Thinking too much?

I'm sleep deprived and on a caffeine high, so forgive me if this comes off as incoherent rambling, but this is probably the best state in which to write this particular post. See: Title. Let's call it a running theme.

This post is indredibly long and likely contains a lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes. You've been warned.

I haven't updated this blog in what seems like ages. I look at the date on the last post and it reads March 10, 2009. Yup, that was when I got back from Japan. Since then I've been to the Melbourne Comedy Festival for the third time, Europe for the second time (including the Edinburgh Fringe, which was incredible - I'll get onto that later), and am in the latter stages of planning (yet another) trip to the USA and Canada. I've been blaming a lot of this on my "busy schedule" but, really, I'm not actually that busy. I realise that the reason I probably haven't done any of this blogging stuff for so long is because I'm over-thinking it.

I look at the last draft that I saved and it had two very short paragraphs in it. I can remember what I was thinking at the time I started writing it, and I can remember clearly why I didn't post it - because I wasn't sure how to structure it to make it more readable. I was planning too much and not doing enough. (Again, this will be a recurring theme.) Even the start of this post was pre-planned. I hate that I do it so often.

Instead of thinking about what I'm going to say, I decided to look back at why I began blogging in the first place - because I liked writing about the things I do. Not necessarily because I think people will like reading what I write, but because I enjoy reading what I write as much as I enjoy the process of writing it.

So, without further ado (except for this particular ado), I present somewhat condensed versions of what I should have been blogging regularly about in the past few months.

Melbourne (again)

I... actually can't remember a whole lot about Melbourne. It was so far back and I didn't really keep close track of who I saw. I suspect I'll look at the ticket stubs one day and say to myself "oh yeah, that was pretty good".

I do remember that some of the highlights: Mark Watson and Jamie Kilstein to name a couple of the standout acts (and a lot of other funny-but-not-as-funny-as-those-two acts), seeing Wicked and Billy Elliot on stage, and hanging out with Matt, Bron, and a few of the locals. (Oh yeah, that was another thing that's happened since March - Matt and Bron got married. Congratulations! I was co-best-man. It was a fantastic wedding.)

A low-light was finding out through text message that an online friend of mine who I played video games with had committed suicide. That had me depressed for a few days. It's good to have a comedy festival around you when something like that happens. It's never, ever, a good thing to have happen, but comedy is an obvious way to try to make yourself feel better.

Europe (again)

The second trip to Europe (or Europe II as I've been calling it) was shorter than the first (three countries in two weeks as opposed to seven in six) but I won't dare say it was less enjoyable. Like the last, I went with Dave P again, and the whole thing spawned from a conversation one night at trivia.

Dave mentioned that Faith No More were reuniting to tour Europe. I half-jokingly suggested that we should go to see them. Dave half-jokingly agreed. The more that we thought about it the more it made sense. We had been talking up a beer-centric trip to Belgium for the longest time, and this was just the catalyst we needed to get us off our asses and plan it. I looked at the Faith No More tour dates on the Internet. One date stood out: headlining Pukkelpop, a music festival in Belgium. I fired off an email to Dave. Dave shot one back. Just like that, the trip was on.

To sweeten the deal, the proposed trip was to happen in August, while the Edinburgh Fringe was on. I'd always wanted to go and decided I had to work it into the plans. More things fell into place as the trip got closer. Scottie was in the UK the same time as us - he was there to visit relatives in Scotland and check out the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh. Marcus, working in Barcelona at the time, had friends in Edinburgh and decided to meet up with us there. Finally, Dave's then-soon-to-be-former-workmate and fellow beer lover, Mark, was also going to be floating about in Europe with his girlfriend, Helen. He ultimately became the designated driver for our Belgian beer trip.

We started off the trip in London. It was the cheapest place in Europe for us to fly into, and I wanted to see Les Misérables at the West End anyway (it was fantastic, and we spotted Shane Watson outside after the show (The Ashes was on at the time (we're glad we didn't stick around England for the final game, where Australia played horrendously))). Scottie had flown in before us and met us at the hotel. We decided to see some sights we missed the last time we were in England. In particular, we did a tour of Lord's, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, and went up Tower Bridge. We had originally planned to see the Tower of London as well as we hadn't seen it last time, but overambitious planning for the day led to us missing it once more.

The next leg kicked off with a Eurostar train ride to Brussels. We met up with Mark and Helen and I ended up overdoing the Belgian beers a little bit on the first night there. Dave and I took a brief detour the next day to Kiewit, Hasselt for Pukkelpop. Unfortunately, we took the wrong train and ended up in a town named Asse (which we found amusing because we are easily amused). We had to catch the train back to Brussels and try again.

By the time we got there the later acts were starting off - Deftones were already on the main stage - and a fierce storm was brewing in the horizon. We managed to find cover before the horrible began, and drank overpriced and fairly stock standard Belgian beers while we waited for the rain to pass. It was good timing, actually, because the rain stopped with just enough spare time for us to get to the front of the side stage where Opeth were about to play. One thing we noticed about this particular European crowd was that there was not as much fanatical pushing towards the front as I've seen at gigs in Australia and North America. (On our way to Opeth we saw a small bit of Them Crooked Vultures, a superband consisting of Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones. I mistook them for the Queens of the Stone Age because they played in a slot listed as "surprise act".)

Next up was Faith No More on the main stage. Once again, the front section of the crowd wasn't too densely packed. We ended up pretty close up, a little to the side. This ended up being a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, we were really close to the action. On the other hand, whenever a really good bass riff started our we'd get destroyed by our closeness to the speaker system that we were in front of. The set itself was epic (pun intended?) and I already have tickets to see them again when they play the Hordern in February. There was a particularly freaky incident near the end of the set where a fan stage dived in the middle of Midlife Crisis, fell a bit short, and smashed his head on the barriers. The band stopped playing and Mike Patton, visibly shaken by the incident, went down to see if the fan was ok. He apparently ended up with a lot of lost teeth and a big scar on his face. Ouch.

Video of that incident here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU3lX5Vj_G0) and embedded below (happens at about 2:40).

The night ended somewhat annoyingly. We decided to leave a few songs into the My Bloody Valentine set (I was majorly disappointed that their live show didn't live up to the beauty of their studio work - perhaps it was just me but there was far too much emphasis on raw noise). The main problem with leaving early was that the trains back to Brussels from Hasselt didn't start for another several hours, which is why most people camped at the festival grounds. (Side note: Speaking of the festival grounds, have these guys not heard of rubbish bins? Easily the dirtiest festival I've ever been to.) We caught some uncomfortable sleep at the station and ended up having to pay for the train trip back to Brussels when we woke up because we hadn't redeemed our tickets properly to get the free ride. We got little sleep in preparation for the road trip ahead.

Driving duties ended up being a lot simpler than we had intended. In the lead-up to the trip, we planned to take non-drinking shifts as we went counter-clockwise around the country in search of beer landmarks (mostly the beer-brewing Trappist monasteries). When we got to the rental car place, the options were: manual. Mark was the only one who could drive manual, so he became the designated driver. This was good for Dave and I because we didn't have to worry about not drinking, but it was obviously a little unfair for Mark. Regardless, there was no pulling out of the trip now. Armed with a foldout road map recommended to us by Andy from Bier Mania and lots of printed out Google Maps directions, we pushed on.

The round trip started from Brussels and went past the monasteries/beer cafes at Chimay, Orval, Westmalle, and Westvleteren (the latter reputed to brew the best beer in the world - the Westvleteren 12) with stops at Bouillon, Antwerp, and Bruges along the way. The road map ended up complementing the directions perfectly as we changed course a few times. Dave was a gun navigator so all I did was sit in the back of the car and listen to Australia lose the Ashes on long wave radio broadcast. I think Helen slept most of the time.

In terms of beauty, Bouillon was no doubt the one place I'd go to again. The town was nestled in the mountains near the French border (we had to go through France for about an hour to get there) and the hostel where we stayed was in a perfect location. The hostel even served Belgian beer! (And probably the best Orval I've ever had.) However, the highlight of the road trip came from something not overly planned (see, told you, recurring theme).

In my research for the road trip through Belgium, I read about two different beer cafes that a beer lover must visit: Delirium in Brussels and Kulminator in Antwerp. I had read a lot about Delirium (and we visited it on our first night in Brussels) mainly because it had its own website and was in the Guinness Book of World Records for having 2,004 beers available for sale in 2004. For some reason I had neglected to read much about Kulminator other than the fact that some rated it as the best beer bar in the world - most claimed that Delirium had nothing on Kulminator. Those claims couldn't be more right.

The bar was about a 15-minute walk away from where we were staying. The main problem was that streets weren't too clearly marked in a lot of places in Belgium, so it was easy to get lost. And we did, several times. We had arrived in Antwerp exhausted from the day's travels, and Dave and Mark were understandably reluctant to keep looking for the place, instead wanting to opt for a club of some sort. I was almost on the same boat. (Helen was sick and stayed back at the hostel.) However, the stubborn side of me kept us going.

