Archive for November, 2006

weekend in Brussels

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

Alone, with a little backpack and a guidebook in my pocket I hit the city on Friday evening. My weekend in Brussels. They didn’t have any beds for me in the first hostel. Fortunately another one (crappy one) had one for me. Wandered around with a music in my ears a little bit more, read a book and went to sleep quite early. It was weird – pretending to be a traveller – sharing a room with these American guys traveling around Europe. Kinda lonely, kinda cheating.
Saturday wasn’t much better. Went thousand of kilometers walking in the old town, ate something shitty, drank a beer or three. Not so entertaining. And in the evening I felt like i’ve seen it all and planed to go to Antwerpen the following day. I had too much time for thinking. I re-thought my life. Twice.
Then back in the hostel I joined a Spanish guy and Canadian (my roommates) for a beer. Canadian one was funny – he had a belt with the Canadian flag on it. So each time he met a new person he was saying “hey, i’m Canadian” and showed his belt. Just imagine the gesture. Cok komik.So we had a beer or seven (0,25). And met some Greek guys going to a party. All dressed up, almost 30, came here for some conference for NGOs. One of them looked just as this Chechenian ruler (on behalf of Putin) – of course I told him that and he got a nickname “Chechenian”. Spanish guy took us fucking far away to a club where we had to wait in a queue and they didn’t let us in. Quote: “7 dicks = no way”. So we went to have some Greek pitas and tried to get into another club. They wanted 10 euros per person – so me and Ignacio (Spanish) gave up and went back to the hostel (3 AM) with beers in our hands. Greeks stayed.In the hostel I was there were me, Ignacio, Canadian (Zee) and another one. Another one I haven’t met and his was sleeping and stinking like fish. Ignacio had a bed side by side with Zee (who was half sleeping). We were laughing our asses off of the situation. Ignacio laid down next to Zee and I kept saying “oh come on, give him a hug….”. Positive evening.

“What time is it?” “Quarter to 10.” “Damn! So we are about to miss the breakfast!”
“Zee are you coming with us?” “No – I cannot eat dirty. I will take a shower.” “We go – we are dirty Europeans” and we went down with Igancio – again couldn’t stop laughing. Especially when we saw all those people at the breakfast. I think we were still a little drunk. And smelly. We had the same t-shirts and bad breaths. People were quite confused and we couldn’t stop laughing. Just our ugly faces – reasonable enough.

Sunday was chilled out. With Ignacio went to Ixelles – nice district of Brussels. Cafeterias, parks, cigarettes, young people. And telling stories. Ignacio is an engineer – chemistry, recycling. He just got a contract to Brussels and stayed in hostel while looking for an apartment. And now comes the crazy stuff. He’s been to Dogubayazit – my favourite place in Turkey. He’s been to Zakho! Crazy small world.
To sum up – I had a fucking nice weekend. :D

Came to my fancy hotel on Sunday evening. Smelled like fish. Shaved, took a bath and switched to the role of the corporate worker again. But maybe this weekend will have some follow-up.

Work – not so good. Starting to be stressful, demanding, not nice. If they don’t kick me out in the next 2 months it means they never will. :-) Anyway – trying to be positive. And I am sick of my hotel. 4th week here, 4th different room. One of the colleagues always asks for the same one. But that’s not a problem. Life in a cage is. But maybe I will try to do something about it.

living in a spa

Friday, November 10th, 2006

4th week in Brussels. Fancy hotel. For the whole week didn’t go out. Just work and hotel. Gym, sauna, book, TV.

Last weekend – another level of partying hard. And a song which messed up my head.

I am staying in Brussels for this weekend. With a little backpack, guidebook, no plan and no reservations. Could stay in another fancy hotel but decided to go for a hostel. For the social reasons. Wish me luck.