If you've ever walked 12km in the dead of night in an unknown city in northern France with minimal directions and the distinct lack of a penchant for adventure, then you can probably skip this blog. However if not then gather around and I'll tell you a tale, a tale of clowns, dogs and ladies of the night.
It was one of those experiences you hope ends ASAP while its actually happening but can look back on with fond memories later on.
It all started with a gig. Nick had booked tickets to see Midlake with no idea where the gig actually was, but on google maps it appeared to be in an industrial factory near some smoke stacks. A group of savvier travelers may have seen that as a warning, but not us.
"So what?" our intrepid adventurers said.
"No one would play a gig somewhere with no public transport."
We were wrong.
A bus got us there, but wasn't running later on. The show wrapped up and after seeing several other guests trying to hitch their ways out we quickly realised it was our feet or nothing. At this point we were a little hesitant as we knew it was about 10km, but we figured we'd find a cab on the way. Several passed us in the first few kilometers but strangely they didn't stop. And so it began.
The first hour or so was uneventful. At some point we saw a sign for a MacDonalds somewhere ahead but it mysteriously never appeared. The streets were eerily empty, especially for an area less than 10km from the third largest city in France. It was almost as if the locals knew it was a bad idea to be out late in such a place. But obviously our heroes could take care of themselves.
Eventually we got to a point where we could go left, over what appeared to be a freeway, or keep going and hope to find a turn later.
"There's a lane down the side. How bad could a freeway be?" we asked.
Three quarters of the way across we discoverer it could be extremely bad. The lane on the side gradually shrank from a car width to a couple of feet. Traffic was shooting by at what was surely over 150km/h. At one point an overly wide truck slammed past, spilling into the lane and coming within a foot of ending us. Furthermore, the lane began curving the wrong direction and the only appropriate way for us became straight across eight lanes of whizzing traffic. It was at this point we suspected that our judgment was perhaps, off.
We turned around and began our journey back, hugging the rail and watching anxiously as our lane grew back from three feet to five and then seven. However there was one thing about the return trip we hadn't factored in; traffic was suddenly coming from behind us, rather than towards us. Feet shrink to millimeters when you can only hear and not see the death-on-wheels rocketing up behind you. Add to that every tenth car beeping wildly at us and our hearts were going a mile a minute. We'd walked half a kilometer of road before turning around, so it wasn't a quick trip back. Our pace grew until we broke into a light jog. Eventually we made it back, shaking slightly but in one piece.
It wasn't long before we hit the next left that would take us home. It didn't look like much; no lights, no houses, just a narrow broken street and a bridge in the distance. But that's what the map said and who were we to argue with cartographers?
In retrospect we perhaps should have argued. The street was littered with broken glass and there were puddles everywhere despite a distinct lack of recent rain. We did pass an apartment complex at one point but it was ramshackle and seemingly abandoned. Then there was the bridge which was just downright scary. So many black cracks and crevices; I was waiting for the hobo army to appear and drag us off into the shadows. If I've ever been anywhere I'd call a slum, this street was it.
Despite all of this we persevered. At some point I heard a dog bark and thought nothing of it; until it was joined by a second and began to grow louder. Soon enough we could see shapes on the horizon.
Now it may have been adrenaline exaggerating the situation or perhaps it's just the storyteller in me, but these dogs were big. We didn't get a great look at them but if you've ever seen an American kids movie where the evil junkyard owner has two or three vicious guard dogs then you're on the right track. They had those deep barks that are somewhere between a bark and a roar and they were very unhappy to see us.
Even though we were 100 meters away from them they were incredibly aggressive. They barked and growled and leaped towards us in short, quick bursts. It didn't take a democratic ballot for us to turn ourselves and hightail it. One followed a short way but eventually gave up.
As we trudged back up to the main road we got the only laugh of the night. About 200m after we thought we were in the clear a tiny ankle-high dog shot out of somewhere and began yelping at us. It was all hair, like something a rich British woman would take to show day. I was laughing most of the way back.
