First of all, an apology is in order.
*Ahem* To the handful of people that actually care about my
trip and read my writing, I am terribly sorry.
When I got to England, I settled into something of a routine, and for
some reason, I never felt inspired to write.
I can’t believe I went from giving you guys eight posts in my first two
months away to having written none since September. Though my trip ended then, I have still not
completed this blog like I had intended to.
So, while I’m no longer 8900 miles from home, I am going to finish my
travel blog in the coming weeks with three pieces. This one will cover the rest of our trip in
mainland Europe, mainly our time in Prague and Munich, but also briefly
mentioning Brussels and Amsterdam rd. 2.
The following post will be my attempt at some sort of retroactive festival
coverage for the Roskilde 2012 event in Denmark this summer. Over 130,000 people were in attendance, and
it was the most mental week of my life, stay tuned. Finally, I will bring the journey to an end
and write some words on my summer spent working in Cornwall, in the southwest
of England. While my travel journal will
be completed at that point, I hope to leave this page open as an outlet for
creative writing, which I am starting to get back into. So when the stories have all finished, and
though I will not be able to travel again for years, fear not, for your
favourite amateur blogger will occasionally grace this website with some word
vomit. For now though, a Bohemian
Rhapsody is about to unfold….
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| Me with a statue inspired by a specific piece of literature from Franz Kafka |
Leaving Berlin behind us, Hillary and I headed for the Czech
Republic, our gateway to Eastern Europe.
It is too bad that none of my three trips to Europe have been such that
I could have explored this region more, because Eastern Europe is definitely in
my backpacking future. It’s cheaper and
dirtier than the glories of France, Spain, Italy, etc. but therein lays its
character. On this trip, due to time and
budget constraints, we weren’t able to do much exploring of Eastern Europe, and
being that we were to fly from Amsterdam, it wasn’t even practical to go there
at all. So we compromised, and visited
Prague, which could be considered Eastern Europe, but only just. The city was every bit as beautiful as I was
led to believe, with a large river dividing it in two. On the one side you could see rolling hills
and beautiful, expansive buildings, likely churches or castles, of the Old
Town. One the other you could get lost
in the Mala Strana, or “Lesser Town”, with its winding streets and marvel at
the gothic architecture, the damage and subsequent restoration caused by World
War II, the historical landmarks and homages to geniuses such as Franz Kafka.
Not counting the gorgeous Charles Bridge, which connects the
old town to the Mala Strana, Prague is not a city of internationally recognized
landmarks. The bridge itself is worth
mentioning though, as a walk along it is easily the most entertaining
five-minute stroll you are likely to have in Prague. The construction is beautiful and distinctly “old
world” through my Canadian eyes, and it offers breathtaking views of the river
and city. There were dozens of amateur painters, caricaturists, musicians, and
merchants. This truly felt like the centre of the city for our intents and
purposes, and it is a definite highlight of my overall experience so far in
Europe. We did a walking tour of the city, which was very interesting and
informative, and enjoyed the pedestrian friendly city squares and shopping
areas. The IIHF Hockey World Cup was
also on during our time in Prague, and I’ve got to say, few groups of people
are as passionate about their hockey as the Czechs. It was nice to be able to watch a full 60
minutes of hockey with people that cared again, as it had been 12 months since
I was able to enjoy that luxury last. I also watched both Manchester City’s and
Manchester United’s final league games in the lobby of our hostel/hotel and it
was a sports memory I will not soon forget.
I won’t re-live the details here, but anyone who is a fan of English
football will know that that was an historic day, the likes of which
professional football might not see again for a very, very long time. It is worth mentioning here that the hostel
we stayed at in Prague was, without a doubt, the nicest hostel I have seen to
this day. It was the same price as any
other piece of shit we could have paid for, but this place was lush. The rooms were cleaned every day, the beds
were disgustingly comfortable, the bathroom was 5-star, I could go on. If anyone is planning a trip to Prague, hit
me up for a recommendation on good, budget accommodation, because this blows
any other hostel (and most other hotels actually) out of the water. The only
negative thing I could say, and this wasn't really the hostel's fault, was that
Hillary had something like 300 Euros stolen from her purse while I was meant to
be watching it in the rec room of our lobby. I, admittedly, should have been
paying closer attention, but I figured that we were far enough into the hotel
that we wouldn't have to worry about locals coming in from the street and ripping
tourists off. This is just something to
note about being in Prague I suppose, and I can’t blame our hostel too much for
it.
