to find one but then there was one with availability for about $22US per person and we took it. Karin was tired and wanted to sleep but my vacation was too short to sleep so I left her at the hostel for a few hours while I trounced the streets looking for action. The plaza was beautiful, and it was very warm in Locarno, a nice change from freezing the previous night near Kerns. I had a beer and wrote some postcards and then took my nice camera and a roll of black and white and walked around looking for just the right thing to capture my mood. I ate a gelato and it felt good wearing shorts and sandals. We had dinner up in the hills a bit after walking on the promenade at Lake Maggiore. It was so nice walking a small town and feeling a part of it after such a short time. Locarno, Switzerland will forever be my first favorite town of Europe. Here are some thoughts I had on the place while having a beer in the plaza as the sun was finally cooling off against the warm colored buildings: �Late afternoon in Italian Switzerland is timeless. There is the sound of rented mopeds bouncing on cobbled streets, of tanned stern young men clanging on reparations to a 300 year old building and there children at play. It tries to get cloudy but gives up around 5pm because it could never rain today. That�s how timeless it is. The bed never gets made and vines wrap themselves on the wrought iron balcony in a last defense to the eventual decay of Fall. Then there is the gelato and the outdoor cafes that stretch 30 feet from the front door. People drink birra for an hour and watch other tourists slowly mesh into the scene. It�s probably a 2-3 day cycle. Stand out the first day, tour the city on the second and on the third day, as you wait for a 15:00 train to Luzern, you scoff at those �damn tourists�, as if you were 6 generations strong from this small town. It seems that there are only old men and young girls in towns like this. The younger men have to work and the older women have been traded up.� That sums up Locarno pretty well except for how much I loved it. I hope the pictures do it justice. The next morning, as we were leaving Locarno and headed for Italy, we came upon a market in the plaza. There were used tapes and old picture frames, cheeses and meats, and all sorts of chotchkey. It wasn�t necessarily an organized affair but it captured our interest for awhile but Italy was calling. This was a very short trip for me and we couldn�t exactly explore Italy but there was a high that dove into Italy for 150km before swinging back up into Switzerland so we thought it would be cool to have lunch in Italy. It just had a nice ring to it. �Let�s go have lunch in Italy.� Before we made it to Italy, we got lost in Ascona, Switzerland. For the life of us we couldn�t find parking and it was obvious we weren�t meant to see it so we contined along the north side of Lago Maggiore until we came to the border. What we thought would be a quick, �hello, goodbye� border crossing became a �Park over there and wait outside please�. They went through our bags and searched the car half-heartedly for 10 minutes before deciding we were actually just a couple of young people with a car for a few days. We had lunch in Verbania. It was quiet and the streets in the old center reminded me of Locarno because they were steep and thin and there were shops lining the cobbled streets with balconies over every other store. Lunch in Italy was a pizza on the second story in a small plaza off a side street. It was officially the worst pizza I�ve ever had and I even had to have a picture of it. It cost 9,000 lira which is about $4.50US but it was barely worth that. I bought some postcards and we walked to the end of a weird, curling pier where we tried to climb the flagpole but it was closed. It was time to leave Verbania. The road heading north towards Switzerland was hot and green and there were large green mountains on both sides of the road. Ahead the Swiss Alps could be seen. It looked as if the Swiss didn�t want to share any of their mountains with the Italians. I made Karin stop in Domodsolla, Italy because I wanted to mail a postcard and get a post office stamp in my journal. I didn�t like that town and I�d seen enough by then to know immediately whether I liked a place or not. I did, however, have some wonderful pistacio gelato before we left. We were in Switzerland by 3pm. There the road swung high for an hour, curving back and forth, switchbacking, until Italy was swallowed in the white mountains of Southern Switzerland. Luzern, Switzerland was our third stop in 3 nights. We got there about 8pm and spent an hour being lost trying to find the hostel. I was exhausted and a bit bummed sleeping in a 20 bed dorm but I didn�t care, I just wanted to chill out. Karin and I ate dinner in front of a church at 11pm and then had some beers in a Portuguese bar where we met a guy who spoke 7 languages pretty well. He was a fisherman. The next morning we saw the famous Lion carved from the rock wall that was a way of the French? saying thanks for the Swiss help during battle. It�s a magnificent sculpture and I enjoyed hearing two different American tourist groups going through while I was with a Swiss tour guide. It was fantastic. The first of my Black Crowes experiences was coming up that night. I was starting to get that buzzing feeling in my belly. We went to Baden, Switzerland, a fun and bustling town that Karin is going to live in this summer while a friend of hers lives in London. This is where I got an experience that helped sum up my time in Switzerland. We�d had some beer sitting in the trunk of the car for a few days and I suggested that we get some ice to put the beers in so they could get colder. Karin looked at me strangely and at first I thought she hadn�t understood my English but it turns out that she didn�t know where we could get ice. I laughed and said, �Come on, we�ll get some at the grocery store.