Birthday In Brussels

The weekend before my final exams was also my 21st birthday, and I'd be celebrating the birthday weekend in Brussels, Belgium with Samson, Dave, Cat, Anne, and Elodie. Back in January when Samson first came to visit me, we both nonchalantly started looking up our favorite musicians to see if they would be touring in Europe while we happened to be there. I asked Samson, "Who are the top 3 jazz musicians you want to see before either you or they die?" When he posed the same question back to me, we realized we both wanted to see one musician really, really badly. The answer: Herbie Hancock. So we went online and typed in his name to see whether he would be touring in Europe anytime before August. Sure enough, and to our huge disbelief, Herbie had a European tour planned with none other than Chick Corea, legendary pianist (who also happens to be Samson's favorite). When we looked at concert dates which would work for both of us, we saw Herbie and Chick had a concert planned for July 5th (my birthday) in Brussels. Completely blown away with the opportunity that fell into our laps, we checked the website everyday until the tickets were sold to the public. I'm pretty sure Samson and I bought the first tickets to the venue, as you'll find out later.

The plan was to always meet up in Brussels just for the concert, but as other plans started to develop, and the idea that the first weekend of July would be the last "academic-free" weekend of our year abroad, Dave, Cat, Anne, and Elodie jumped on board to make it into a weekend trip. I found a camping spot in Brussels so that we could bring our tents and hang out (turned out to be the only campsite in the whole city), and found some cheap bus tickets round trip from Cologne (round trip costs for bus fair came out to about $2.50) to start cutting costs since it was the end of the year and our 'fun money' reserves were hurtin'. We arrived on Friday around noon and spent the rest of the day walking around the city, seeing old sights from our first trip to the city, and getting some classic French fries from Antoine's, the premier fries food stand in the city. Samson and his mom, who flew over from Baton Rouge for a Euro-tour, were arriving in from Rome where they spent the past few days playing tourist there. We agreed prior to meet up at the Starbucks near Grand Place, and as soon as we got wifi we coordinated a time. When we finally made our way from the other side of Brussels to Grand Place to meet up, we exchanged huge hugs and caught each other up on all of our stories since last seeing each other. Dave and I had seen Samson about 8 weeks prior in London when we went to the Flying Lotus concert together, but Cat, Anne, and Elodie hadn't seen him since...March maybe? We spent close to 3 hours on the patio of Starbucks talking and having fun. The barista, though, thought we were being too loud and at one point passively asked us to leave. We headed out to the Delirium Cafe for the night.

On Saturday we all boarded a train headed to Bruges, Belgium. This city was popularized by a movie called "In Bruges" (which I haven't seen but heard it's good), but was also recommended to us by our friend Arne. Arne grew up in Bruges and had nothing but great things to say about it. He even gave us all the tips for the city while we were there and said "If you get lost while there, just call me back in Germany and I'll help you out!" Well, we didn't get lost in the town, but I did take him up on his french fry sauce of choice: joppie sauce. Delicious!

Cobblestone alley in Bruges' center

View from the top of De Halve Maan Brewhouse

While there we toured a brewhouse and saw into the history of beer brewing, one of Belgium's pastimes. At the end of the tour we got a complimentary 8% beer to enjoy in the leather sofas of their lounge. We headed back to Brussels to regroup before heading out for the night.

At midnight, while walking through the cobblestone streets of central Brussels towards Grand Place, the "Happy Birthdays" from Elodie, Cat, and Anne filled the streets. I was officially 21 in Europe! Not that this birthday brought any special privileges that I couldn't already enjoy, it was still nice to be celebrating a birthday with friends, abroad. Funny enough, although 21 remains to be strictly a birthday with American importance (that is, you can now legally drink alcohol), Europeans still celebrate this birthday with as much gusto as their American counterparts. Not because it's special, not because it's divisible by 7 or 3 or some other reason, but because they find it funny the drinking age is so 'late' in the US. In Europe, it's celebrated almost satirically.

I spent the better part of the first four hours of my birthday in central Brussels before retiring to the campsite for some needed sleep. I woke up the next day and met up with Samson and his mom and toured the Atomium, spent two hours at a corner cafe which had a live jazz band playing covers of American jazz standards, and then dinner at a pasta restaurant before heading out to the concert with Samson.

