Postcards from Far Away

I´ve been feeling badly recently regarding my lack of blogging on my travels. And by ´lack´ I of course mean I have yet to write anything. And I´ve been away since January! As someone who aspires to have a career in writing this is not great news.

It doesn´t help that every travelling Tom, Dick and Harry have also written blogs on a nearly daily basis, and have made a point of informing me of this regularly, suggesting that I ´check it out´. I don´t want to check it out. I barely know Mike from Scunthorpe, and I certainly don´t want to read his overly-flowery description of the hostel I´ve spent the last four weeks in. I´ve seen the iguanas too Mike.

But I fear my guilt-ridden bitterness is shining through...

The most annoying thing about all of this is I have probably written more in the last month or so than in the previous four combined. First and foremost there have been the numerous emails, text messages, BBM messages (some function on my Blackberry that I still don´t really understand...) and Facebook posts that I have used to communicate with loved ones back in Blighty.

I´ve also spent quite a fair bit of time writing in my travel journal - a black Moleskine notebook given to me for Christmas. I´ve become a bit obsessed with it actually, perhaps inspired by watching ´The Motorcycle Diaries´ just before I left. I don´t like to compare myself to Che Guevara, but if there´s any chance I one day become a famous author I have to make sure the diary of my travels reads well!

Still, this is the only old-fashioned way of charting my travels that I have so far used. The Internet has completely revolutionised the gap year. I thought I was escaping everything back home (trying to find myself etc.), but in some ways I feel like I´m just as plugged in to what is happening in London as I was when I was living there. And I haven´t even started on Skype. Not only can I speak to my family but I can see them too! Admittedly I had never used a webcam before so this had added wow-factor.

And so, in terms of practicality, it seems like the age of the postcard is over. Nevertheless, it is always nice to recieve a little token from someone´s adventures. I have my fingers crossed that the Costa Rican postal service sorts itself out soon...

Pukkelpop!

No one has ever heard of Pukkelpop, no one knows where it is, and no one has ever been. Yet myself and a few friends (Henry, Slutty, Ed and his little brother Alex) found ourselves at this obscure Belgian musical festival near the city of Hasselt this August. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. First of all I had never been to a music festival, but I was aware of the likes of Glastonbury, Leeds, Reading and Bestival. Even Exit in Serbia. This however, was a trip into the unknown.

When we arrived sweating on an overcrowded bus and were dumped in a dusty lay-by, my optimism over-shadowed the sense of dread that I should have been feeling. There were literally thousands of people everywhere. The Belgian police struggled to contain them as they spilled onto the four-lane road that handily dissected the festival from the camping area. As we queued to get into the dirty field that would be our home for the next four nights (a rather annoying ritual that would be repeated every time we wanted to go back to our tents) the sun bore down on our backs and by the time we could finally relax all of us were soaked through from our exertions.

Apparently 180,000 people visited over the three days we were there, which is not surprising. There were enormous queues for everything: the toilets, the showers (we only managed one the whole time we were there), and obviously to get into the arenas. The camping area was unlike anything I had ever seen. Tents were literally built on top of one another. It was so hard to find your way out of the tent city that had been hastily erected that every time we attempted it one of us would have to ‘run point’, picking a suitable route for the others to follow. All of us, needless to say, were useless at this and so there were numerous incidences of us stumbling over other tents and people, typically couples. One particularly funny moment saw Henry, as one of the elder statesmen, explaining to the somewhat naïve Alex that sometimes all you needed to do was to jump over the tough-looking stretches. This was inevitably followed by him attempting to do so, landing in a pool of mud and falling flat on his back. Whilst I am not a fan of camping, this ordeal was a small price to pay for the overall fun that we had at the festival. Here is my verdict on the acts we saw:

• The Maccabees – I found myself surprised by how much I liked their music. Special points for enthusiasm to the guitarist (Felix White) who threw himself about the stage like he was headlining Glastonbury despite actually playing to about 300 hungover people at eleven o’clock in the morning.
• The Twang – entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. I must admit I had actually bought a song by them before, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again. I had thought they were a young indie-pop group, but they were actually two mental, fairly old guys from Birmingham who thought they were the Gallagher brothers. One of them couldn’t sing and kept on doing the ‘come and ‘ave it’ gesture, whilst the other one retired at one point to get a whisky. They weren’t good enough to justify such rock’n’roll behaviour.
• Bon Iver – I had to drag my friends to this one, and was thoroughly rewarded. Justin Vernon’s voice is just as pained live as it is on the record, and it was amazing to see how all four members of the band harmonised. Henry got particularly emotional when the crowd repeatedly sung the line ‘What might have been lost’ from ‘Wolves’. Lovely stuff.
• Dizzee Rascal – we struck grimy gold with this one. The London MC followed Bon Iver meaning that all the indie fans couldn’t get out of the arena fast enough and we found ourselves at the very front. To make things even better he climbed on top of Ed and we got to touch his torso whilst he sang one of his hits. He is also an especially entertaining performer who had the entire crowd jumping throughout, despite the fact it was said to be somewhere in the region of 38˚. The best act we saw at Pukkelpop.
• La Roux – went down a right treat with the Belgians. Elly Jackson didn’t even attempt to sing the chorus of ‘Bulletproof’. She also smiles a lot more than you would expect, and looked genuinely touched by the adoration of the Flemish public.
• Faith No More – Alex quite literally dragged us to this one. We’d never heard of them but apparently they used to be quite big. Fairly average, but there was one entertaining moment when a fan got onto the stage and jumped off straight into a barrier. Someone should also tell the lead singer not to wear a peachy shirt and trousers combo. Their songs were so dire that we instead started singing along to Alicia Keys’ ‘Falling’, to the annoyance of the Belgian rock fans around us.
• The Ting Tings – worked the crowd well and impressed me with their playing of various different instruments, often at the same time. Better than I thought they’d be, but I still don’t know what her name is.
• Snow Patrol – the lead singer graciously chatted to the crowd a lot, but there was something quite irritating in the manner with which he did it (as if he knew they loved him). THEY DIDN’T PLAY ‘RUN’.
• Jack Peñate – a brilliant performer. He also has more hits than I’d realised. And he spat on us!
• Rusko – Henry’s dubstep recommendation. Great fun, but mostly because it was in a tiny heaving tent where we all got split up (I climbed up into the stands whilst Henry and Ed were carried away by security).
• 50 Cent – dire. Also, the members of G-Unit swear too much.
• N.E.R.D. – can’t actually remember much of this. I don’t think I was too impressed though.
• Arctic Monkeys – I really wanted to like them, but they were atrocious. Firstly they were awful performers, not saying anything and just standing there strumming their guitars. They were really, really boring and the majority of the songs they played were b-sides or ones from their then yet-to-be-released album. I think they were probably good if you knew all of their songs, Slutty certainly enjoyed it. People have since told me that they’re just shy and don’t like performing, but to me it looked like they just couldn’t be bothered to make an effort. It was a shame they were the last act we saw.