At this point we were demoralised and making halfhearted jokes about what would be around the next bend. Little did we know...
We had no other choice but to continue along the same cursed street. Any major left hand turn would theoretically take us towards the city. What we didn't know was that the next one would do that by dragging us straight through the red light district.
I should preface this by saying Lyon is a very nice town. It's a town of cobbled streets and ice cream cones, restaurants and churches. It certainly isn't a town of hookers and pimps, or so we thought.
The first clue came as we were walking under a large overpass. I'd previously mentioned that Paris apparently had 'sex vans', ie: vans with hookers in them where you can climb into the back for a quick good time. It wasn't long before Tim began to spot just such vehicles; white vans with girls in the driver's seats, wearing what can tactfully be described as very little.
There was a rather amusing moment when he tried to point this out to us but Nick didn't hear, which resulted in the phrase "SEX WHAT??" extremely loudly. But in the end we established that they were in fact brothels on wheels.
So now we were strolling along under a large bridge which was empty save for rows of prostitutes. Our peaceful walk home had apparently turned into a group cruising adventure.
A few minutes later we encountered some guys having a less than friendly conversation with a large knot of police. I assume they were pimps although I thought it may have been rude to ask. It was interesting seeing the girls sit there and having the cops not bat an eyelid. Prostitution is legal in France, so they were in no danger at all. It's just the pimps that can get in trouble.
Eventually the vans petered out, but not the ladies. They simply moved from the comfort of drivers seats to the pavement below. I don't think any of us had seen street walkers before and certainly not in these numbers. Many corners had at least one and we walked for some time.
Business appeared to be slow and we were approached several times, although they were not particularly pushy about it. We also spotted at least one girl arguing with a gentleman in a car, but I assume he bargained too hard or didn't like what he saw ("It's a man baby!") because he eventually drove off alone.
This whole part of town had a seedy and slightly dangerous feel. Aside from the girls and pimps most blocks were totally deserted. It really felt like we were in the projects. We did walk past several carparks with hip hop blaring out of them but it was 2.00am at this point and we didn't know the guys so we thought it inappropriate to ask to join the party.
The hookers continued to populate the footpath but we gradually returned to some semblance of civilisation. We made it most of the way back without further incident, until we got to the circus.
If any of you happened to watch the film adaptation of Steven King's IT at a young age then you'll probably have a similar fear of clowns to Nick and I. There is definitely something sinister in all that bloody makeup and pale skin.
We'd seen signs for this circus around but hadn't actually encountered it. Night was not the time to do so. Nothing actually happened here, the place seemed largely deserted. But I challenge you to walk through a circus ground in the dead of night and not freak out a little at all the leering clowns and crazy images. At one point we spotted a life size clown statue that appeared to be howling to the stars in pain. How that is supposed to draw people in I'm not sure but our nerves were suitably frayed already from earlier events and that wasn't the kind of thing we wanted to end our night with.
After that it was smooth sailing. We did see one prostitute who looked like an oompa loompa madly arguing with a presumed client right near our hotel but that aside the rest of the journey was quite mundane.
We finally got into our room at 2.45 AM, over three hours after we left the concert. We'd managed to tack an extra 1.5 or so kilometers onto the already 10km walk through errors and poor luck. We'd put ourselves in mortal danger at least once and seen a side of Lyon we would otherwise not have.
In the immortal words of the Heineken brewery; the experience continues.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Muscles from Brussels!
Ahoy!
As anyone who saw my status updates will know by now we've just passed into the land of baguettes and beautiful language. Which means it's time for my report on Brussels, Belgium..
It's a pretty cool city; very different to Amsterdam. Whereas the later is largely tourist driven and thus has no office buildings and minimal visible industry, Brussels is a weird fusion of old and new. You can stand in an amazing square in the shadows of these great gothic spires and still see skyscrapers clawing up over the horizon. The streets are still largely cobbled once you wend your way a few blocks from the CBD and much of the architecture retains it's old fashioned style.