We finally stumbled upon the place and at first glance it was a dive. Everywhere else nearby was closed and this place seemed like it was about to close as well. It was small and didn't exactly convey liveliness. I urged the boys to at least go in for one beer since we had already gone so far to get there. The first sign I got that this place was indeed the place it was hyped up to be was when I saw an empty bottle of 1999 Chimay Grande Reserve behind the bar. Impressive, I thought, but I was still trying to figure out just what was so special about the place.

We all found out when an old lady - who turned out to be Leem who, along with her partner, Dirk, had started the place 30 or so years ago - handed us the special beer menu. Our jaws didn't so much drop to the ground as gradually sink there as we slowly realised that we had hit the jackpot. I casually flicked through the list and was not overly impressed (hint: I suck at skim reading) until one item at the back stuck out - a La Trappe Amber from 1975. "Wait? What?!" I flicked back through the menu and was gobsmacked. This thing was jam packed full of old vintage beers that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.

27 Euros bought the three of us a 750mL bottle of Gouden Carolus Cuvee Van De Keizer from 1999, one of the best beers I have ever tasted. We later found out that this was the first year they ever brewed this gem of a drop. 29 Euros bought me a bottle of 350mL bottle of Chimay Blue from... wait for it... 1982. Yes, I drank a beer two years older than me. Dave had the Blue from '84 and Mark had one from '85. They were so old that they were dusty and the bottle caps were covered in rust. The beer itself tasted amazing.

For beer lovers, no pilgrimage to Belgium would be complete without a visit to Kulminator. It truly is beer heaven.

I'll try not to drone on too much about Edinburgh other than to say that it can truly claim to hold the biggest and best arts festival in the world. We didn't end up seeing many shows because we wanted to see the city while we were there, but just being out on the streets during the festival was an experience in itself. Nowhere had I ever felt such a vibrant festival atmosphere. It was like being in Melbourne during the Comedy Festival but magnified by at least ten. The streets were littered with free performances and people dressed up in a wide variety of costumes vying for people's attentions as they promoted their shows. It's yet another thing from the trip that I'd love to see again.

We met up with Scottie and Marcus in Edinburgh and hung out a bit. We spent one of the days driving to Stirling to see the monument dedicated to William Wallace and that day spent on the road made me realise just what a beautiful place Scotland was. I was sad to leave after staying for such a short amount of time.

USA/Canada (again)

I'll keep this bit short so I actually have something to write about when I get back.

For what seems like the umpteenth time, I'm off to the USA and Canada at the end of the year. Outside of Australia and the Philippines, those two countries are where I've spent most of my life. "Adrian, why don't you go anywhere else?" is a common question I get asked. Answer: I have lots of friends and family I like to visit. That and there are lots of places I still want to see in that part of the world.

In fact, I've only had to book two hostel stays for the entire trip so far. Not counting the conference trip to San Diego last year, I think that's a record for me in any major trip. The down side is that visiting so many places in the space of a month (hint: I can't count all the stops using my fingers) costs a lot of money from all the transportation. The lots of snowboarding planned will also hurt the wallet. It's gearing up to be one of my most expensive odysseys yet, but at the same time I'm very much looking forward to it.

NaNoWriMo (again)

I'll save this one for last because it's actually the most relevant. I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the third year on the trot (side note: the performance of the website this year rocks). If you didn't know already, this is a month-long writing exercise that challenges would-be authors to complete at least 50,000 words of prose fiction.

I finished the first two times and one of the important lessons of the whole month is that if you think about your story too much instead of just writing what comes to your head then you will struggle. This happened to me the last two years and it's happening again to me now. I get too worried about what happens next that I actually end up writing very little at certain periods.

I'm confident of reaching the 50k milestone again this year, though. Just like I'm confident I can stop thinking too much about the other aspects of life, I predict that I will eventually put my faith in the story's ability to carry itself. (Wow, that came off as really corny.)

Final thought

Phew.

So there you go, some mildly refined not-overly-planned thoughts. For a while I was afraid of not being able to stick to a consistent structure in my blog posts. Oddly enough, thinking too much about it has led me to realise that I've been thinking too much about it. There need not be any structure. (As you may have noticed, there was some semblance of structure here, but not as much as the me of a few months ago would have liked. He can go to hell.)

I shall conclude this whole "I'm over-thinking it" babble by resolving to process my photos from Europe and post them up before I leave for the USA. I'll post them up when I have them done.

(Ironically, I probably won't blog much while overseas. I'll be bringing an iPhone (which I get next week) and doing any long form of blogging on a touch screen will drive me batty. I'll probably just tweet.)