Hotel Ve Mechelen

... UK!<br><br>Brussels airport is emptier than I have ever seen it in my life. There are no more than 10 flights for the rest of the day. Eric and I are alone in the airport lounge, save for a couple of elderly people and their miniature poodle, which is snacking on a croissant. <br><br>We are waiting for our flight - it is delayed by half an hour as I write this. That's just fine, in fact, it can be delayed until ...

... was had by all. It turned out to be 15 Euros more than we expected but we were more than thrilled by that. Ask us when we get home and we'll share what is now a funny story!<br><br>We were very proud of the boys for making the climb up the St. Rumbold&#8217;s Church tower. On the way up the 530 stairs to the top we listened to an audio with information about the church and city. We're sure the boys were ...

... Ongehoord (unheardof) entitled, "Dodelijke Flows ft Magot &amp; Fatty K."  It was phenomenal.  The next day we recorded in Fatty K's home studio on my gear and then at the first solar powered studio in Belgium, Hype Studio.  That place was AMAZING.  Protools 8 and all the frills plus the whole thing was powered by 42 solar panels on the roof.  Not to mention the tasty Speculoos crackers and mint tea.  Had the pleasure of meeting the studio's owner and operator Jan Volkaert ...

... all took the 25 min train to Brussels where we had 5 hours to explore. We started by walking through Galeries Saint-Hubert. We then walked to the magnificant central square, Grand Place, and saw the splendid Gothic-style Hotel de Ville. Next we walked to the manneken Pis fountain, a little boy cheerfully taking a leak into a pool. We then walked up to Palais Royal before heading to Palais de Justice which was for many years the world's ...

... really pull off a trip like we planned, and for that I forever owe Mark a debt of gratitude. Anyway, back to the story. Somewhere just before the Channel Tunnel, we finished the bottle, OK well, I mostly finished the bottle, but Hoki did have his share. The tunnel is absolutely awesome. 15 minutes of absolute darkness outside, and none of that high pitched wheel-whine ...

... happened that night, we watched some movies on the computer and relaxed while Achim was away in a cultural meeting. -------------- October 27 Today was a HC meeting day, Mieke was first trying to organised one but without knowing it there was already a gathering house-warming party organised at Onur (HC:chinaski). We needed then anyway to move downtown to meet Mieke and Jack (an australian fellow) at the stock market. We arrived slightly on time and I twisted my ankle ...

... to look for accomodation we hit the internet cafe - but that was all rather useless as you can tell from the tale above. So we went back to the supermarket and found some food for dinner (garlic bread, quiche, Fanta & 6 apples for E4 each) which we took back to the hostel and heated up = it was so nice. May 24 - Brussels Breakfast in the hostel is from 7.30 - 9.00 so we set the alarm for 8.30 and then went back to bed because we didn't feel like getting up. I love ...

... the best food of our entire trip. Even better than the beer restaurant in Watou. It was amazing. Given that this was so good and was just a little nothing restaurant, we now have a desire to go to France and see what all the fuss is about with their multi-star restaurants! Boullion offered another "Red" opportunity. Although the hotels appeared to be reasonably well maintained, we had the same smelly issues as in LaRoche. In one hotel the ...