Paris

Well, right now I am sitting at a computer in my hostel drinking a reasonably priced Heineken.

For roughly 14 hours straight today I was doing one of 4 things:
1-Walking
2-Riding a train or metro
3-Climbing stairs
4-Looking at art

I am exhausted, but I managed to do pretty much all the super touristy things.

There should be more to write, but my brain is turning off. I will not sleep tonight, no, I think I will pass into a coma, and I'm alright with that. There are a few museums I'm going to try and do tomorrow, but any suggestions from anyone?

Also, I need a little help or ideas as to things that are cool and french. Not baggetes though, god hates baggettes.

I will be home in somewhere around 60ish hours. Wee. Sleep.

Sigh.

I turned right when I was supposed to go right...well there goes one day. I realized my mistake about 3 or so hours after I left and had put even more miles in between me and my desired desitination. Oh well. It got well over 30 degrees today and was stupidly muggy. Not a total waste of a day though, I found this awesome garden dealie, and found out that a lot of stores and resteraunts don´t open on Saturday, I have no clue why.

Uh yea... I was bored and my tv isn´t working at the now, and the interent makes me feel connected, so here I am.

In deviant art related news: A random guy gave my musical taste a 7.2 out of 10, I watch around 150 people, and in two months those 150 people have submitted almost 2000 peices of art, that I have yet to check, some girl from Romania thinks I´m cute, I somehow reached 3100 page views and Bisento still has better music than me. Damnit! (Bisento is a fellow music forum junkie from Australia who is incredibly awesome).

Yes, that is what I´ve resorted to talking about, Brussels is boring, and the bar could not seem less apealling right now.

This internet place (which is underground!) smells like Shawns old apartment, and is making me homesick, five days though! It will be good to talk again.µ

Saturday.

I would like to start by giving an over sized birthday shout out to my sister. Shes going to the science center and Im really jealous.

Whose coming to the science center with me?

For some reason Brussels is giving me bad vibes, or those are just my brain making bad vibes because itll make home seem that much better, it sounds weird but something my brain would totally do.

There are apparently more than a dozen museums and galleries in Brussels, I will maybe see five, and Im okay with that.

Instead of doing some scouting out of my surroundings or anything last night I watched the Talented Mr. Ripley. Holy crap I cant believe Ive never seen it before. That makes two really good movies in which people impersonate Jude Laws character. If you`ve never seen this movie or Gattica, I highly suggest both.

Thursday.

I cant find the apostrophy key!

DUDES! What do you in Brussels!? I have no clue!

Well now thats out of the way, how is everyone?

I am currently in Brussels, Belgium. Ive been here for roughtly 2 hours and am waiting to get into my hotel room, yes! My own room! And I dont have to leave tomorrow!

As far as languages go here there is a mixture of German, Dutch, Belgian French and broken English. It is very hard to know what to expect, and it rather confusing.

Seeing as how I have two entire days to do whatever in this city Im going to sleeeeep and enjoy my own space today, and have to worry about a dozen people coming in and out of my dorm room wanting to shower at ungodly hours. And my motivation is kind of running out, and Im getting more and more tierd by the day, and I need to be fresh for Paris, I have two and half days to do everything there, and buy stuff!

Well its time to eat and hopefully figure out some worth while things to do in this city.

HOT.

Hello folkses, how are we today? Good I hopes.

Well, I´m killing a day in Antwerp, and it shall be grand.

After a very long time I actually found my hostel, but that just made me appreciate it more and relish the shower, best one of my life.

I will be heading across the Atlantic once again [this will trans-atlantic flight number 4 in 4 months] in about a week, thats soon! But I miss ye all, and will glad to see you all again.

I am currently on listen number three of The Reminder! Weee! I have fallen in love with Feist all over again and now I definitely can´t wait the 3 and a half weeks till the concert! It is a HOT record.

Stephanie Campbell if you are reading this I have found your Belgian Counterpart. Seriously, it´s actually kind of scary.

I think I have dreamed of my hostel before, it´s painfully familiar.

As you can tell, I really don´t have much of substance to write just little thoughts.

That´s all for now, I think I´m going to catch up on some Brother hood 2.0, I´m a little behind.

I feel like a turtle

I´m in Antwerp, Belgium! Holy Crap! I didn´t even know this place existed a few days ago! But I bet the 461,000 people who live here did. I´m here waiting to go to Brussels and Paris. I really do have to wait, both of those cities are prqctically full, from a hostellers point of view anyways. And because of my wonderful father, I actually have places to stay. I owe him much.

Anyways.

