Soundtrack: "Don't Sleep in the Subway, Darling" - Petula Clark




I went on a trip! To London and then to Ghent, Belgium. Hello, obligatory airplane shot.

In London I stayed with Craig, who you may remember as my gracious host from my last exciting
adventure in London. This whole trip was Craig's fault. He bought me a ticket to see Belle & Sebastian
play a special show at the Barbican Arts Center where they were gonna play "If You're Feeling Sinister"
in its entirety. It was part of a concert series where bands play their "best" albums. The week before,
the Lemonheads had played "It's A Shame About Ray." Can't believe I missed that one!
Anyhoo, I couldn't pass up this opportunity so off I went. Zillions of miles to see a band. Frivolous?
Perhaps!



So the first night I was there, Craig's housemate Tony was having a lovely, fancy dinner party complete
with gin & tonic in a can and a big brick of hash that somebody (I'm not saying who) smuggled in from
Amsterdam in his ass. (It wasn't me.) Mmm, ass-hash!



The after-effects of ass-hash.



Then Craig's friend took us to some house party of a friend of a friend that was frighteningly like a dorm
party complete with "bands" playing in someone's bedroom and a drunk girl slurring nonsense into a mike.



This kinda stuff was all over the house. I have no idea if it's ironic or not.



Belle & Sebastian! The show was awesome. Just... really awesome. I actually have nothing to say
about it.



Met up with Oliver and his friend Ben and ran about town trying to find Oliver some swimwear for his
trip to Greece the next day. Sadly, Ralph Lauren and Commes de Garcon were fresh outta trunks.



Then I got to see the most fabulous part of London, a magical place called Fulham with an even more
magical house in it called Mob Warfare.


Nick and Oliver



Cutest kid ever



Blackness



The next day I went to see Oliver and Nick's show at Serpentine. It was well gully, as the kids say.



Then I met up with Meredith and David before going to Trash where David's band Soulwax was
playing that night.



Trash was so insanely crowded.



Too crowded to run around and try to take pictures of cute kids like I did last time.



Too crowded to go redhead spotting, even.



So we escaped backstage and Nancy was there. Wanna know how small the world is? I met Nancy
back in ye olde '90s when we worked at Index and back then she went out with Gavin, whose wedding I
recently attended, and now she goes out with Steph, David (Meredith's boyfriend)'s brother, who
is also in Soulwax. Weird right? It reminds me of mormons. I'm reading this book, Under The
Banner of Heaven, right now and it's all about mormonism and there's this one part where it's talking
about the polygamous fundamentalist mormons and how incest is so rampant that this one girl ended up
being HER OWN STEPGRANDMOTHER. Figure that one out!



In Meredith's hotel room.



Craig took me to an art opening in this big crumbly old mansion, and the art was just propped up in
all the different rooms. The dude's art is that he goes for long walks around London and then maps them
out and makes notes about how many pebbles got stuck in his shoes along the way.


    
Craig!                                                                                                Best London host ever!



I think it's really weird how you can drink anywhere in London, like even on buses. It's just odd.



So then Meredith and I hopped on the Eurostar and headed to her home in Ghent, Belgium.
We watched the new episode of Curb on the way..



And took moody train pictures of ourselves...


Heh heh.



Cute doggy toilet outside Meredith's house. Ghent is fun. It's a big university city so there are tons of
cute university students getting wasted everywhere and they all rides bikes. But for some reason there
is a high concentration of white-person dreadlocks. Is that like a weird euro-hippie thing or what?
Also, on a side note, my mom was born in Belgium. In Brussels. But oddly, she's not Belgian, she's
Czechoslovakian. Hmm.


   
The first place we went was this bar called t'Velootje (but Meredith just calls it "Bicycle Bicycle"). It's pitch black and full of shit hanging
everywhere. There's like rusty saws hanging over your head and piles of clothes everywhere. It's basically some crazy bearded guy's house.
(Found out later it's a toursit trap, damn. Still, what a tourist trap!)



The crazy bearded man served me jenever (a Belgian gin-like substance) in a tiny pig-shaped planter.



My second shot was served in a cat-shaped creamer. (note the piles of laundry in the background)



Outside Meredith's house.



There are kittens everywhere.



Meredith's house.



Hungry's house.



I basically could've stayed inside and been happy watching David's massive dvd collection the whole
time, but I forced myself to be a good tourist and do things like:



Eat a real Belgian waffle! (at a place that claims to have invented the Belgian waffle)



Eat Belgian chocolates! (I made sure I brought extra insulin.)



Make fun of the terrible sneakers that every single fucking European seems to wear!
(Seriously, eww!)



Marvel at Europe's lax attitude towards nudity!







This is a street called Graffiti Street which is the one street in Ghent where it is legal to graffiti. It smells
like fresh paint and pee.



Basically everything in Ghent looks like this. It's all medieval and stuff.



Those medieval people were pretty goth.

 

This is a 12th century castle smack dab in the middle of the city.
Inside is a torture museum which is pretty rad. Did you know they
had ball-gags all the way back in the middle ages? They called them
"Anxiety Pears."



The view from the top of the castle...
Thanks to Meredith for being my awesome tour guide. Dank u well! Nacht winkel!



So then I got back to New York on Sunday evening, ran home and threw my bags down and then ran
right back out to Coney Island to see if I could catch Belle & Sebastian playing at the Across the Narrows
festival. Kinda ironic considering I had just flown to London to see them a week earlier, huh? When I got
there they were already half done, and not wanting to waste $55 for 20 minutes, I stood outside the stadium
instead and watched them on the Jumbo-Tron. It was actually pretty rad, I got there just in time for "Boy
with the Arab Strap," "I'm A Cuckoo" amd "Judy and the Dream of Horses." Three of my faves! If you
wanna see actual pictures of the concert, cross-referencing is available here.



These are the other freeloaders I enjoyed the concert with.



Ah, home sweet home...



Tot Ziens!