A large portion of our time here was spent beer tasting. Over our four days we sampled roughly 18 beers we'd never tasted. We managed to find a cafe called the Delirium Tremens Cafe which has one of the largest beer menus in the world; over 2000 of them! Suffice to say we spent a fair bit of time there. We were lucky enough to have some excellent cafes and bars in the square directly around our hotel as well which provided some delicious meals. You can consistently get great sandwiches for about three euro here which amounts to $4.50 or thereabouts; bargain!
Our first night was taken up with Laura Marling's gig at the Botanic Gardens theatre. She played in a fairly tiny undergound bar - it probably only held a few hundred - and overall put on a good show. It felt much more intimate than last time due to the venue and the set list was very new album heavy as apparently her first record didn't get released there. The crowd was packed with British tourists and expats which seemed to surprise her and of course this meant she was well recieved. It was also interesting to note at least one member of Boy and Bear was in her supporting band this time around.
We spent one day checking out the university town of Leuven which is about a twenty minute train ride away. One of our main reasons for going was to see the Stella Artois brewery which is based there, but we wound up walking and drinking for hours and missing it entirely. We're not very good tourists!
I also checked out the very cool Instrument Museum. For five euros you get to walk around a massive display of instruments while wearing headphones and every time you approach one it starts playing wirelessly for you. They had everything from tribal drums and archaic woodwind pipes through to modern brass and a whole ton of things I'd never laid eyes on before. It was excellent.
Also deserving a mention is the Royal Palace which has the honor of being the most impressive structure I've ever seen. It was a monumental conglomerate of pillars, arches and gates that cannot be done justice without photos. We saw plenty of amazing churches and halls in Brussels but this took the cake for me.
We have one other amusing anecdote but it probably belongs in the 'better in person' category so I'll save it. Ill just say that if you see any angry Belgian Italians shaking three beers and asking after us you'd best steer clear.
Other misc observations about Belgium:
- English is of a slightly lower standard than in Amsterdam but still most people speak a little
- Two of our best service experiences came from expat Brits, including one who gave me a free beer to taste in the Delirium Cafe
- Belgian waffles are amazcrazyamazing.
- Most European toilets have truly been an experience. I may need a seperate blog just to cover all of these but I will say that in Brussels there are open urinals in the street...
Okay that'll do. I typed this entire thing on my iPhone. It took me about 45 minutes so I hope y'all appreciate!
I'll post again from Paris!
Peace
Andy
As anyone who saw my status updates will know by now we've just passed into the land of baguettes and beautiful language. Which means it's time for my report on Brussels, Belgium..
It's a pretty cool city; very different to Amsterdam. Whereas the later is largely tourist driven and thus has no office buildings and minimal visible industry, Brussels is a weird fusion of old and new. You can stand in an amazing square in the shadows of these great gothic spires and still see skyscrapers clawing up over the horizon. The streets are still largely cobbled once you wend your way a few blocks from the CBD and much of the architecture retains it's old fashioned style.
A large portion of our time here was spent beer tasting. Over our four days we sampled roughly 18 beers we'd never tasted. We managed to find a cafe called the Delirium Tremens Cafe which has one of the largest beer menus in the world; over 2000 of them! Suffice to say we spent a fair bit of time there. We were lucky enough to have some excellent cafes and bars in the square directly around our hotel as well which provided some delicious meals. You can consistently get great sandwiches for about three euro here which amounts to $4.50 or thereabouts; bargain!
Our first night was taken up with Laura Marling's gig at the Botanic Gardens theatre. She played in a fairly tiny undergound bar - it probably only held a few hundred - and overall put on a good show. It felt much more intimate than last time due to the venue and the set list was very new album heavy as apparently her first record didn't get released there. The crowd was packed with British tourists and expats which seemed to surprise her and of course this meant she was well recieved. It was also interesting to note at least one member of Boy and Bear was in her supporting band this time around.