In regards to amsterdam. I did a lot of complaining, but that was just me being a pity whore. But I´m in a much better mood now mostly because I can actually breathe through my nose again. I enjoyed amsterdam, but if I were to go back I would go with someone else.

The keyboards here are the weirdest I´ve encountered thus far. They are seriously messed up man. SERIOUSLY.

Well I´m off back into the sun and heat to hopefully find my hostel, and pray it´s not too far away.

This would normally becoming a lot later, but I need to look up the name of my hostel and was going to be paying for half an hour anyways.

S-s-s-something from the comments. Vapid [Aweome! I got to use the word vapid! I don´t even know if I´m using it right!] rumours have been flying about it being jesus who said it was a sad life. I don´t think this is true because he said it in Dutch first andwas smoking. I think we can all agree that Jesus is in fact not Dutch nor a smoker. CRISIS AVERTED.

I want to weigh my backpacks see how much weight I´m charting around.

Cioa.

Casiotones for the painfully alone.

Every step actually hurts and on the way back to the hostel a guy came up beside me and said,
'It's a sad life.'

Amsterdam.

The people who come here and live here like to party or smoke. I don't do either and starting doesn't either doesn't really appeal to me, also the only parties are pub crawls, and from what I've heard aren't that much fun, it's really just 40 overly drunk guys running around listening to shitty music.

So yea, my eta in Regina is getting bumped up again to the second or third. I'm getting more home sick by the day, and my cold isn't going away. Also, something other than an air mattress or bunk bed sounds AWESOME.

I miss my life and I want it back.

They really DO have mayonaise with fries.

It's actually pretty good.

So, I'm in Amsterdam. Weee. Sorry if I'm not overly enthused, it's just I'm still kind of sick, didn't have much sleep and haven't eaten much of substance, also, the veritable purple haze that is pretty much EVERYWHERE is giving me a headache. But, I am here and I have the rest of the day and two more days to fill, and I don't think I'll have much trouble.

I'm in a little internet cafe somewhere (hopefully) close to my hostel, I can't find it, I took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up lost, everything looks pretty much the same. I need a shower desperatly, man, how many times has that thought crossed my mind in the past two months...holy shit I've been gone for almost two months.

I had all these thoughts and musings about amsterdam, but as is my curse, unless I right them down at the time, they are gone...just that amsterdam, unlike many other places, is pretty much you hear it is and expect it to be. One thing people don't really tell you is that the city is gorgeous. Dozens of canals go through it, the trees and tall and pretty, the streets usually cobbled, the buildings old, high and brick, the cathedrals are gorgeous, and yet people just think of it as a party city. Which is true, and puts me a weird spot, I don't really party. Sure, this could be a good time to start, and may well be the start, but partying is busy work, and I am haunted by almost constant exhaustion. My mind is working way to hard to keep up with the fact that there is something utterly new each day and coupled with poor sleeping and eating habits, you lose gusto quickly. But enough complaining about being tierd, that's for when I get home.

I had some more things to say, but they left with my energy a few hours ago, maybe some m0re later, if I don't end up crashing listening to radiodread (I had to go to Holland to find it, but I did).

Later my home-ees. Word to thine mother.

the list.

I suggest reading the post before this first.

• Jesus
• JRR Tolkein
• Stephen King
• Anne McCaffery
• Owen Pallet
• Kevin Drew
• Bredan Canning
• Leslie Feist
• Amy Millan
• Emily Haines
• Ben Lee
• Sufjan Stevens
• Meagan McCafferty
• JK Rowling
• Ze Frank
• Ryan North
• Natalie + Drew
• Jeph Jaques
• Nobou Utmestu
• The FF andDBZ people (names unknown)
• Dallas Green
• Gordon Lightfoot
• James Hetfield
• Douglas Coupland
• Tim Burton
• Quentain Tarintino
• Thom Yorke
• Bill Murray
• Sophia Coppalo
• Kevin Spacey
• Chester Benington
• Hank + John Green
• Miranda July
• Uma Thurman
• Chad Kroeger
• The Goo Goo Dolls
• Hawksley Workman
• Sarah Slean
• John Stewart
• Stephen Colbert
• Al Gore
• Matt Stone
• Trey Parker
• Micheal Moore
• Johnny Cash
• Eric Clapton
• Kurt Cobain
• Billy Joe Armstrong
• Billy Corgan
• The Beatles
• Zach Braff
• William Shakespeare

This portion took about 5 minutes and was before I fell aslpeep, there are lots of names missing.

Imagine how awesome a movie based on a Douglas Coupland book, directed by Sofia Coppala and scored by Sufjan Stevens would be.

