Melantrys’ Page

My passport arrived back today…

… I will be flying to Jordan.

Can someone please explain to me why the flight is cheaper if I fly back one day later than originally planned? (Well, I wouldn’t call it a day; I’ll have to fly back in the middle of the night…)

Lol, I want to say so much, but I don’t know where to start, so I’ll better leave it.

Attawie, finish moving - or whatever it was - and read your emails!

First of all… Hi, Annika! *waves* I can see you poking your nose in here, you know. Kann dann ja doch nich’ so kompliziert sein….?

Anyway, damn Frenzie for being faster than me in posting about our trip to Brussels last Friday!

While Frenzie was taking pictures of submarines I hastily packed my last few things, then headed out to his place.
After a - barely - vegan meal, a not very good movie (”AI”) and a way too short night we started to Brussels at around 9:00 am. Rather surprisingly - after the coldish Thursday - the temperature was around the 20°C mark when we arrived 3.5 hours later at our host’s place. What was at least equally surprising was that we did not have to pull over a dozen times to find out where we were, nor drive around the block ten times before resigning ourselves to park illegally anyway, as happened on both of my previous trips to Brussels. Brussels is a nightmare to navigate through, but fortunately our host had moved to a different area (and a wayyyyy bigger flat) that was easier to find, and allowed parking all along the streets. Actually we managed to park almost right across from the house.

Also, Brussels has recently introduced guards for parked cars, as we found out when heading out to the venue a while later:

cat security

And this is me taking the pic of the little bugger:

© Frenzie 2006

The actual venue was the oddest one I’ve seen so far. Le Botanique is a small club situated in a more or less airy (in some places stifling) complex mostly covered by glass, beside a very small park.
The other thing I found most odd was the total lack of security. No-one asked us if we had a right to enter the venue hours before the show. Yes, we arrived with a member of the local opening act, but no-one was there to take note of that and remember our faces or anything. Even later at the gig… apart from two people at the door checking the tickets there was no security at all. Weird Belgians.

Le Botanique

After having handed two drugged vegan sausages to the main act’s singer - under the pretext of once having talked about those sausages on the chat - Frenzie and I decided to take a stroll through Brussels, which eventually led us to the Parc de Bruxelles. Sadly, the only interesting thing about that “park” was a fountain. But the rainbow inside tried to add a bit of glamour to it all.

Parc de Bruxelles

The fountain also occasionally contained a mad dog, who kept running half circles around the fountain and stopping for the odd drink.

“Fetch!”

Well, you can only look at five trees for so long, so eventually we headed back to Le Botanique. Halfway there we spotted a strange Dutch-Scandinavian tourist group, being led by two confused Belgians, heading in the opposite direction on the other side of the road. Their directionless ambling seemed to promise some modest entertainment, so we decided to join them.
Some tourists wished to see the famed Manneken Pis (if you don’t know what that is, dear readers, just don’t ask, ok, you don’t want to know), so the would-be guides finally started asking directions to Grand Place.
At some other square the Scandinavian faction admired the merchandise of a souvenir shop, showing particular interest in the hats and sunglasses.

super-cool head gear

…..

*almost finding the perfect sunglasses*

This and buying a toothbrush severely exhausted the whole group, so we all sat down for a beer (and a coffee) at that same square.
Yeah, you guessed right, we never actually made it to Grand Place or the Manneken Pis.
The odd Scandinavians soon headed back to the venue with one of the guides, and - luckily - arrived as safely as the rest of us did with the second guide a while later.

Back at the venue a very nice person put us on a very nice list, and not long after that the local opening act started to play.

Shogun

Look, it’s one of the guides, drinking a beer and enjoying Shogun!!

Smommy

After that Frenzman and me rather enjoyed the cooler air outside of the actual club and missed the second opener, Superbutt. Yeah, shame on us!
We went back in again for Clawfinger though.

Zak’s left leg, Jocke

more of Zak, Jocke pointing at… what?

Henka

Bård

Jocke again

Zak

Zak, finally spacing out on the sausages

“You can’t catch me, try to catch me if you can,

you can’t catch me, try to catch me if you can,

you can’t

catch

me…”

Or can they?

Bård & André

Jocke, Zak

After the show we shivered a bit outside, then grabbed something to pour into our parched throats and collapsed at a table, wondering where Julien had disappeared to.

Well, he finally appeared and organized a ride back to his flat for us, then he went out to work and party some more.

Weird Dutchie, trying to invent the kamikaze sleeping position……

no comment

A bit of Black Forest

Unfortunately the better sights were along stretches of road without any parking spaces to pull over into. And you don’t just stop on a rather narrow and winding road.

my hand today

You asked if my scars were healed already, David, well… here’s your answer.

Hhhhhhm, no real news.
Oh, I had some yummy eggplant, tomato, peperoni and leek soufflé today. Dunno if that counts as news though.

Is that some wildcatty critter or what?!

Looking almost like any normal house cat.

Sleeping on my sleeping bag…

… and not sharpening his claws on it like some other cats I know.

For that he found something else…

Was visiting some relatives. That’s the cat that moved in there.

It’s a shame I did not dare to pry his mouth open to take a picture of his teeth. I swear it’s the truth; his teeth are at least half as long again as a regular house cat’s teeth. And they’re sharp as hell.
But he’s a big softy, really. I spent a whole night with him sleeping beside my head and smelling of tuna, and I did not wake up with any additonal bite or scratch marks in the morning.
I did wake up though from him wheezing into my ear in a threatening way (sounded like he was gonna throw up) at 5 am and from him meeowing at a quarter to 7 because he wanted out - or so I thought. Bastard just wanted food.

Am back home now, so entertain me.

another typical picture

WoW and… er… a cigarette.

Me, I’m gonna pour me some more woodruff flavoured vodka.

the last of my vodka

“my” desk

As you might notice, dear fans, that’s my blog on the middle screen. Yay! After having been in hiding for about four hours today, it is back now.

battle of the cams

One day I’m gonna get all that additional stuff for my cam as well…

[c]oma hiding from two cameras wielded by merciless ladies

What a sorry coward, mwahahahahahaha.

So it’s only a bit less than six hours until the New Year . Well, at least where I’m from, and where I am at the moment, which is at a LAM in Holland.

*grins*

So far I’ve only been drinking a bit of my coke beer, but the other people here are pretty wasted after having been attending this LAM for quite some time now.

Suppose I won’t be able to be blogging the LAM as [c]oma suspected I’d be doing, but I hope I’ll be able to share some of the fun here at least.

*grins*

Wow, suddenly there’s a bag of weed on my mouse pad……..

*just remembers…*

Happy New Year to everyone!!!

So only a few more days left of this year.

The fireworks sale starts tomorrow. Hooray. Not. Tomorrow we’ll have to start at 8:00. And our storage room from which we sell ‘em is so cooooooooooooold!!!
Oh well. I hope I will survive the two days to come. Stress, stress, stress, aaaaaaah!!

But then! Hahah! I’ll join the end of the annual LAM in Holland. Don’t fret, dear fans, even should I decide to not take my computer with me after all, I’m sure I will be able to use the host’s laptop.

Good night.