We spent one day checking out the university town of Leuven which is about a twenty minute train ride away. One of our main reasons for going was to see the Stella Artois brewery which is based there, but we wound up walking and drinking for hours and missing it entirely. We're not very good tourists!
I also checked out the very cool Instrument Museum. For five euros you get to walk around a massive display of instruments while wearing headphones and every time you approach one it starts playing wirelessly for you. They had everything from tribal drums and archaic woodwind pipes through to modern brass and a whole ton of things I'd never laid eyes on before. It was excellent.
Also deserving a mention is the Royal Palace which has the honor of being the most impressive structure I've ever seen. It was a monumental conglomerate of pillars, arches and gates that cannot be done justice without photos. We saw plenty of amazing churches and halls in Brussels but this took the cake for me.
We have one other amusing anecdote but it probably belongs in the 'better in person' category so I'll save it. Ill just say that if you see any angry Belgian Italians shaking three beers and asking after us you'd best steer clear.
Other misc observations about Belgium:
- English is of a slightly lower standard than in Amsterdam but still most people speak a little
- Two of our best service experiences came from expat Brits, including one who gave me a free beer to taste in the Delirium Cafe
- Belgian waffles are amazcrazyamazing.
- Most European toilets have truly been an experience. I may need a seperate blog just to cover all of these but I will say that in Brussels there are open urinals in the street...
Okay that'll do. I typed this entire thing on my iPhone. It took me about 45 minutes so I hope y'all appreciate!
I'll post again from Paris!
Peace
Andy
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
AmsterDAMMMMMMMN
So I finally got around to making a blog for this trip. We've been here four days now and i'll try to update about that often, although no promises. Amsterdam was a bit of a mixed bag.
Day 1
It began with what is possibly the largest disappointment of my life; the Heineken Brewery. To try and metaphorically express this, if someone told me there was a film that was going to star Bruce Campbell, who teams up with Bill Murray to battle zombie-pirate-ninjas in a futuristic war situation, while Scarlet Johansen and that chick from Madmen have a pillowfight in the background for 90 minutes, but then when I went to see it it actually turned out to be a period drama romantic comedy where Robert Pattinson played every role, I still wouldn't reach the level of disappointment I did that day.
"The Heikeken Factory, surely then you'll get to see a factory floor, possibly some actual retail beer getting bottled, maybe a little of the fermentation process?" you might say. But you'd be wrong; soul crushingly wrong. Instead they do things like show you some giant test tubes filled with things that could potentially be used to make beer if they weren't too busy being displayed, feed you some beer that hasn't been fermented yet and then make you stand in a queue for 25 minutes to go on the 'bottle yourself ride' (this ride wasn't even optional, we had to sneak out when people weren't looking). There were also some ever so exciting museum rooms where got the priveledge of seeing REAL test tubes and beakers that were quite similar to ones that may actually have been used to make REAL beer in the 19th century.
Then after the tour, we got to go down to the bar area to enjoy a couple of free beers and relax. If I continued to converse with my mythical friend, at this point he'd probably say something like "Well Andrew, surely a bar within the Heineken Brewery itself will be jam packed with interesting Heineken varities to tempt and titillate my pallete?!". You'd be forgiven for thinking so Mr X., indeed these three foolish travelers made just such an assumption. But no! All that the Heineken Brewery had to offer was Heineken extra cold. Apparently they couldn't get their hands on any Heineken Old Dark or Heineken Regular despite the fact that they themselves produce it and the bar 50m down the road had both!
Suffice to say we were not amused. Tim actually took the map, drew a circle around the brewery vicinity and labelled it 'The Vortex of Gayness'. We now can't go within 200 feet.
Day 2
This day started off well enough with a trip to the museum. It was raining pretty heavily at this point, but "what's a slightly damp walk through the rain in 5 degree temperatures going to do to us?" we asked. Thankfully we were right, although I maintain we narrowly avoided death by pneumonia.