The last beautiful day.

Is it sad that New Buffalo is the jazziest music I own? It is pretty jazzy though...

Uhm! To explain yesterdays post. I spent most of yesterday watching this. Which is a week-daily vidoe bog of two brothers corresponding by no other means than these logs and the occasional phone call. No textual interaction, which is the point of the whole thing. They are smart, funny and weird and take a lot of cues from ze frank, (and are completely aware of this) which is awesome, because I have placed ze on a god-like pedastal and am seriously missing the show. Sincere thanks to Clair for telling me about B2 months ago.

Anyways.

I occurs to me that this was supposed to be a travel blog, yet I talk little of travel. It also occurs to me that whilst travelling, the last thing you want to talk about is travelling, even though you will invariably and sometimes against your own wished end up talking about travel.

Amsterdam is calling and tomorrow I shall answer.

With the re-reading of the Half Blood Prince complete, I have moved onto the last of my book stocks, Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland. Harry Potter to Tyler Johnson is quite a leap and took a little getting used to, but all is well.

Last night, not being able to sleep I made a list of famous media centric people who have had partial if not diret influence on my life. I reached 65 in about 5 minutes and decied to stop because it was getting depressing thinking that all these people have unknowingly shaped my life and the lives of thousands if not millions of other people. Which brings more thoughts to me, but those are for face to face articulation where intuition and mind reading can fill in my inevitable gaps.

I want to come home, but it's not quite time to.

There is no 'I' in Brotherhood.

Nerd Fighters, Fighting Nerds, What Is Your Power Move?

...wait...that's not quite right...

Great.

Well. I'm officially sick. Third time this trip, gah! Well I suppose that's what I get for living out of a back pack, sharing rooms with strangers, not eating properly and getting a proper night's sleep only once a week. Oh well, I'm not bitter or complaining, just offering a word of warning for future travellers, take care of yourself.

I'll heading to amsterdam on sunday, I wanted a hotel but they're stupidly expensive, and I have a feeling everything else will be pretty expensive too. I'll be there for 3 nights and then off to somewhere...France maybe. Although there is a definite longing, I won't be heading home for a little bit yet.

Yep...that's about it, I'll hopefully be feeling better tomorrow, if not, then I can only hope for the next day to be a better one.


TOO MANY BOOKS!!! TOO MUCH MUSIC!!!

Linkage

Best U2 cover ever. Thanks Ryan.
Dinosaur Comics has been pretty funny lately, I enjoyed this one in particular.
This one is from Clair. Thanks Clair.
I love Perry Bible Fellowship .
This makes me smile.

Pictures late I think

How do aeroplanes stay up?

Dudes! How do I make words into links instead of big ass-adresses!?

So, I'm just stealing this from clair, but becase there isn't really much to say right now, I'm cool with it. Are you?

I would really like to talk to Sufjan Stevens, have like some tea or coffee or something, but have a feeling he's really shy. Atleast that's something we have in common, along with a love for the banjo.

I watched the movie stay, last night. It was good but I felt it had a cop out ending and tried to do too much. And a couple nights ago I watched Lost In Translation again, I love it too much.

I finished the Half Blood Prince, and after a few days of failed attempts to read anything else, I'm reading it again. Queue Loser by Beck.

I'm sick, or well on my way to being sick, so that sucks a little bit, hopefully if I pump enough vitamin c and asprin through my veins it will kill the very unwelcome guest in my veins.

I come home soon, in like...three weeks, thats scray. I hope to make them a good few weeks, and if they don't look like they're going to be, homecoming comes early I guess.

Links a pictures a little later.

I am the cat brain in david russlel's fruit salad

I Heart Huckabees.

Happy Birthday To Me.

Gah, Angst.

Sorry if I'm coming across whiney or angsty lately, I'm pretty sure I am. It's this place and the people in it...wearing me down. Oh well, hopefully westerlee will bring some better moods. Again, sorry for the teenage angst.

I'm lonely and I'm thinking too much. I should really just go crazy, get trashed, or something. That wouldn't solve much though, it would just make tomorrow bad and my wallet angry. I could get deep and depressing on you all, but I think my notebook likes it more.

I'm off to Holland tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it, most of the people aren't very nice, and I always get stuck in a room full of arrogant Italians or Spaniards. I guess I should get back to the Hostel soon, I could have moved into my new room 8 hours ago. I think a little ze will cheer me up...or finishing the 5th HP and starting the 6th which I managed to find today.

I need a decent nights sleep and some fun, hopefully my birthday will be a good day.

Thats all for now, I think some cheerier music than EITS is order when I get back to the hostel.

I had a way better title in mind.

I found a fair today, that made me happy.

I didn't go on any rides or anythings, rides by yourself are depressing, I can imagine foreign ones would be even more so. Also, stupidly expensive. Anyways.

Two, well technically three posts in one day? Not a good sign. I'm either bored with this city already, or am overwhelmed. I think it's the former. It's a nice city, with nice sights, but otherwise not much to do, and the whole other language thing doesn't help, but I'm here tomorrow and then over to Holland where some people I am somehow related to are putting me up for a couple days and will show me about. And the good news is that one of them is Canadian and they aren't octegenarians! Huzzah! They are in fact only a few years older than me. So, I'm pretty pumped.

Still no pictures, I didn't actually intend to end up here, all I wanted a was a mars bar,but I didn't feel like going back to the hostel until the people in my room were out for the night. They were looking at me awefully weird and when one tried to make conversation they all laughed..so yes...a little uncomfortable. I've plowed through a couple hundred more pages in Harry Potter, and man do things start happening quick. And Milokas or however you spell it is totally Umbridge...totally.

That's all for now, I'm going to listen to some ocremix and do some looking about...there was something I was meaning to look up...oh well....

Just Lost.

Edit-I realize this edit is before anyone actually read this, but it makes it looks special. I bought a book of scrabble thoery and strategy for 20 pence, it's awesome. Also, if a laugh is required, as it always is....http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/11/112706.html. Enjoy.

So I meant to post the previous post last night, but I got my buttons mussed up, so go read that one...done? Good.

Whilst walking the streets of Bremen and seeing some pretty sights before it decided to cloud up and become not very enjoyable outsitde, I figured a few things out. The main I will share with you is how utterly appropriate it was for L.I.T. to be playing in the back ground, in German, on my first night in a country that doesn't speak English. I had it worked out more eloquently in my head before hand, but I guess thats how it always works isn't it?

Anyways. I took a bunch of pictures, but they won't be showing up now, due to a lack of cord-ness. So when I get back to the Hostel and have a chance, I'll upload some of them.

It's a nice place here, tomorrow, or later today I think I'm going to make my way down to the 'old' part of town and take some pictures, film probably.

Some of the people speak english, which helps a lot, but most don't. I can figure out some things through inflection or situation, but the rest, I'm hopeless.

There is no lock on my dorm's door, gah, and my back pack won't fit in the locker. Luckily I have some locks, and the hostel seems like a decent place. Excpet for the snorers....it sounded like some horrible creature was chocking on a lawn mower, and was being strangled...by a chain of even more lawn mowers. It kept me awake for a least two hours, when I finally passed out. When I woke up the room was empty, as was the showers and halls, and according to my clock is was almost 12 in the afternoon. I was kind of happy about this, meant I actually got a good sleep. As it turns out, my little travel alarm clock was wrong, and I got up at just after 8, giving me a grand total of 5 restless hours after a 12 hour day of trains, stations and planes, and sleeping on the floor the night before, I'll go into that later. So yes, it's amazing how the great the placebo effect is. I was bright and kipper, thinking I got a great sleep until a few hours later, I came across several clocks saying it was 11, and that was when I began feeling the effects of a poor nights sleep, oh well.

Anyways, why was I sleeping on the floor? Well, as I was getting into bed, for some reason one of the braces snapped at one end, rendering the bed un usable, and me bedless. I could have told the people I was staying with then, but it was kind of late, and that was embarressing. So I made a make shift bed on the rather hard floor and squeezed 5 hours of it until giving up at 8 the next morning and going down and telling them it broke when I was getting dressed, after remaking the bes to support my story. I'm ridiculous, I know.

Last posts title is the new album from Explosions In The Sky, and I quite like it. There is only one problem, you know those head phones I bought? Well if you don't, it doesn't matter all you need to know is that the cord for them is literally, 7 feet long. So I keep having to roll it all up which is wrecking the cord and making it so they will only play right if the cord is in a certain spot...it's easy enough to do, just stupidly annoying and is ruining the post rock zen of EITS. Anyways, after 5 hours of walking, some food and maybe a little Harry Potter is in order. I'm hooked on the book, I don't know why I waited 4, almost 5 years to read it. The first has been slow, but I've been told it picks up.

That's all for now, this has turned into a novel, and I'm sorry.

All of a sudden I miss everyone.

Well, not all of a sudden, it's been more a gradual yet inevitable feeling looming over my shoulder...but enough of that. 10 points for whoever knows where the title came from.

