Photos!

I uploaded more pictures, a double-shot in fact! That's right, please remain calm.

I made an album of Belgium, and one of my two recent trips through the Netherlands.

Click the above links, or just use the ones on the right, as always.

A Proper Welcome

Border crossings, airports, train stations, etc. all offer a great opportunity to make a good first impression with travelers. I had the good fortune to enter Belgium via the Antwerp train station.

Take a look at that photo (not mine). After gathering my bags, brushing past people in their seats traveling onward, and turning out the door, this sight really impressed the hell out of me. It was Gothic, it was beautiful, it was spacious, it had a lot of high windows.

It did what most cathedrals aim to but often fail to do - it made me stop, catch my breath, crane my neck backwards and stare reverentially upwards saying "ho-ly shit".

And I wasn't the only one. Travelers, people generally keen to get the hell out of a train station, were dropping their bags and snapping pictures all over the place. It's a grand welcome, and great way to set the tone for a visit to a beautiful city.

When I entered China through Laos, the Chinese border control station was almost equally sublime, mainly because of the contrast it represented from Laos. The Chinese surely know how to flaunt their wealth over their poorer, less developed neighbors.

Take a look:



Sure, it's just a normal building right? Don't forget how relative the word "normal" is. Laos doesn't have a single skyscraper in the country. They don't have trains. The lovely capital city might as well be a village.

It took a day an a half on semi-paved roads to get from Vientiane to this border post. In Laos, the "highway" is a two-lane road that winds up and around mountains. Villages along the road were literally along the road: their depth was one house deep and the houses were built on the shoulder. You could see people bathing at the public spigots.

Then you get to China where the roads - fully paved, multi-lane roads - go through mountains instead of around them, where the border post is full of glass, natural light, and swooping roofs. It's a statement.

BEER!

The beer started getting really good roundabouts Prague. There started to be more body to the beer, more flavor, and a hell of a lot more options. I'm no beer snob: I drank Hite, Cass, and Max for two years. But after two and a half years of quantity in Asia, a guy can need some quality in his life.

I had some beer in Brno at the gothstel I stayed at, but I don't remember what it was or how good it was. Like I said, I'm not picky. I have neither the palate or terminology to discriminate a whole lot between beer.

My second day in Prague I went to the Czech Beer Festival with Paul and Brian. To be honest, I thought it would be a bit more showy and built up considering it was one of the biggest beer festivals in a country famous for beer.

There were four or five huge tents set up behind a small amusement park at the end of the red line. There were families, people with dogs, cover bands that sounded exactly like The Shark, and groups of rowdy Brits, but a lot of the tables were empty. It was also mid-afternoon.

The beer was substantial, and there were plenty of selections. Each tent had about a dozen on tap.

In Hannover, I think I mainly drank sparkling wine and juice that I was fed by a clutch of drunk Finnish students in town for a wood-technology exposition. Not what you'd expect in Germany, but hey, it was free. Besides, Belgium is supposed to be the beer country. Unless you ask the Polish, the Czechs, or the Germans.

Holland actually had some pretty good beer. It certainly wasn't Heineken or the generic Beer brand beer that was special, but Andy and I did get some good stuff.

I drank the zatte and the struis at the de Gooyer windmill brewpub. In Alkmaar, our CouchSurfer host Martine brought us to a pub with a big selection of Dutch craft beer. The pub, pictured at top, is underneath a beer museum. Andy and I went in during the day, but after being handed a ring of pages with translated captions and explanations, I couldn't bring myself to look at all the dioramas and photos and gave up and got my money back.

Belgian beer is indeed a thing to be cherished. Even an amateur palate such as mine can tell. We were taken out by Mieke, another host, to an interesting trio of bars in Antwerp.

First was Pelgrom, a cozy dungeon with low curving brick ceilings where I drank a Westmalle Tripel.

Next up was The 11th Commandment, bar that was fucking jam-packed with statues of Jesus, Mary, saints, and the rest of the crew. I was tickled by so many people getting drunk surrounded by so many religious images. The Rochefort 8 tasted especially good with an atmosphere of sacrilege. The 11th commandment, by the way, was to have fun. This is according to the bar, and basically contrary to the general idea of the first ten as far as I'm concerned.

Last was a more run-of-the-mill pub whose name translated to The Monk's Little Keg. Come to think of it, drinking very strong beer in the presence of piety might not be so sacrilegious considering monks make the best beer. This bar certainly had the largest beer list of the places we went.

The bad news is that it may be all downhill from Belgium. The good news is that I'm still in Belgium.