The museum itself was actually more of a gallery. It had a large quantity of old dutch pottery and furniture, as well as some very impressive silverwork, but the majority of the space was taken up by paintings. We saw a good number of Rembrandts, several of which were impressive, as well as masterpieces such as "Five pieces of asparagus on a kitchen table". There was also a room dedicated to tulips and tulip related art, as well as some info on how the tulip market managed to send a ton of people broke a few hundred years back. It was the dot com bubble of the 17th century!
So the museum was reasonably good, but the rest of the day was a bit of a fail. We wandered around for ages, browsed some department stores, tried to find some monuments but most of them were under construction or closed. It's amazing how many monuments are coated in scaffolding here. We ended the evening with a lovely stroll through the red light district, which was less than inspiring. However the night was somewhat salvaged by seeing a very excited middle eastern man get ushered into one of the window girls rooms. There's something very odd about seeing people so overtly taking part in the sex industry; there's no backdoors in poorly lit alleys here, if you want in it's in front of everyone.
Day 3
This was by far the highlight for me. In the morning we went and rented bicycles and spent the day riding around town. For people who don't know, Amsterdam is basically built from the ground up with bikes in mind. There are more bicycles than there are people in the city and bikes actually have right of way over cars and foot traffic on the roads.
So it is by far the best way to traverse the city. Many of the roads will see just a handful of cars per hour but a ton of bikes. We covered a huge amount of ground and probably cycled for four or five hours in total. Tim and I shopped a bunch while Nick went to indulge his cultural side some more.
Eventually we had to give the bikes back however, and, determined to have at least one big night in The Netherlands we went on the hunt for a bar. We wound up in this awesome little corner pub which had the perfect combination of atmosphere, beer and leaking fire hoses. There were people playing cards on one table, a chess game going at another and plenty of lively discussion. Australia is severly lacking in these little hole-in-the-wall type places. Just because a place is small doesn't mean it can't have an excellent array of drinks and a lively feel. Six or so (rather strong) beers later, we called it a night.
And now I sit in an Amsterdam bus terminal tidying this up about to embark on a three hour bus ride to Brussels, Belgium. Here are some other random observations about Amsterdam:
- Many things are amazingly cheap. We ate one meal for the grand total of 7.5 euros in total for the three of us. If you know where to look you really can find some bargains. I'll offer a prize if anyone can guess the cost of the cheapest bottle of water we found. It was ridiculous.
- There are queues everywwhere here. The queue to get into the museum was out the door, around the corner and down the block. The same was true of the Anne Franke house and the brewery that shall not be named. , that'll
- Dutch beers are, on the whole, reasonably good.
- Everyone here speaks flawless english. We haven't encountered a single person who hasn't understood us. Even the staff in obscure coffee shops and the underpaid employees of Macdonalds could converse with us.
Okay, that'll do. I'm out for now.
-Andrew
Day 1
It began with what is possibly the largest disappointment of my life; the Heineken Brewery. To try and metaphorically express this, if someone told me there was a film that was going to star Bruce Campbell, who teams up with Bill Murray to battle zombie-pirate-ninjas in a futuristic war situation, while Scarlet Johansen and that chick from Madmen have a pillowfight in the background for 90 minutes, but then when I went to see it it actually turned out to be a period drama romantic comedy where Robert Pattinson played every role, I still wouldn't reach the level of disappointment I did that day.
"The Heikeken Factory, surely then you'll get to see a factory floor, possibly some actual retail beer getting bottled, maybe a little of the fermentation process?" you might say. But you'd be wrong; soul crushingly wrong. Instead they do things like show you some giant test tubes filled with things that could potentially be used to make beer if they weren't too busy being displayed, feed you some beer that hasn't been fermented yet and then make you stand in a queue for 25 minutes to go on the 'bottle yourself ride' (this ride wasn't even optional, we had to sneak out when people weren't looking). There were also some ever so exciting museum rooms where got the priveledge of seeing REAL test tubes and beakers that were quite similar to ones that may actually have been used to make REAL beer in the 19th century.