� But we couldn�t. I was in disbelief. Karin had to convince the fish butcher to give us some ice from his fish display and she came back with a small bag of ice and a look of triumph on her face. I only shook my head. An hour later we were pulling into a grass parking lot in Wohlen, Switzerland. It was the first annual Sound Arena festival, a homage to a famous kickboxer/stuntman from Wohlen who had died recently in an accident. The concert was to raise money for his children. I was amazed at how small the festival was. I was told by an official that they had sold only 7,000 tickets. We couldn�t bring beer into the festival and so we drank them quickly in the shade while bands we hadn�t heard of played their heart out in the sun. We met other people who couldn�t bring beer and soon we had a little party going. We then watched a guy walk in with a few friends and he was carrying a twelve-pack of beer and I said, �He�ll be here with us in one minute.� And sure enough, he was. I ended up having a few of his beers and by this time life is good. I snapped a few pictures of interesting people before the Crowes started and then they came on stage. It was amazing and hot and sweaty and they were on. That�s all I can say about the show except that it was too short. Then we ventured over into the village of tents adjacent to the festival. I met some real freaks there and eventually I was just hanging out with Karin�s friends lying in the grass sort of counting down my time in Switzerland. Karin saw me off at 5:30am at the Zurich train station. I was headed to Amsterdam. I hadn�t slept the night before and the train wasn�t comfortable, especially with the guy next to me deciding it was all right to smoke on the train. I changed trains once and by lunchtime I stopped in Koln, Germany to see the Dom or old Cathedral. It was one of the only things in the area that had survived Allied bombing. It�s true it was huge and impressive but I felt it was completely overrated. I wish I had a picture of the crazy guy who was walking into the train station. You�ve all seen a guy like this. Yelling at himself, making weird gestures to invisible beings who are supposedly holding him back in life. But it was in German. It was amazing and it was like watching a train wreck. I wonder what happened once he actually got onto his train. Amsterdam Central Station at 5pm on a Saturday during the summer is quite a scene. Thank God I was met by Gabriel just about the time I was starting to freak out where to go when he wasn�t there right when I got off the train. I can�t imagine getting off that train without having someone to meet you and escort you to wherever it is you�re going. It was insane, people everywhere, some of them dodgy looking, trams and busses and bikes going in all directions. What a scene! The Hotel Casa Cara was outside the hubbub of Amsterdam a bit and I was happy to have a shower and lay on a quiet bed for a bit. We were four stories up in a quiet neighborhood and the only sound was that of the trees swaying in the early summer breeze. Showered and somewhat refreshed, we took the number 2 tram to Leidseplein where we basically stayed for 2 straight days. We found a bar we liked called the Black �n� White. It was one of the few bars in town that played good ole� fashioned rock�n�roll. We put in some requests and continued to drink Bavaria pints as if it were our last night on earth. The next day was the ultimate experience. We walked through the Vondelpark which was full of couples reading poetry and people having birthday parties drinking wine and relaxing. There was a band setting up and the vibe was fantastic. Gabriel and I saw some guys playing a large game of chess and then quite arguably the best classical singers I�ve ever heard. They were in a nook of an alley in between two buildings and the acoustics echoed their perfect harmonies as if in a Parisian opera house. After that, we ate a falafel pita and then rented a canal bike and sweated and worked our legs for a bit in the wonderfully peaceful canals. It was a great way to see the city and one of the best activities I did on the whole trip. It took us almost an hour to get back to the Leidseplein and seeing that it was after 3pm, we decided to head back to the hotel and clean up because we had a big night ahead of us. 5pm in front of the Paradiso. It�s an old church that has concerts and we were going to see the Black Crowes. We saw the band getting out of a car and then 5 minutes later Chris and Kate got out of a cab and walked into the venue. We�d already met P-nut and his girl, and Rob and Theo and their girls and Menno and there was a party brewing. The show speaks for itself. I saw my favorite band in Amsterdam in an old church. That�s all I�ll say about it. Afterwards, along with Sanae from Japan and a few other folks we headed back to the Black �n� White where we drank until I woke up the next morning at the hotel with my clothes and my shoes on. It was time to leave Amsterdam. We took the train to Arnhem in hopes of going to see a national park and a museum with a bunch of Van Goghs inside the park. I had been sold this idea when I read that there were free bikes at the entrance to ride to the museum. The hostel was out of the town center and it was in a woodsy area sort of. It was nice and we plopped down on beds to relax for a bit. Then we took the bus back into town and shopped for awhile. It was a relaxing day once we learned that the park was closed because it was a Monday! So frustrating because on a longer trip it would be no big deal, I�d just stay an extra day and see it then but we decided to just walk the city center and enjoy Arnhem as best as possible. We