Europe 2010/11 first leg: England and Belgium

I just had a look at the date of my last post. Here is an attempt to make up for the lack of blogging. In case you hadn't already guessed from the title, my latest travel adventure is, once again, Europe.

No sleep til London

Departure day began with me lacking sleep. I had had a coffee-based stout the night before and woke up feeling like I drank ten espressos just before trying to sleep. It was pre-jetlag jetlag. I didn't feel like doing anything even though I had a list of things I wanted to sort out (e.g. photos from the Muse and Gorillaz concerts) before leaving on holidays for a month. The ideal solution to my zombie-like state would have been to sit and watch the Ashes all day, but the Aussies were going so badly in the Boxing Day test match that I just couldn't be bothered. Vague plans to see a movie fell through as I moved too slowly to catch the bus into the city. I just sat in front of my computer, chatting away, waiting for the inevitable.

Things didn't get much better when I got to the airport. After checking in, my grand plan was to make a beeline to Pie Face and get a stack (a pie topped with mash potato, mushy peas and gravy), but the man behind the counter informed me that they weren't doing stacks. I ate a regular pie out of a cardboard pie-holder, designed for a cleaner experience, but in reality ended messier than the previous, simpler paper arrangement. By this point, I just wanted to board the plane and get it over with.

The odd anxiety I had been experiencing in the lead-up to the trip was allayed before the plane took off. There was a young couple next to me who spoke, I think, Italian. Not only did they speak it but they spoke it loudly, especially the man. He was so expressive - complete with hand gestures - when talking to his partner that even if it was an argument (I could not tell since I speak no word of Italian) it would have been the most beautiful argument I had ever witnessed. Despite the constant talking throughout the flight becoming more annoying than anything, it did reassure me that my passion for travel was completely justified - that I went to new places so that not only would I see beautiful sights, but would also experience those differences both major and idiosyncratic.

A good time, not a long time

I would have hit the ground running had I not arrived in London at 6:30 in the morning. Even though it took an hour and a half to get to the hostel from Heathrow airport, it was still too early for much to be open. I decided to have an English breakfast at a pub before starting the day.

I got to the Tower of London just before 10:30, and was glad that I did. The crowds were still slowly shuffling in so there were people there, but it wasn't too busy. The highlight for me was seeing the Crown Jewels on display. It was both impressive and also a disturbing example of the excess that the royals were/are involved in. When I exited the gallery the queue to get in to see the Crown Jewels was starting to build up. I explored more of the Tower of London and by the end of it - probably an hour or so after I had arrived - the queue to see the Crown Jewels had snaked well towards the entrance.

Pro tip: If you want to visit the Tower of London, get there as early as possible.

Next up for me was Greenwich. My two main goals were seeing the Prime Meridian and having a stopover at the Old Brewery, run by the Meantime brewing company. The former was easy enough.

Despite the small hike up the hill to the Royal Observatory, it was straightforward and not difficult to find. The crowd surrounding the the Prime Meridian was just getting busy as I got there as everybody wanted a photo at the point that marked 0°00′00″ longtitude. I managed to get a quick photo with no people there then decided I'd head back towards Greenwich for a pint before officially checking into the hostel.

The pint became a half pint. I had a walk around the old naval college that was now Greenwich University hoping I'd come across the Old Brewery, but I ended up straying far from the mark, completely missing the pub right next to where I was near the start of the stroll. And so, once I finally got to the bar, I was so exhausted from all the walking that I figured a half pint would do me before having a rest at the hostel.

The truth is I was so exhausted I could have slept for five days straight after the restless start of the trip, but I could only afford over an hour before heading out once more. I got lost a bit heading to my tube station, but eventually I caught up with Mark at the White Horse on Parsons Green, a pub that was a little out of the way but worth the trip for the impressive tap and bottle list.

Adrian vs European city planning

After a quick one day stopover in England, my next destination would be Brussels, where I would spend new year's eve (and a bit of new year's day). I had some time and British pounds to spare when I got to Heathrow so I popped into Plane Food, a Gordon Ramsay-owned restaurant. The steak there was delicious.

The thing about European cities is that they were planned differently to modern cities. Of particular importance in my case, many modern cities in the western world are built on a grid layout, making it easy for one to find locations by their address. Not so in old European cities. This adds to their charm, but also confuses the hell out of someone with a bad sense of direction, e.g. me. With that preamble, I launch into my adventures in mainland Europe.

My French training (I have been learning the language for one year) instantly failed as I forgot how to ask for a ticket from Brussels airport to the city. I had to resort to English. My morale was further dampened by two things. The first was the weather, which was more of the same as England, perhaps a bit colder (and with some snow still on the ground). The second was my sense of direction (or lack thereof) combined with an inability to follow written directions.