Then after the tour, we got to go down to the bar area to enjoy a couple of free beers and relax. If I continued to converse with my mythical friend, at this point he'd probably say something like "Well Andrew, surely a bar within the Heineken Brewery itself will be jam packed with interesting Heineken varities to tempt and titillate my pallete?!". You'd be forgiven for thinking so Mr X., indeed these three foolish travelers made just such an assumption. But no! All that the Heineken Brewery had to offer was Heineken extra cold. Apparently they couldn't get their hands on any Heineken Old Dark or Heineken Regular despite the fact that they themselves produce it and the bar 50m down the road had both!
Suffice to say we were not amused. Tim actually took the map, drew a circle around the brewery vicinity and labelled it 'The Vortex of Gayness'. We now can't go within 200 feet.
Day 2
This day started off well enough with a trip to the museum. It was raining pretty heavily at this point, but "what's a slightly damp walk through the rain in 5 degree temperatures going to do to us?" we asked. Thankfully we were right, although I maintain we narrowly avoided death by pneumonia.
The museum itself was actually more of a gallery. It had a large quantity of old dutch pottery and furniture, as well as some very impressive silverwork, but the majority of the space was taken up by paintings. We saw a good number of Rembrandts, several of which were impressive, as well as masterpieces such as "Five pieces of asparagus on a kitchen table". There was also a room dedicated to tulips and tulip related art, as well as some info on how the tulip market managed to send a ton of people broke a few hundred years back. It was the dot com bubble of the 17th century!
So the museum was reasonably good, but the rest of the day was a bit of a fail. We wandered around for ages, browsed some department stores, tried to find some monuments but most of them were under construction or closed. It's amazing how many monuments are coated in scaffolding here. We ended the evening with a lovely stroll through the red light district, which was less than inspiring. However the night was somewhat salvaged by seeing a very excited middle eastern man get ushered into one of the window girls rooms. There's something very odd about seeing people so overtly taking part in the sex industry; there's no backdoors in poorly lit alleys here, if you want in it's in front of everyone.
Day 3
This was by far the highlight for me. In the morning we went and rented bicycles and spent the day riding around town. For people who don't know, Amsterdam is basically built from the ground up with bikes in mind. There are more bicycles than there are people in the city and bikes actually have right of way over cars and foot traffic on the roads.
So it is by far the best way to traverse the city. Many of the roads will see just a handful of cars per hour but a ton of bikes. We covered a huge amount of ground and probably cycled for four or five hours in total. Tim and I shopped a bunch while Nick went to indulge his cultural side some more.
Eventually we had to give the bikes back however, and, determined to have at least one big night in The Netherlands we went on the hunt for a bar. We wound up in this awesome little corner pub which had the perfect combination of atmosphere, beer and leaking fire hoses. There were people playing cards on one table, a chess game going at another and plenty of lively discussion. Australia is severly lacking in these little hole-in-the-wall type places. Just because a place is small doesn't mean it can't have an excellent array of drinks and a lively feel. Six or so (rather strong) beers later, we called it a night.
And now I sit in an Amsterdam bus terminal tidying this up about to embark on a three hour bus ride to Brussels, Belgium. Here are some other random observations about Amsterdam:
- Many things are amazingly cheap. We ate one meal for the grand total of 7.5 euros in total for the three of us. If you know where to look you really can find some bargains. I'll offer a prize if anyone can guess the cost of the cheapest bottle of water we found. It was ridiculous.
- There are queues everywwhere here. The queue to get into the museum was out the door, around the corner and down the block. The same was true of the Anne Franke house and the brewery that shall not be named. , that'll
- Dutch beers are, on the whole, reasonably good.
- Everyone here speaks flawless english. We haven't encountered a single person who hasn't understood us. Even the staff in obscure coffee shops and the underpaid employees of Macdonalds could converse with us.
Okay, that'll do. I'm out for now.
-Andrew
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