All in all though it was a thoroughly enjoyable few days and it was with sadness that we arose at five in the morning, after a couple of hours of sleep, to drive back to Bruges. To his credit Ed only fell asleep at the wheel once.

Cultural Lads on Tour: Bruges, Belgium

Belgium is a country I have never before considered going to. In fact, prior to my trip there last week, I lived in a state of blissful ignorance with regards to all things Flemish. The reason for the trip then was absolutely nothing to do with me, but it turned out to be a highly fulfilling experience. The architect of this little week-long adventure was my good friend Lawrence ‘Slutty’ Mason (a well-earned if slightly ironic nickname). For a while my friends from school and I have wanted to go on holiday together, partly because we were getting sick of London, but also somewhat because of desires to emulate other people of our own age who have been going on ‘lad’s tours’ since they were 15. We decided it was time to break loose from our self-imposed chains and actually attempt to do something fun in someplace other than our well-traversed small section of South East London. Whilst most people our age are heading to Ibiza, Magaluf and other such Brit-friendly destinations, it was decided almost immediately that Belgium was to be the location of our holiday. The ultimate aim of our journey was to reach a music festival with the catchy title of Pukkelpop, but Belgium was also an obvious choice because Slutty’s mother is Belgian, and his dad handily happens to write tourist guides on the country.

Before the festival we decided to spend a night in Bruges. This, it has to be said, was almost entirely due to our love of the film ‘In Bruges’, but it nevertheless happened to be a wise choice. Arriving at the train station it is apparent from the start that Bruges is very touristy, but is also a city with an incredibly relaxed feel. Furthermore, if you venture anywhere outside the immediate centre (around the Markt and the Burg squares) you are hard-pushed to find anyone other than a few gently strolling locals and the odd swan. It was safe to say we were impressed from the start.

After dropping our belongings at the youth hostel we had booked (the American-themed ‘Charlie Rockets’) we set out into the heart of the town accompanied by our pocket student guide and an eastender named James who was staying in our room (he had been abandoned by his travel companion in favour of a visit to a girl in Rotterdam). After the journey from London we were all fairly tired and so decided to leave to majority of the sightseeing for the next day whilst we sampled that famous Belgian speciality – beer. We visited several recommended bars and pubs (including De Garre, which made its own 9% beer), had some 3 Euros spaghetti and eventually settled in Brugs Beertje, a pub with 300 different types of Belgian beer. The night progressed so well that at one point we were having a heated discussion with some English ex-pats who lived in Cyprus about the merits of various beers, including ‘Kwak’, a strange-concoction that came in a weird test tube-like glass. This was absolutely ludicrous considering normally I find it hard to distinguish between a Carlsberg and a Guinness, but it was most definitely a lot of fun. I can however now refute the laughable promises that Belgian beer doesn’t result in a hangover.

Before we had to get the train to Hasselt for the festival I made three crucial observations about Bruges that would prove, mostly, to also account for Belgian as a whole. Firstly Belgian beer is not anything like English beer. It comes in much smaller glasses, but it is far stronger than anything I had tasted back home (with the exception of Special Brew). At one horrific point we found ourselves drinking an 11% concoction. Secondly, like the Netherlands, everyone speaks fantastic English. This was helpful for us, but did leave me feeling a little guilty at our own feeble grasp of foreign languages as a country. The third, and most important observation, was that Bruges was full of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. I was also surprised by how well-dressed they were, characteristics I would normally associate with the French or the Italians. Sitting in the train station resembled being at a fashion show, as beauty after beauty sidled past us. I realise this may sound a bit desperate and perverted, but it honestly was shocking to see so many pretty people in one place. Linked to this observation can be made the point that if you see a woman on a bicycle in Bruges she will, by definition, take your breath away.

Lawrence and I later returned to Bruges after the festival when we explored the medieval city to a greater extent. Whilst the main attractions (the ones that were also visited in the film) such as climbing the Belfry and seeing the relic of the Holy Blood were interesting, we were both in agreement that simply wondering around the canals was the most fulfilling way of spending our time. The area to the south of Bruges around Minnewater was the most scenic. Beautiful parks, a range of different bridges and stunning buildings assault your senses from every direction. The beauty of Bruges is also that it is quite small, so these attractions were a mere ten minute walk from the centre of town. Compared to the hustle and bustle of Ghent, Bruges is a far more relaxing and aesthetically-pleasing city with arguably more on offer to see than its larger sibling. Its size does however limit the amount of time required to make the most of it, but means that as a weekend-break destination it is hard to beat.