10 more points for who ever can guess where I am....give up? Well, if you managed to guess Bremen, GERMANY, please let me know so I can give you you're points and ask you about you're psychic powers.

On a side note, Lost In Translation is playing behind me, in German, and I recognized it by hearing Charlie's friend butchering God Save The Queen. Is that a little sad? Anyways.

I haven't posted in a bit, but thats in part caused by the almost lack of internet, but more the lack of intersting things happening. I spent the lat 5 or so days with a distant and again, elderly cousin. And doing nothing suited me just fine. I got out of London and was happy doing so. What I did to kill 5 days was read and watch several hours of Scrubs a day. It was pretty awesome. I broke down and bought the Book Thief and it was awesome. That took four days, and on Sunday I bought a second hand paper back of the 5th Harry Potter and I'm just under half way done. Anyways my time is almost done, I'll post more later.

It seems impossible to imagine a thousand years.

Hello all. I don't know who is reading this, well technically I do, I doubt a stranger would be reading this, I'm just not sure which person I know is reading this now, or whenever, well who ever you are, I hope you are having a good day.

First off. I am in London. Yes, London. And I am freaking out. This place is seriously terrifying. I have been here for roughly 4 hours and have done nothing, but still, freaking out. The shear size that you feel whilst here is enough, now add a few million stupidly busy people and this feeling that you really, are not wanted. There's more, but thats the gist. I've been looking forward to London, and now that I'm actually here, I don't think I want to be. It doesn't help that this place is practically bursting with people, for it's Easter, you see. I have a couple nights booked, after that I'm pretty sure I'd be moving to a different hostel every night or spending a hundred quid on a hotel room. So, my plan is try and arrange a flight out of here, or catch a ride through the chunnel and head to france. That plan sits better with my head and heart. Also, things are stupidly exspensive here. And that is not good.

I want to do this right, of all the cities I want to go to, I want to make sure that London is done right and I truely enjoy it. That means that I will have to go and come back on this current trip, or make a special trip just to London, when I have more money and an actual plan, London is not very drifter friendly. So, I will spend the rest of the night doing not much of anything, I just got very trierd, and then try and cram some very touristy things in tomorrow, and figure out the best way to get across the english channel. So thats my plan thus far, I think it will work out.

I was in windsor last night and this morning. I went to Windsor Castle for no other reason that it being there. It was pretty cool. I have seen a lot of castles, but this was a little different. The only reason why I mention this is because of what happened on the walk to the castle.

I was on this foot path they call the long walk, which goes from the castle to this quintesential man on horse statue (suprisingly this was the first one I saw the entire time over here, and it was probably a mile or more away). Anyways, I was in an odd mood, and for some reason I felt like making myself feel small. I do this sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, it makes my problems seem less problematic. But, it went a little bit to far, I had what would probably be described as an agrophobic attack and felt helplessly lost, alone and insignifcant. I was dizzy, short of breath and didn't how to make it stop, and for awhile (it was probably no more than a few moments but time seemed to stretch out, as it often does) I didn't think it would. Then I started thinking that there are people out there, no matter how close or far they may be, that honestly care about me, it sounds selfish, but it helped calm me down and ground me enough to get my head back. Does this happen to anyone else, how do you deal with it?

Anyways.

A few things that have been a fairly sizable portion of my life came to a close in the past few days. I finished the dark tower series, and finally watched the last episode of the show with zefrank. They sound trivial, but they were fairly important to me. I almost cried when certain go the clearing at the end of the path in the dark tower, and was welling up pretty good when ze said his simple but heart felt goodbye. It's weird I know, but it's the weird things that make us who we are.

I read Life After God by Douglas Coupland in two sitting today and yesterday. It was...incredible, and endlessly hard to describe and place. You should read it, all of you, it could change your life. Really.

I was going to buy and read the Book Thief today, but I ran out of time and everywhere was closed before I got my head straight(ish). So I think I'm going to maybe buy a magazine or read Shampoo Planet by Mr. Coupland tonight. He's a good and quick read, makes you think too. Probably what I need right now.

I don't know if there is anything else to say...have a good easter I suppose, if I don't a chance to wish you one before those days.

Just this.

Close your eyes, now or sometime, and keep them closed. Keep them closed for as long as it takes to convince yourself that you are in fact blind. If you can't do that, just keep them closed long enough to forgot what you were looking, move from where you were if you have to. Then...open them. Open them as if you were seeing for the first time, take in the colours, the magic, the life that is around, drink it in, the feeling may only last a moment, maybe less, but it will be there, have this moment carry through your day, remember the magic of opening your seeminly for the first time.