The Atomium

Samson and I were ready for the show of our lifetime; we had front row seats to the concert! Even the act of walking through the small lines to the front, being ushered into the front-most door at the venue..it all just made for a great lead up to the actual performance. When Herbie and Chick stepped out the crowd erupted into applause. They joked with the crowd, took pictures, and then sat down in front of their pianos, which were positioned so that both could look each other in the eyes during the show. There were no charts. There wasn't anything planned prior. No set list. All they did was sit down, start playing off of each other, and let the fun begin. It was an absolutely fantastic show. Thanks parentals for the birthday gift! After the show, Samson and I stuck around to see if we could get pictures with them both. Neither of us had anything better to do that night, or the next morning, so we were content with waiting. Sure enough, after an hour they both came out and took pictures with anybody that had waited til the very end.

With Chick Corea!

With Herbie Hancock!

There aren't many musicians or artists out there that I'd be more excited to see live or get a picture with for that matter. But Chick and Herbie are up there near the top. A great birthday, a great birthday weekend, and a great time all around. Final exams were right around the corner and the 7 day countdown for leaving Bonn was on!

A Weekend in Madrid

Towards the end of June I flew down to Madrid to reunite with two of my old rock climbing friends, Guillermo and Isabel, from Bonn. I first met Guille and Isa back in October 2014 when I went to the local bouldering gym, Boulder's Habitat, for the first time. I wrote a blog post about it in October and still fondly remember my first outdoor climbing session in Luxembourg in mid-October. A few months after meeting Guille and Isa, sometime around the end of winter, both of them moved to Madrid to live closer to Isa's family so she could finish up her PhD (and Guille could, coincidentally, rock climb in some of the best locations in the world close to home). It was right before I was heading out for my own adventures in England, France, and South Africa, and I never got the full and proper "good bye" I wanted.

I found some round-trip Ryanair plane tickets for $60 (what a steal!!!) and planned a 4 day trip to just relax, climb, and hike in the mountains near their small village Manzanares El Real north of Madrid. Unfortunately when I arrived on Thursday Isa was a few hours away near Barcelona on a scholarship conference, but would be joining me and Guille on Saturday once she finished up. Arriving into the airport to meet Guille strangely reminded me of my first trip out of the country to Costa Rica. All the signs in Spanish, the excitement of being in a new country with a new language (which I kind of can get when it is slow enough)....it just flashed me back to the first time I left the country in the summer of 2013.

Guille and I met up and took the subways into Madrid where we boarded a bus which would take us into his village about an hour north, which was great because we had so much to catch each other up on since we last saw each other. Quiet and reserved, Guille is a great listener and was happy to have me babble on about my travels in South Africa and Namibia, starting Uni again, and riding my bike, but he was also due to catch me up on all of his new adventures living in Spain . We talked back and forth all the bus ride home as he pointed out certain features of the landscape zooming by: "We are driving towards this mountain range ahead, that's where Manzanares is." First impressions of Madrid/Manzanares: slow pace of life, hot hot HOT, lots of distance bikers riding along the highway, and very friendly people. It was a very strong and positive first impression.

Guille showed me into the house, which was small but homey. No air conditioning in the house but there were opened windows and awnings creating shade in front of the windows to keep the 100 degree heat out. The house was decorated with objects from both of Guille and Isa's travels from across the world, as well as a coffee table with an inlay of postcards from the places they've been to so far. Not to mention, the walls of the house were covered in pictures from their travels as well as wedding pictures (which happened to be about a year prior...Happy Anniversary!). The first night I arrived we just had a small meal of hashbrown potatoes and vegetables, made guacamole, and caught up even more over post-meal tea and chocolate.

On Friday morning we woke up and had a small spread of bread with different jams and butter, coffee, and mate tea for breakfast. As opposed to a traditional English (or Irish or American) breakfast which can seem at times larger than lunch portions, this (perhaps) typical breakfast of small proportions went slowly and was often interrupted with bits of conversation. After breakfast we headed out to Madrid's center, about 50 minutes away by car, so I could walk around the city, see the sights, and get a few things checked off the checklist. Guille was a great guide in putting together the itinerary, but he quickly admitted to me that he was a tourist in the city as well. I never quite got the sense that Madrid was a tourist capital (in my opinion, for the better) because there never was one "must-see" sight the way Paris, London, Barcelona, and many other European cities have.

Plaza Mayor, Madrid

The day by foot was HOT. Our relief came during a lunch break of tapas near the El Madrono (should be squiggly 'n') statue in Puerta del Sol. Guille and I ordered a tapa of salmon and guacamole and another with beef and honey.

Spanish tapas for lunch 

After sweating buckets, taking a siesta nap in a nearby park, and hitting almost all the sights in the city, we headed back home for a quiet evening of conversation, music, and final exam studying.

Saturday morning we woke up, I studied a bit, then we had another small breakfast of breads and jams before meeting up with Guille's friends Nacho and Britta (a climbing couple who used to live in Bonn..go figure) and Felix, a metalworker friend, to go rock climbing in a nearby hillside in the mountains near Manzanares. We had two climbing sessions broken up by a small coffee break at a nearby lodge, but by the end of the day we had spent about 10 hours outside hiking, climbing, and getting to know each other--well, me getting to know all of Guille's friends. Since I hadn't properly climbed in about 4 months, not only were my forearms and fingers not ready for the job, but also I lost all of my calluses on the palms of my hands. After the first route I busted 6 of my 10 fingers into a bloody mess, but made it to the top after many attempts.

Guille belaying Felix

We saw the sunset, at around 10:30 pm, from the top of one of the higher mountains in the area. We were hiking back down with emptied water bottles, taped fingers, and all the climbing supplies to the car, and Guille was leading the way since Isa was already back home waiting for us to come back from our day outdoors. We got back and I was greeted with a huge hug from Isa and a warm plate of dinner. It was probably the latest dinner I had eaten all year--11:30 pm, but it certainly felt earlier! Time flies when you're having fun. We caught up over dinner and she told me about her scholarship conference and the plans for tomorrow, where we'd be hiking La Pedriza and camping out under the stars.

My last full day in Spain was spent touring the village of Manzanares and seeing the big sight: el castillo (the castle). Isa and Guille showed me around other parts of the village too, and we even had a traditional Spanish lunch outside on the patio of the restaurant under an awning.

Castillo de Manzanares El Real

After lunch we headed home, packed up our things for our night of camping and afternoon of hiking and headed to the base of the mountain to start our hike. It was a short hike of about 2 hours, but we wanted to start later in the day once the peak heat period had passed. We hiked uphill two straight hours and took in the sights along the way. As we climbed, we got better and better views of the village down below, where the castle served as the reference point.

Once we made it to the top we found a flat patch of grass in the field for us to lay our heads for the night. Equipped with only sleeping bags and a camp stove (out of choice), we stashed our packs nearby, prepared our dinner of pasta and bread, and relaxed in the shade of the huge boulders as the water boiled. We told stories of past travels and future travel wishes, and I got quizzed by Guille for my upcoming final exam at Uni Bonn, taking place 18 hours after my plane landed. We slept on top of the mountain underneath the stars and an almost full moon with a slight breeze keeping the warm air moving. A few hours after drifting off into sleep I was awakened by horse sneezes......at which point I found out there were wild horses 30 or 40 feet away peacefully munching on grass. It was still hard to shake the idea that I could peacefully go back to sleep after knowing there were horses nearby looking for a midnight snack. The next morning we woke up, at which point Guille told us he pretty much slept with one eye open and one eye closed all night long with the horses nearby!

Me and Isa after summiting

Guille

We made it back down to Manzanares a-ok but after getting back I had to pack up my things; unfortunately it was time to head towards the airport for my flight back to Bonn. The time had passed so quickly but it was definitely well spent. I made some new friends ("If you ever come back to Spain, come visit us, you've got a free place to stay!"), did a bit of climbing (now on to nursing the wounds), a bit of hiking, and a bit of camping, all while being in the company of great friends.

Once I got back to Bonn I reflected on my time spent in Manzanares. 'Wish I had gone sooner,' was what I kept thinking. After this trip I started to really consider, and continue to consider, picking up Spanish again. I learned Spanish in middle and high school and used it a bit in Costa Rica, but for travel purposes, Spanish is a great language to know. Central and South America are untapped treasure troves of travelling, and getting a firm grip on the language is the best preparation. I also thought how great it would have been to study in Spain for a year. Germany is a great location to study, but Spain (or at least the tiny part I experienced for a few days) seems like a great location to live. The people, food, and culture, reminded me of home, oddly enough. I suppose another trip to Spain can't be discounted, and I look forward to returning there!