But of course we did not come to Prague to marvel at how
comfortable beds can be (omg so comfortable), no, we came to do what
class? Yes, Mark, there at the
back. Speak up please Mark. That’s right
Mark, we came to Prague to get fucking wasted!!! Don’t get me wrong, it’s a
gorgeous city, but we were primarily there to move it move it, and as luck
would have it, hey my birthday! A night of extreme hedonism occurred on the 14th
of May, 2012, and it is a night that I can barely remember. It started with a
pub crawl, which we paid for, and we had two hours of unlimited booze at some
tourist-trap dive in central Prague.
Now, imagine you’re back in high school and then read that sentence
again. I know right? Things quickly got
messy. I met some pretty cool people,
one girl from Chicago, a couple of Brazilian guys, some people from Wales (I
think???), and lots more, but things started to get hazy right around the time
they all learned that it was my birthday.
Soon, the two hours of free drinking was coming to a close (and I hadn’t
even puked yet!!!! Go Adrian!!!). Here is what I remember of the rest of the
night:
-We left the bar and began being obnoxious and English on
the streets of Prague.
-I sprinted in a random direction for a few seconds.
-I had a lie down, probably feeling that I had earned a
rest.
-I followed a group of people into our next bar.
-The bartender greeted us with our welcome shots (paid for).
-That is all.
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| Hillary taking care of her little brother |
I then woke up in hostel room at 10:30 the next morning, the
taste of Osama Bin Laden’s asshole in my mouth, and the intense angry glare of
my sister burning a hole through my already aching skull. Here is what actually
happened the rest of the night:
-I got drunk.
-I got really really drunk.
-I got really really REALLY drunk, to the point that I
blacked out (something that has only happened one other time in my life, ahhhh
Ecuador, good times).
-I began trying to ditch Hillary (comparatively sober) at
any given moment.
-We left the second bar early, saying that we were going to
get a cab with our new friend and go elsewhere.
-Instead, I sprinted in a random direction.
-Hillary couldn’t catch up and lost me, we had no phones,
and she had no idea where our hostel was.
-By the time Hillary found her way back, I was passed out in
my bed, fully clothed (no idea how I got there).
I am a horrible human being.
Now the cherry on the top of all this was that, in my pocket, there was
a package of some sort of plant. It
smelled of pine needles and looked like vine.
It was wrapped neatly in cling-wrap and was in my back pocket. I do not remember acquiring the strange
substance, but my hunch is that, somewhere along my stumble back to the hostel,
I tried to acquire some weed. Some
locals saw me and decided to take my money and trick me into thinking I had
paid for some trippy shit when really they had just grabbed some leaves and
wrapped them up. Part of me wanted to just eat one and see what would have
happened, and I wanted to keep them with me, but we were to be crossing a
border and this definitely was not worth it, so I left the “drugs” in our room
when we checked out. After much apologizing and pre-planning for future nights
out, Hillary and I moved on and hopped on a bus headed for Munich.
I had picked Munich as our destination for these five days
in May because the city was hosting the final of the UEFA Champion’s
League. Hometown heroes FC Bayern had
qualified for the match (one of my favourite football clubs since I was a kid),
but so had the evil west-Londoners Chelsea – a true classic was almost
certainly in the stars. The city's prices had effectively doubled for the influx of tourists, and budget
accommodation was almost impossible to find on short notice. I tried using my
couchsurfing profile, but seeing as I had never hosted anyone, my profile
looked weak, and I’m sure Munich based couch-surfers were overflowing with
requests from safe, viable options. We settled on a quiet dorm-style hostel in
Groebenzell (quite far from the city centre) for the first two nights, but were
forced to shell out a couple hundred Euro a night for the two nights
surrounding the game. At least we got to stay in a decent place for once: an
upscale bed-and-breakfast with a private bathroom (finally) and a full complimentary breakfast (if you are a backpacker reading these words, you know what this means: TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE) in a very posh
looking suburb north of the city. For the final night, we stayed at a hostel in
the city centre, as prices were coming down and availability was
returning. We tried to keep all this
moving around out of our heads and enjoyed the buzz of the city as best we
could. Everywhere you went, people were bubbling
with excitement over the big game. Many
shops on the main drag had options for fans to choose their favourite team by
picking red or blue (balloons, ice-cream, scarves, the list goes on), and at
night, there would be film projections set to music on the side of four story
buildings along the main shopping drag, highlighting the two team’s respective
runs to the final. We soaked up the
atmosphere, and also walked around the city marveling at the very visible
scars of decades of gripping world history.
We enjoyed the odd beer hall, but spent most of our time in the
beautiful public parks or else checking out various monuments or otherwise
historical sites. The history that has
unfolded in Munich, specifically in the 1930s and 40s, to me is very
interesting, and it’s always so surreal to stand on the same ground that
something so world-changing happened on. Now I suppose here is where I need to
get to the game, but (spoiler alert) it was painful, so I’m going to try to be
brief.
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| Our view of the screen Those behind us had to get a bit more creative... |
On the day of the game, Hillary and I spent a while trying
to figure out where we were going to watch it. Any pub would have been past
capacity by noon, and we didn't want to get tickets to watch the game on a
gigantic screen like the one at the Olympic Park. We eventually decided to try to track down
the public viewing screen in Englischer Garten – the city’s largest and most
beautiful park. When we finally found the beer garden and screen, we discovered
that the fenced off section had filled up long ago, and it would be very hard
to see the screen from where we currently were.
We did some snooping, and eventually found an area that, if we could
steal some chairs from the beer garden (done and done), we could see the screen
through the fence. We settled in, began
getting familiar with the like-minded people around us, and got to
drinking. One thing I really, really
love about Bavaria is that they don’t fuck around. If you want a beer, you get a litre, that’s
just how it is. Are you a pussy? Fine, have a half litre (still a pint),
pussy. After four or five separate occasions of waiting in the queue for beer,
meeting sexy Swedish women on the third such occasion for some reason, I was
sufficiently plastered, and the game was well on its way. Bayern Munich was seen by virtually every
football fan or analyst to be the superior team, and they were playing on home
turf as well. They outplayed Chelsea for
nearly the entire game, but couldn’t score until the 83rd minute. But score they did, via Thomas Muller, and it all
seemed to be playing out like a perfect fairy tale. Then, *shudders*, Didier
Drogba happened. On virtually their only half-decent chance of the entire game,
Chelsea swung a corner kick on to the head of the African superstar at the near
post, and he drilled it into the back of the net. 88th minute equalizer. Extra time. Fuck. Now, Arjen
Robben (one of my favourites) COULD HAVE FUCKING WON THE GAME if he had just
converted his penalty kick (that’s right, a PK in extra time, would you like
that gift-wrapped??), but the stupid Dutch asshole screwed the pooch. Penalty shootout. Fuck.
Well, no, not fuck. Germans rule in shootouts and the English always choke, right? RIGHT?
Well, yeah, this is usually the case, but blah blah blah I DON’T WANT
TO TALK ABOUT IT Schweinsteiger missed, Didier Drogba stepped up and converted
the winning kick, and the entire crowd groaned.
Off in the distance, I heard some drunken Englishmen breaking beer
glasses and beginning to go wild. Fuck
this, back to the hotel. What could have been a maddening night of celebration
of their local team’s successes (that I could have partaken in!!!) turned into
a depressingly early night, the shouts of obnoxious British thugs ringing early
into the morning.
I attempted to bury the memory of that night deep in my
brain, and it was easy to do, because I had a show to attend the following
night! It’s not very often that you cross paths with one of your favourite
musicians as a backpacker, but as luck would have it, famed lyricist and
frontman of legendary Canadian indie-rockers The Weakerthans, John Samson, was
playing a small club in Munich, and I of course snagged tickets. His solo album had come out in January, and I
almost wore out my iPod playing that album during my time in Muizenberg. As a songwriter, only one other person has
come close to reaching that level of pure, sincere communication that John
Samson has for me, and I was so glad to finally get my chance to see him in the
flesh. It’s kind of a weird scenario
when you think of it: a Canadian icon’s performance being watched by an adoring
Canadian fan for the first time, in Germany, naturally. The show was magnificent, even more than I
hoped it would be. He opened with “One
Great City” which, as those that follow my word-vomit will know, I hold in very
high regard. The rest of his set was a
mix of cuts from his new solo album, and tracks from The Weakerthans' catalogue, including many cuts from the absolute masterpieces “Left and
Leaving” and “Reconstruction Site.” When
the main set ended and the roars of encore were finally shushed by Samson’s
return to stage, a strange feeling filled the air, the feeling that something
special was about to unfold. He
approached the microphone and, being the polite, modest Canadian boy that we
raised him to be, thanked us profusely for caring so much about his music. He
then did something I have never witnessed at any of the hundreds of shows I
have attended in my life: he asked the audience what they wanted him to
play. Someone would shout a song, he
would think about it for a second, then, in the most nonchalant way possible,
would just say “ok” and begin strumming the first chord. His band accompanied
him for some numbers, but the majority of the seven-song encore was played
solo. Ocassionally someone would shout something impossible like PLAY HOSPITAL VESPERS and John would laugh, grin, and say "no I'm sorry I don't think we can do that one." When he first asked us what he
should play, I immediately shouted PLEA FROM A CAT NAMED VIRTUTE, one of my
all-time favourite tracks. That shit, no
lie, saved my life one time, and it’s one of the most brilliant lyrical songs
of our generation. Of course, he said
“ok” and fulfilled a dream I'd had ever since first listening to Reconstruction
Site while mowing my parent's lawn one summer. The real magic though, as if
that wasn't good enough, was when he played the final song of the evening. The requests were off at this point, and an uncharacteristically serious, determined look crossed his face. He unplugged his guitar, hopped down from the
three-foot stage, walked into the middle of the audience, grabbed a bar stool
and stood on it, and, completely acoustically, performed the most tear-jerking
song known to man, and the second part of my request, Virtute the Cat Explains
Her Departure. Hearing those words being
sung by the master himself, mere metres between us, nothing but the sound of
his voice and guitar filling the room: that was a moment I hope I never
forget. That night, John Samson changed
my perception of what a live show could be. It was gloriously beautiful, personal, and heart-wrenching. I bought a book containing all of his lyrics
and poems, shook the man's hand (definitely freaking him out with over-the-top
praise in the process), and left the venue heading for the U-Bahn. It was a truly glorious show, and I can only
hope I get the chance to see him perform in Canada one day (hopefully with the
rest of The Weakerthans). I took several videos of the night, here are the opening two songs:
That was all the fun and games in store for us in Munich,
and it was now time to begin heading back towards Amsterdam for our flight to
England. We had time for one stopover,
and while we could have gone off the beaten path a bit with some kitschy little
town in western Germany, we picked Brussels on account of the beer (me) and the
chocolate (Hillary). Our journey there was via three different trains, with
connections in towns in western Germany that I had never even heard of. I know that 17 minutes waiting for a
connection and starting at the skyline off in the distance, or seeing beautiful landscapes whiz by at 200 km/h doesn't really count
as visiting a place, but it’s better than nothing, and I actually enjoyed our
day of travel. When we arrived in
Brussels and sorted out the underground transit system (pretty damn efficient
actually), we quickly found our hostel. It had mixed reviews online, and it was easy to see
why. It seemed like a nice place, and in
theory it should have been, but there was just something “off” about it. The showers were in a disgusting unfinished
basement, and the walk there (through the main eating/socializing area) makes
you feel like you’re in prison. The kicker though, was that even though they
advertised this place as an international hostel for backpackers, they seemed
to be hosting large groups of local school-children, some of whom were very
young. This made breakfast a
nightmare, and gave this hostel a vibe that most legitimate budget/backpackers establishments aim to
eliminate completely. It wasn't dirty or
dangerous or anything, but it was not a nice place to spend time. This didn't
bug us too much, and we spent our few days there exploring the strange kitschy
appeal of the city. There are many different angles one can take towards
enjoying Brussels, and I like to think we covered most of them. We saw all the main landmarks and tourist
attractions quickly, but that’s not what Brussels is about. Right outside our hostel was a large public park with a small botanical garden, various art installations a duck pond, and tonnes of very unique views of a bustling city background juxtaposed against the lush green foreground. Most of our time in the actual city was spent doing silly things
like going up to the top of rickety parking structures for panoramic views of
the skyline, stumbling upon a group of teenagers freestyle rapping in French with a ghetto blaster straight from the 80s, going to a publicly funded petting-farm/animal sanctuary, taking pictures of the city's colourful graffiti, sitting on benches by a skate-park and passing the time
watching the youth of the city chill out and enjoy life, trying to find
authentic Belgian chocolate off the main tourist drag (where the display of
variety is just an illusion, and prices are offensively high), eating way too
many chips (fries) and justifying it by saying that we were in their birthplace
(we were!!!), and wandering through the leafy public parks. Though our budget constrains were very tight
by this point, I splashed out and dropped some modest Euro to visit a museum of
musical instruments. It was pretty cool
for me to see a comprehensive look at the evolution of musical instruments over
the course of human history, as I am pretty unknowledgeable about anything pre
1950s.