found a church with a fountain in front of it and it inspired me to take off my shoes and jump in. Yes, I was a happy camper there. The rest of the day in Arnhem was relatively uneventful and relaxing as we had a conversation with an Englishman on holiday who was there to see a famous bridge that had been instrumental during World War II. It�s interesting how different things interest different people to the same place. We took a train to Maastricht on Tuesday, June 26th (I gave this to you just so would have some reference as to when and where it was). Maastricht is in a thick tongue in between Germany and Belgium and apparently has influences of both. We just wanted to experience a different town than Arnhem and Amsterdam and we got it there. We ended up shopping and walking for hours, having a beer here and eating a gyro there. The bus broke down going into town and we had a laugh about that. I was headed for Belgium the next day and Gabriel headed back to Amsterdam. It was weird, it felt like our lives had been fully intertwined for a few days and then they were completely separated just like that. Granted, the dude lives 100km away but still, it was strange as we got on separate trains. My train was late, stopped, and barely made one connection and then in Brussels I wasn�t even sure I was on the right train to the university where my friend Sharmila works. But, as good friends do, she was waiting for me at the train station and it relieved knowing that I was in the right place. It was my first time meeting her and it was so nice seeing that we connected as much in person as we did in email. I got to see her office (she is a counselor at a university but as I was in Belgium she got a new job as a psychologist in a local prison so congrats to her) and then I had my first broodje, a Belgian sandwich. It was easy and simple and filling and cheap. In America we serve too much food for too much money and that�s one reason why everyone is fat. It�s a small, hogie type sandwich with just a little substance but it�s perfect for walking around and eating without looking like a slob. Old ladies, professionals, and kids all walk around eating these damn things. Sharmila had more work to do and so I headed off to Brugge where she was to meet me for the next day. Brugge is easy to like. It�s a medieval city that at one time was the second largest city in Europe behind Paris but the river filled up and the town sort of froze in place for hundreds of years. The streets are all cobbled and the places smells old in a historical way. I loved the hostel in Brugge that I stayed at. It�s called the Passage Hotel on Dwaarstraat and it cost me about 10 bucks for a bed in a four-bed room. There is a wonderful restaurant downstairs where I drank many Leffe Blondes for 90 Belgian franks a piece, or about 2 bucks. I was very happy about this. I spent the evening walking for a few hours, soaking up some of the vibe of Brugge. It is almost accommodating to tourists, as opposed to most cities where the tourists add to the already influxed city. Brugge was beautiful and charming and I found it a place that I would visit again for sure. I had dinner at the hostel restaurant, some more beers and then went off to Belgian bye bye land for the night. In the morning, I met Sharmila at the train station who was generous to use two of her THIRTY-FIVE annual vacation days to hang out with me. We spent an entire day feeling Brugge. We climbed to the top of the Belfry which produced probably my favorite black �n� white photograph of the trip. It was 366 steps to the top and it was tight but an experience having to hold onto a rope while other people used the same stairs going down. We had the fortunate timing of being at the top when the clock chimed. It was life altering almost, at least ear shattering. A small girl next to us started crying but I loved it. I was alive. We had a perfect lunch at a place called Het Dagelyks Brood which loosely translates to �The Daily Bread�. Ambient music was playing and we sat at a large wooden table where a few other diners sat. I had the most amazing sandwich of tuna and sun-dried tomatoes with a sliver of lemon on top. It was tasty and the perfect size meal. It was one of my favorite meals of the trip for sure. Later, after visiting the Basilica of the Holy Blood and seeing a small room of some religious artifacts, we met an elderly couple from Liege, Belgium. They are from a French-speaking part of the country and Sharmila translated my English for them and their French for me. We ended up talking to them for a half hour and it was so pleasant. They are the type of old couple that don�t get to talk to many people but if you try to open them up, they are interesting and funny and it�s an experience I won�t easily forget. At this time, Sharmila had to go back to Leuven and we made plans to meet in Brussels the next day at 10am. I went back to the hostel, dropped off some stuff I�d bought and took another suggestion for dinner and went to De Wittekop which means �The one with Blond hair�. It was a small restaurant run by a husband and while in their late thirties. They both had shaved heads so I�m not sure where the restaurant name came from. I had a pasta dish in a quaint environment and it started my last night in Brugge quite well. I went somewhere to check my email and met two girls who were en route to London from Italy but had 2 weeks to get there. They went to college in North Carolina and were on an exchange program for a semester. I was quite jealous of their experiences and how unprepared they were about their time in Belgium. One girl, who was definitely still a girl at 19 told me that she wanted to kiss a guy in every country she went to. She had kissed a French guy and an Italian guy and she hadn�t met a Belgian guy yet. Being that it was my last night in town and these chicks were silly at best, I decided to help her fulfill her goal. We went to a square with some bars that were still open. It was after midnight at this point and I found a guy who seemed �cute enough�, as the girl said, and introduced him to our group. He was 17 and a � years old and his English was good enough to �make it happen�. I made him buy the girl a drink and while they were gone at the bathroom, told him, �Now listen dude, when that girl comes back, I want you to speak to her in Dutch. It doesn�t matter what you say, but just talk to her.