Hello. It’s 11:30 PM and I’m on a train from Antwerpen to Gent….via Brussels. I missed the last direct train to Gent by 5 minutes so, I now have to take a train to Brussels which is an hour out of the way in order to get back to my hotel. Then, I have to wake up early for work. My time in Europe has been better than the last. Each time I visit, life seems to get better. The time, the people and my experiences are profoundly better than the last. One of the factors is familiarity and the other is my fondness of trying new things and taking more risks. Ohhh. I just passed by the Duvel brewery. Very cool. Yeah, tonight was like any other night. I spent the evening drinking beers with strangers who I will now call friends. Beer and friendship are so closely tied that I can’t help but combine them both at every opportunity. It’s sort of why I am disappointed when people who also love beer don’t want to be my friend. I thought the two were one in the same but it turns out, beer lovers don’t make great friends every time. That’s okay. It’s sort of ilke enjoying sex and assuming all people who enjoy it are now your friends. This is preposterous.
So, this train. Well, I rushed to make it on the train. It was not easy. I will be home at 2AM which is also not nice. Tomorrow is full of meetings and I am happy about that. You will probably read this the day after since it’s actually 6PM where you are and it’ll be midnight by the time I publish it (your time). Trains are great for those of us who don’t have cars. If I had a car, I wouldn’t’ use the train. How very American of me. My time in Europe well, it’s hard to explain. I started in Amsterdam then to Gent Belgium and on to Brussels and then back to Gent. I spent a night in Antwerpen and, on Saturday I visit London. That’s not a bad time for 2 weeks. I find it time well spent. Also, work funds many of my travel expenses so the burden is far less. Exploring the world while working 10 hour days is a good deal when the entire bill is not all on you.
So, on to the evolution of my time here. On day 1, I adopt the language. Not, the words but the mannerisms and slang and boy language. It is engaged as soon as I step off the plane and I continue it even in this writing. While I’m in Europe, my mannerisms are a bit exaggerated. It’s annoying maybe to some who know I’m American but I like to think it makes things easier for those I engage with. I know what foods and cafes are preferred now and I have friends that I see who live in the cities I frequent. It’s as if I enter an alternative life. Imagine vacationing in Miami for 1 month a year every year. Eventually, you will meet people who you see every year. That’s how my European time has become. I am also adopting this pseudo guide like appearances around Americans. I find it’s not scary to walk up to women who are clearly American and give them local tips. Everyone knows I have no interest in flirting with women but, I do enjoy helping both sexes if they are tourists. I also feel it’s my duty to get the girls to stop drinking candy-fake Kriek and instead drink real Kriek so I often order them the real thing and then fill them with tips of the area.
Europe is no longer a stranger to me. To stay here for a year doesn’t seem unusual but I feel the act of going out every night would get old very fast. Wow. Already 700 words. Maybe I should wrap up this rambling.
I wanted to add that the majority of my stories, photos and adventures from this month will actually be going on my beer blog. If you are the sort of person (there are only 100 of you) who like to read my thoughts on things and hear entertaining stories, those will be posted on my beer blog. I’m desperately trying to keep both blogs with different content and, for the stories that directly relate to beer, I will be publishing those only on that site. There are readers of that blog (about 200 a day) that check in only for beer discussions and then the 100 a day on this blog that come here for updates on me. Following this trip, those two blogs are sort of having an identity crisis.
That’s all for now. Thanks for checking in and I hope you all are having a great week!