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| An old gothic cathedreal with a modern architectural interpretation of it across the street - classic Brussels |
While it is true that I only visited the capital, I think I
can safely say that, for me, and I imagine for many others as well, the main
reason to visit Belgium is for their exquisite beer. Coming from North America, I am not as
well-versed in all the different types of ales, lagers, or stouts like my
European friends, but I like to think that I have at least acquired a decent
taste, and enjoy a modest amount of knowledge regarding different types of
every self-respecting man’s favourite drink. Having said that, I offer this
bold claim: Belgium produces the best beer in the world (edging out Germany by
a hair). The variety itself is
overwhelming for a person of my previous level of experience with beers. I won’t list the types I had, because that
would take a long time, but each was more delicious than the last. The Trappist Ales, mainly coming from
Belgium, are simply out of this world, and would come highly recommended from
anyone with a taste for beers around the world. I enjoyed many on a hot afternoon with a Belgian friend of mine, Thomas,
who made the trip out from his home near Antwerp to talk local politics, music,
and how one of the beers we tried smelled and tasted strongly of marijuana. Neat!?
After gorging ourselves on chocolate and beer, Hillary and I started to
head back to Amsterdam in preparation for our flight in just a few days. In less than a week, Hillary and I would both
be working ridiculous hours, our extended vacations coming to a screeching
halt, so these last few days back in Amsterdam needed to be hazy if you catch my drift. Our hostel
this time around was not located in the centre of the downtown core, but
instead it was a 15-minute tram ride away, near the Van Gogh Museum. This was both a positive and a negative: on
the one hand, it would be nice to be in a safer area, and one with a bit more
space – not in the middle of a cluttered, noisy, and dirty city centre. On the other hand, part of what made our
first stint in Amsterdam so enjoyable was that we were right in the middle of
all the action, and could return to or leave from our hostel whenever convenient. Anyway, this is a minor point at most. I won’t go into detail on the specifics of
how we spent our days in Amsterdam this time around, as I'm sure you can all
imagine that we mostly did more of the same. Our hunger for exploration had long been satisfied, and some small part
of us was just looking forward to being settled in one place for the next few
months. We visited some coffee shops,
did some shopping, enjoyed the beautiful parks, and did an informative walking
tour. Nothing too special, but it was exactly what we wanted out of the city –
three days of calm. I also met up with
another friend of mine, this one an American who was doing a semester abroad.
Over a joint or nine we wandered from Nieuwmarket to the “island” that his student housing
building was located on, and discussed, what else, music. Adam had been living there since January and
I, having been moving around to different areas or the world, each with
drastically different levels of tolerance towards marijuana, was easily
outsmoked by the Electric City himself. I spent most of the night in a fit of social paranoia as the effects of
the pure Amsterdam chronic reintroduced itself to my brainspace. It was a great night though, and it made me
wish that I had gotten my shit together when I was in university, and maybe I
could have done a semester in such an amazing city.
With one last toke, we made our way to the airport early one brisk morning in late May, only to have our EasyJet flight delayed over ninety minutes due to a small
clerical error (gotta love budget airlines) and as a result we almost missed
our train from London to Truro (which we had already paid 100 Pounds for
each). It was one last day of unnecessarily
stressful travel with comedically oversized bags but it was soon to all be
behind us. This day was bittersweet.
Here I was, at the end of my eight month journey in many ways. Trotting around Africa and Europe had worked
up quite a bill, and it was time to earn some money. The backpacking was over, but a new adventure
of sorts was on the horizon. The tiny
little town of Padstow awaited – our home for the next three months.
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