Where The Monks Brew Best
Posted by G-rant - 12/11/08 at 03:11:41 pmHey Friends!
Yeah, yeah I know it’s been a long time and I haven’t been diligent with any updates (at all) for most of you, about my current situation. That situation being, I’m in Belgium! It is the land of beer (Abbey and Trappist especially), loose weed laws and looser women. I arrived at the beginning of September, somehow found a place to live after about a week, but had to wait another week for it to be rennovated. Eventually I settled down and was able to relax, travel and really get into the BMX scene here.
Leaner into the deep end of the bowl. Gargle ‘em Boudreau!
First off, the park here is sick. As you can see from the picture, it has a small street section on top, then a bowl halfway down and finally another better street section at the bottom with a super-rad pyramid. I don’t want to brag or anything, but the bowl is like nothing i’ve ever ridden: infinitous lines, with a big hip, a small spine and a huge spine. Unfortunatly I don’t own a camera so I can’t actually show you any footage of the locals tearing this shit out of it. Although most are pretty young and the scene is just budding, there are some serious shredders.
If you only live riding then don’t read on. There is much more out here! The city hall was built in the 14th century and is by all acounts the nicest Gothic city hall in Belgium. Then there is the Oude Markt which is known around here as the longest bar in the world. In reality, it’s not one single bar but a series of 43 individual bars and clubs all in one rectangular market area. You can walk from bar to bar with your drink and the bars will stay open as long as you are there. If the bar scene is not your thing, then during the week there are fakbars (Faculty Bars) which are filled to the brim with beautiful Flemish women and serving Stella and Hoegaarden for 1 euro flat (no tips anywhere in Belgium!). Not to mention this is the home of the Stella Artois factory (Inbev pretty much owns all our beer, so it’s fucking huge), so Stella is very cheap. On the topic of beer, if you ever come here you will likely never want to drink anything except Belgian abbey beer ever again; it’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted. Belgium is the beer capital of the world (hands down) and the monks really do know how to brew the best beer (they’ve been doing it for more than 900 years). If it’s cheap you want (i’m looking at those who buy 50 packs of Coors Shite) you can buy a 24 of tall cans for about 10 Euro or less, depending on the beer. Yes Belgium is all one could hope for.
Gothic city hall and Grote Markt (the smaller market).
So if you combine all those things, plus a lax philosophy program at the university here, you will get a pretty good picture of my life here in Leuven. I would like you all to consider the idea of coming to visit me out here! You have a free place to stay, street in Brussels is amazing (20 minutes), there is a bowl with pool coping and a pocket in Antwerp (50 minutes), not to mention the rest of fucking Europe at your finger tips! Oh yeah and Holland/lots of drugs is basically around the corner. Anyways I hope to keep in touch with you all while I’m out here, so if you see me on MSN drop me a line. I hope you like the few pictures I was able to scrounge up from my computer!
The bowl.
Street-ish section.
Front of the Stella Factory, about 15 minutes walk from my place.
No Comments yet »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI