Posted on July 10.

Sorry it's taken me so long to update, as a result this post may be long. Be warned.

So.

I spent a good week in the UK resting up before heading to the festival in Belgium. I dropped off a few resumes and (hopefully) got some interviews lined up now that I'm back.

Thierry and I made shirts for the 4 of us coming from Portsmouth (Me, Thierry, Simon, and Colin). On the front they said "Got Tent?" with a picture of a tent (a parody on the old got milk ads) and on the back it had our names, country flag, the couchsurfing emblem and the saying "Making Werchter a better place, one tent at a time". This came from the couchsurfing saying "Making the world a better place, one couch at a time".

On July 2, I headed off with Thierry and Simon (both couchsurfers) to roadtrip to Brussels. We drove from Portsmouth to Dover then took the ferry to Calais. From there we drove on to Brussels to stay with some friends of Thierry's for the night before heading to the festival.

We did some shopping to provision ourselves for the following 4 days (8 crates of beer between 5 and some food) and then headed out to the festival. The festival was being held in a small town about 40Kms East of Brussels called Werchter. It's been going on for 35 years now or something.

We arrived and met up with some of Thierry's friends and a bunch of couchsurfers and proceeded to set up camp. All in all there were about 40 of us which was pretty cool.

The festival itself was amazing. There was music from noon until about 2AM over two stages, a big stage for the larger bands and a smaller marquee for up and coming bands. There were a few conflicts deciding what you wanted to see but overall it wasn't too bad. Drinks were reasonably expensive at the festival but if you collected 20 plastic glasses you could trade them in for a free drink so I did a lot of collecting.

A couple bands I would recommend that you may not have heard of:

The Editors - From England I think, check out "Munich" and "Bullets"
The Kaiser Chiefs - One of the best bands of the show "Ruby" "I Predict a Riot" "Everyday I love you less and less"
Kate Nash - Not normally my kind of music but look at "Mouthwash" and "Foundations"

There was lots of dancing, lots of drinking and lots of people! I made my way up front for Radiohead (arguably the biggest band that played there) until I was 3 rows back from the stage and I can see how people die sometime at these types of things. It was honestly so packed I couldn't move. If I had wanted to get out I wouldn't have been able to. There was a girl next to me who fainted and I had to get some guys to help me lift her up so she could be crowdsurfed out. It was crazy. It got so hot that security started passing out waterbottles that were passed back to hydrate people. When the band played you didn't really dance yourself so much as the crowd danced and moved you along with it. Which was kind of a cool experience too I suppose.

It was seriously awesome overall though. All too soon it was over. It would be easy to get used to going to concerts everyday. Monday morning we packed up and headed back out. I had planned to catch a ferry from Le Havre (in France going directly to Portsmouth) but wasn't going to be able to hitchhike all the way there in one day so I organized to spend one night in Paris before going to Le Havre on Tuesday. It's weird to think of Paris as a city and not as "Paris" if that makes any sense.

En route from Brussels I got a ride with a really cool couple who were shooting a documentary. They'd been in Algeria the day before and had driven all through the night to get to Brussels. The man had been doing all the driving though because the woman only had her learners license. She had been driving for the last 20 Kms though and when she pulled in to get gas, hit the curb and got a flat tire. When I asked if I could get a ride with them the man asked if I knew how to drive and when I gave him the affirmative handed me the keys and went to sleep in the back seat. So I drove 200Kms to Paris.

Tuesday I hitchhiked to Le Havre and took the FIVE AND A HALF hour ferry (ugh) to Portsmouth. Wednesday was spent sleeping and recovering because I think I'm getting a little sick. Today I'm going to print off some more resumes and go job hunting again. I think. I might put it off until tomorrow.

Lots of new pictures up HERE.

Posted on June 4.


My last few days in Paris were really fun. The weather got a little better as well which always helps. On Friday, I met some fellow Canadians and wandered around with them for a bit. It was nice to talk in English for once! Afterwards I met a Parisien girl for a coffee and had some great conversations. This is what I love about couchsurfing, you meet so many cool people!

On Saturday an American girl living in Germany, Clarissa, came to stay with my couchsurfing host. My host, Norbert, had a friend who gave city tours so we went out and got a brief history of downtown Paris which was really interesting. That night we went out to a concert (small one) with Clarissa and had a great time. I spent too much money though, as I said before Paris is a little pricey. Sunday Clarissa and I explored around Paris seeing some of the big touristy stuff I hadn´t seen yet and just enjoying ourselves.

On Monday I hitchhiked to Lille (north of France) with the intention of heading through Belgium the following day. After, the plan was to go on to Holland where I have a friend I wanted to visit. I got a message from Ernest, my dutch friend, though suggesting that I come earlier because they were having a huge party. So I figured why not? Lille was kinda cool but I didn't really have much time to spend there and set of early the next day for Holland.

I arrived in Wageningen (small dutch student town) in the afternoon and was able to help set up for the party. The house where Ernest lives is really neat. There are 9 roommates in a big old house but it's more like a little family than just living with other students. They frequently eat together, there are photos of the group of them all over the house and they act like very family-like towards each other. I was almost a little jealous.

Man though, Dutch people know how to party. We had about 60 cases of beer (24 beer in a case), 100 bottles of wine and a cocktail bar. They had put up advertising around town and had rented music equipment, lights and all sorts of stuff. Before the party actually got started, all the neighbors had been invited over for a free drink in hopes that they didn't call the police. It was cool seeing a little 80 year old woman show up with a bottle of Czech alcohol as a present, have a beer and talk chat with the young people and then head home to try and sleep. Hah, good luck.

People started showing up around 9 and the party went until probably 5:30 or so. I've never danced to much in my life. Naturally though, this morning there was a bit of cleaning up to do.

Today I'm going to take it easy, relax a bit and hopefully figure out my plans for the next week or so.

For now though I'm hungry...


Oh, new pictures can be found HERE.

Posted May 31.

So I spent a couple days in Bordeaux with an awesome couchsurfing host. He was really laidback and we got on really well together. It rained most of the time I was in Bordeaux which kinda sucked but it was still a really pretty city.

On Wednesday I headed to Paris and hitchhiked the whole way! I was quite proud of myself. My hosts here so far have been great and it was actually sunny one day!

On Thursday I went to see the Louvre (very, very big) and the Mona Lisa (very, very small). I ended up meeting an American girl and we explored around Paris, got a bottle of wine when it started to rain and enjoyed it under a tree in the park.

It IS really expensive here though. For example, a CAN of coke in a cafe will cost you about 5CAD. Ugh. Wine is about the only inexpensive thing.

I'm thinking of spending the next couple days around here then heading towards Belgium on Monday.

We'll see.