Brussels, Skating and Winter

I've not been posting recently.

I've not been up to much... my social time is spent in the gym, and my onyl travels have been to Brussels and back several times. I've basically had nothing to say. I;ve been working lots and waiting for the sun to arrive so that people can start living again.

I think I've been to Brussels four times already this year..... Usually, I arrive late the night before a meeting and leave late the next day after a meeting, so I get know chance to se anything other than boring concrete European COmmission buildings.

Our plans to visit more abbeys didn;t come to much, as I;ve not had time to do the research required to find out which abbeys are further north than Brussels.

I did get the chance to wander one of the weekends and see the grand place:






I've seen it a few times, but you always forget how ornate it is.

Then I stumbled on the Manniken Pis:



I've seen it a few times, but you always forget how small it is.

One good way of getting through the winter, is to do things that you can't do in the summer..... so me and Family Bulgaria head off to the Jaap Eden outdoor ice rink:





The last time I went Ice skating, I was about 14, and I wasn't any good then. So it was no surprise that I had forgotten everything as soon as I stepped on the ice.

I got led round like a little kid, while the little kid(Obi Wan), is working on his somersaults and tricks...

The problem I appear to have is that the more steps or glides(is that the terminology) you take the faster you go. But it requires confidence in not falling on your ass to take long strides, so I am taking around a 1000 steps a minute and flying round this loop, almost falling down with every step.

I make it round twice with assistance, and then go for a seat. I was going to go to the gym this morning, but it seems that this was a good alternative. You tense every muscle from two to tit cos you are ready to fall all the time, so the sweat is dripping off me.

Now I decide to go off on my own:



This basically involve three moves. Move one, I do very apprehensively, if move two goes right I get get more confident and mess up move three.. I then nearly fall, swear loudly, take lots of little steps(getting faster) until I regain my balance and return to the explorative first step. This results in something like this:

schhhhh, schhhhh, oooops, SHIT, sch shh schh, Schhhhh Schhhhh FUCK!!!!!

And people do this for fun!

I can't steer either, so I am careering round the track, trying to avoid, children and hoping that their english isn't good enough to understand my periodic reflex swearing.

I make it round once, and stupidly decide that since I seem to have developed a rhythm(The swearing is essential), I will continue instead of trying to stop.

This is a mistake... I am still at the stage where every distraction cause me to nearly fall over. If someone speaks to me... I'm gone, if someone touches me, they'd better be ready to catch me... if I see a nice bum. I'm tripping..... Luckily, I only fall once.

The problem is that once I've fallen I have no idea how to get up. I'm like a baby Giraffe... I can get my feet and hand on the ground flat, but I have no idea how to get from there. If I move I'm gonna lose my footing.....

I kind of scrabble about and do a couple of non gracefully jumps, until I;m still again... Then I'm off.... I make it back to the cafe and have a well deserved diet coke.

I check my feet and realise I have blisters the diameter of a golf ball on the inside of each foot......

It was a fun day.....

In general at the moment, I feel like I'm waiting around for the summer to arrive. The seats are outside the bars waiting to be filled, but its too cold for anyone other than a stupid scotsman to sit on them an enjoy a Witbier...... The gym gets me through the boredom..... maybe its my lack of travel beyond benelux for 2 months.... but I can't wait for the adventures to start again. I've managed to make it almost to April without any adventures... a few nice dinners, a few good gollem sessions, but the year is still in front of me. I'm bursting full of energy and I want to expend it!!!!

Paris to Brussels

The day of the conference is very long and boring, not helped by the fact that there is a star wars exhibition on(But closed on a monday), which tempts me with childhood enthusiasm to go up and sit in an X-wing:










It's away from the centre of paris, so gives me the opportunity to see another area, but generally it is a long day of meetings. We're even too tired to find a decent restaurant at night and eat somewhere near our hotel...... It's an early night before we get up early to drive to Brussels for a lunch meeting... It seems like less than a fortnight since I was last here.. Luckily we are soon out of Brussels and heading back to Amsterdam with Camp Freddy radio entertaining us..

We are almost across the border when we make a piss stop at what appears to be the most inbred service station:



My boss become obsessed with driving deeper into the surrounding villages in order to see either bestiality or incest..... but really just to have a break from the monotony of the motorway.....

Eventually we give up and get a map out to work out where we are, and how we get back to the motorway...


We are in Oostmalle. Now to someone who knows his belgian beers, a little dutch and rudimentary physics, its not to far a jump to guess that Westmallle is probably to the west of Oostmalle(Oost is dutch for east). Westmalle is a beer...... We are now driving west in search of a Brewery:



On our way to the brewery, we head into a supermarket. We now have a new hobby when heading home from Brussels; heading into flemish supermarkets to buy cheap belgian beer. After purchasing some beers and some glasses, it's off along the road to find the brewery:



Unfortunately, maybe due to the time of year, there is no obvious visitor centre. What I do notice is a sign for trappist abbey cycling routes......

We head back to the Motorway, and travel back to Amsterdam as my brain fires off on possible plans for adventure and mayhem on a Belgian beer cycling tour......
Hmmmm beer:

Brussels

Another Sunday working...... We're on our way to Brussels....

I've spoken about Brussels before. It's a lovely city etc.etc. but all I ever do here is go to boring meetings in boring buildings and stay in boring hotels. That is if I have the time to stay instead of driving there and back in a day. Luckily this time it's a 9-5 meeting, so it's pretty important I'm awake.

I've decided that rather than hang about hotels bored watching my laptop and considering going and sitting in bars alone in strange cities trying to get a finger on a non existent pulse, I'm going to try to book into hotels which have a gym where possible.

Brussels is the first opportunity of this so far this year. I find a good deal at the Bristol Stephanie on Ave. Louise:



It's a lovely hotel - very plush, and it has a fitness room, a sauna, a Jacuzzi, a sun bed, a masseuse and a swimming pool - I think I may have finally found a Hotel in Brussels that can make me look forward to meetings in this concrete village.....

So Sunday night, after driving down, I go an chill out for an hour in the fitness room.. It's a far cry from Squash City, but it serves its purpose of giving me a work out while listening to badmotorfinger:



I'm alone, so I decide to give thee running machine a whirl. They always scare me and I would hate to skite off one of them while it's running. After a 10 minute jog, I realise that its a good hard work out and I may start using the running machines at Squash city.

After the Gym, we head off to find some food. Ве еат at what I would have to describe as the worst restaurant I've ever eaten in. I don't rememember the name, but I remember where it is and won't be back. The 12 euro starter of spicy gambas consisted of 4 frozen prawns with a tin of tomatoe soup poured over them and a sprinkling of chili powder. The only redeeming factor was getting to wash the bland mediocre food down with a Chimay Blue:



With this, it's off for an early night before the usual day of boring meetings followed by a drive back....

On the drive back, I introduce my boss to Camp Freddy radio:



He like's Dave Navarro's dark and sarcastic humour as much as I do which should make commuting to Brussels more fun.

By the time we make it back to Amsterdam, we have time for a few beers before bed and work in the morning......

Brussels

Day in Brussels for a meeting.



Nice as Brussels is, 9 times out of 10, I'm here for a meeting in the bit which has only concrete buildings and building sites. Yawn!