� He did and I got a funny picture of these two kissing with the girl�s camera. I hope she remembers the moment but I think that picture will. The kid had to leave at 1am because his dad was picking him up. I can�t help but think I wasted my night but it was funny nonetheless. The next day the Wercther Festival began. I was going on Saturday (today was Friday) but I was reminded about it beginning when I saw dozens of people with their backpacking and camping equipment sitting on the platform headed east towards Brussels. They were rolling joints and smoking them as old people walked by, all of them part of some unspoken world that comprised Belgian society. I was amazed at how these kids didn�t care about smoking pot in public and tried to picture something like that happening at an Amtrak station in say Milwaukee headed to Chicago or something. It was quite a scene. I got to Brussels to find that Sharmila possibly had gotten a new job that day and wasn�t going to be able to go to Namur which was fine with me because I was pooped from the previous night�s debauchery. It just leaves another place in Belgium I look forward to visiting sometime next year. We ended up walking around Brussels for hours, sweating in the humidity but it was a good time. Somewhere in the afternoon I got the chance to meet Nadine, Sharmila�s woman, and we went back to Leuven, their hometown. It�s quiet on Bankstraat where they live but just a few blocks away the small downtown area has plenty of live and energy. We had dinner with a friend of theirs, Vronie, as they called her, at an Italian place on a side street off the main square. The skinny street was full of restaurants and diners and was a great place to have a beer and people watch. After that we went to a jazz bar and there I drank some of the finest Belgian beers in the world and trust me when I say they are much stronger than Coors Light! We then had a couple more rounds in the main square which was packed at 2 in the morning with drinkers and revelers, most of whom had just finished university for the semester that day. We met another gay couple who was quite happy to be alive and I had a picture snapped of the five of us that sums up the moment nicely I think. The next day was the Werchter Festival. We watched a movie in the morning and then met Frank at the mall. He and I were going to the festival together and after lunch, the girls �dropped me off with him�, a fellow Belgian, and I told the girls that I�d try and be back later for bowling. I never made it bowling but I did see it the next morning when I was walking through the sleepy streets of Leuven, Belgium at 9 in the morning. The first thing I did when I got to the festival was buy plenty of beer for everyone. We pitched in together and bought about 50 beer tickets which a few of us were determined to use before it was dark. Luckily we got slowed down by the sun and the Black Crowes. There was a large group together that day, a good mix of countries and personalities. Now is a great time to thank Gusta, Rob�s girlfriend, who, after hearing that all I wanted was meat and bread and mustard, came back with a bratwurst on a roll with mustard. It was as if it had appeared out of thin air and quite possibly could have been the tastiest meal I�ve ever had. It was hot and sweaty and people were delirious from beer drinking and the sun and loud music. It was reported that 80,000 were in attendance though I have to admit I only met 50 of them. I spent the night in a car with Sanae, a Crowes fan from Japan and her Germany friend, Anna. It was not comfortable and I actually didn�t sleep at all. I saw the sunrise over hundreds of tents and a huge field next to the festival. I watched guys standing in the trail, just sort of tipsy from one foot to the other and a beer in their hands and their heads drooping. I�m glad I wasn�t in that kind of shape. It took me almost an hour to walk back to the bus stop for the ride back to the Leuven train station and then another hour to find Sharmila�s house which I never found. They came and picked me up, God Bless their souls. It was Sharmila�s birthday that day and it�s too bad that I was such a lump of poop that day because I wanted to celebrate with her but I was done. I went with them to watch an improvisation theater group that she is apart of and then we went to dinner which had the worst service I�ve ever had. It took us over 2 hours to eat and that only makes me sound like an American. Oh well. I stayed in a cheap hotel by the train station that night and woke up planning on spending the last day of my trip in Brussels. I met a few people and did a little shopping but by then I was done. The flight home took forever and it was so good to my country and my girl. Today is July 9th, 2001. It is an exciting time to be alive. I start writing a new novel today and by Halloween or Thanksgiving it should be done, at least the first draft. My last novel, Using Toonies, received a bunch of rejections but at least I tried. I�d love to get some short stories published and continue to work on Using Toonies but I�m moving forward. I want to write this new story. I�m excited about a new project and I�ll be sure to keep ya�ll updated. au revoir