I spent almost an hour walking back and forth (sometimes backtracking to streets I hadn't actually come from) looking for my hostel before I realised that the directions that came with my hostel booking were actually very helpful. I checked in to find my room devoid of people, which was a shame because I was hoping to socialise a bit. The main lounge room was also empty, and the hostel bar had not yet opened.

I went to the city (I only got marginally lost this time!) to visit Delirium, a beer bar, and to get some food. Unfortunately, I remembered too late that I didn't really like Delirium that much. It was too much of a local youth hangout as opposed to a place where you would find a lot of craft beer lovers. A lot of the people were smoking, which killed my nose, and I only stayed for a drink before moving on. The only consolation is that I got a kebab with fries inside, one of my favourite fast food options in Europe.

The hostel bar was open when I got back, but it was still dead, so I decided to call it a night and hoped the next day would be better. Little did I know that my impressive streak of getting lost was to continue. Despite a shaky start to the day, it was by far more enjoyable than my first day in the city.

I woke up early and began the day with a self-guided tour of the city, which would lead to the Cantillon brewery. Most of the directions were easy enough to follow, and it was a nice and informative (albeit cold) tour of some of the city's history. Things went pear-shaped towards the end when I misread the instructions and map and went down one street instead of another. This lead me far from where I was meant to be going. Despite this, I arrived at the brewery when it was still pretty early.

Cantillon is the last remaining brewery in Brussels that still brew to traditional methods - that is, they still use the same brewing methods that were used when they first started in 1900. When I finally found the brewery, it was in an unassuming old warehouse in the Anderlecht municipality. They are one of few breweries in Belgium and, indeed, the world that brew a type of beer called Lambic, which are fermented spontaneously with wild yeast from the air as opposed to the controlled addition of yeast to begin fermentation. The resulting beer tends to be unfermented, and are most commonly used to produce their other commercial beers, such as the Geueze (a blend of Lambics from three different vintages), Kriek (Lambic blended with cherries), and Framboise (Lambic blended with raspberries). They are generally sour (some intensely so), a unique taste in the world of beer. I've recently begun to really appreciate the style, the sour acidity doubling as a palate cleanser, and it was a treat to see Cantillon's brewery much like it was more than a hundred years ago. I also tried a few of their beers on offer, and picked up a couple of bottles for later in the trip.

Foggy memory

Delirium the previous night was still in my mind, and I didn't want a repeat of the experience. I researched a bit on the Internet and read about a place named Chez Moeder Lambic. I had come across it as part of the walking tour to Cantillon (and, indeed, it was recommended as a half-way pit-stop in the tour notes) so I made it the venue for my late lunch.

I found the place to be fantastic, with 40 taps of beers I mostly hadn't even heard of, and 6 Lambics on hand pulled casks. A venue with so many beers on tap runs the risk of being quantity over quality, but the beers at Moeder Lambic delivered. The atmosphere was much more relaxed compared to Delirium - it wasn't packed, and they also had a no smoking policy, which was great. I also got to talking with an American couple at the bar, and we ended up wandering around the city for the rest of the day.

We had no idea what to do for dinner or for the new year countdown, but we had a lot of time on our hands. Dinner turned out to be kebabs. We were pushed into buying a dish instead of a traditional wrapped kebab, and the 7 euro portion was far too much for any of us. Each of us a bit fatter, we headed to another beer bar (Moeder Lambic closed early for the night). To kill time, we came up with the idea to play categories. After a few false starts, we settled on actors as a category. One actor was on the tip of our tongues for most of the rest of the night, the actor who played George Constanza in Seinfeld. We were afraid 2011 would roll around before we remembered his name. Mercifully, we collectively came up with Jason Alexander just over an hour before midnight.

It was nigh impossible to move around in the main square, so we went to another area to watch the fireworks. At around this time, the fog had rolled in and visibility was getting low. It was unfortunate that the sky was not clear when the fireworks finally went off at midnight, but the fog and cloud cover also resulted in the interesting effect of the entire sky flashing different colours as different fireworks exploded. There were also many people letting off their own fireworks in the area where we were watching the fireworks, which reminded me a lot of my childhood in the Philippines (albeit a lot more sedate).

As the fireworks were dying down, I parted ways with the Americans after exchanging the details and wishing each other a happy new year and an enjoyable trip. As if to signify an interesting year ahead, I came back to the hostel to find the room close to being trashed, with the two top bunk bed mattresses being inelegantly thrown onto the floor along with a few pieces of luggage. A couple of hours of sleep later, my (presumably drunk) dorm cohabitants came home making all manner of ruckus in a vain attempt to avoid waking the only person sleeping in the room. I lay there silently, not complaining - I had had a good day, and a good year.

First leg overview

Cities: London (1 night), Brussels (2 nights)
Weather: Cold and overcast, some fog
Impressive breweries/pubs visited: 3
Times lost in the streets: 5

I've also noticed some outstanding maintenance issues for the blog. I hope to get around to them when I return from my trip.