The story of a jounery : Part II

El Luis strikes back

‘The phoenix or firebird originated in ancient mythology and has gone through a variety of representations in art/literature, ranging from being fully birdlike to having the head of a dog and suckling its young’

As I was still feeling the sour taste of defeat, I knew I had little time to act fast. I had been traveling for 15 hours of so, and at the arrival of the local youth hostel of the city of Gent I learned there was no place left. When I heard this my first toughs was taking a crash course on “Going Homeless 101” from the local beggar I had seen in the streets of the city centre. I could picture my mom’s answer, telling her that her little precious had to spend his first night in the street:  “So what? You’re a man!” (Yup….that’s her)

I addressed the receptionist – a lad with long hair and beard- with the first (intelligent?) question I could think of:

 “Dude”

“Yessir” – he replied

 “Is there another hotel somewhere around? Like, you know, cheapy cheapy?”

“Well, I don’t know how much they cost, but if you walk around the city center you’ll find something for sure. Try going first to the tourism information center.”- He replied as he started searching for a map in his desk

“Do you think I’ll find cheapy cheapy rates?” – I asked again

“I don’t know, you’ll have to check”

“Did I remark I’m looking for a cheapy cheapy place”?

“Yes. You have an issue with money I see” -

“Nah, just sold my kidney, and wouldn’t like to spend my money in a wrong way” –

“That must have been a difficult decision” – said he, very concerned

“It was, especially after selling my sister to the Russians”

“you must have had a though life” – he replied again with some pittyness

“Very though”- was my last reply (btw: what a dumbass!).

The reception dude handed me the map pointing out where we were, and where the information center was. I saw the map, saw my mobile home equipment, then saw the map again. There was no freaking way I was going to carry around the pieces of rock with me while trying to find a hotel (if I could fine one of horse). It seems that my face spoke on its own, as wanna be Jesus told me I could leave my stuff with him in the reception, and then come back to pick them up once I had found something. Within the whole messy/crappy/shitty context of my first day in Belgium, that was by far the best thing that could have happened.

First stop before taking off again was the local gents room….no, not to do that!!! (you dirty freaks). I just needed to refresh a bit…and honestly, I was pretty stinky by that moment I think (try wearing a life saver jacket at 30° during some hours and then tell me if your body doesn’t sweat). I had to improvise a shower from the sink, and tried to “wash” myself in the most decent way I could think off. After that, I changed the sweaty clothes and put new ones on (some summer stuff, to be disguised as a normal person), and then off I took.

The clock was ticking at the sound of  “sleep-sleep, sleep-sleep”, I knew I had to step up the pace. At the local information office of Gent I received a list with different hotels, with no mention on their prices unfortunately :s. I tried a couple of them that were pretty close by, but the price alone was working better than any energy drink to keep me kicking for a little time extra.

At some moment I found myself walking in one of the streets from the city, slightly away from the main squares and all main attractions. Suddenly, I saw lots of faces smiling at me, female J faces.  “At least somebody looking in a nice way at me” I thought. “But Gee, I wonder why those ladies are behind a crystal wall? And do people in Belgium walk on their underwear the whole time while at home?”…you can slap me in the face now, but I was THAT naïve back then not to figure out right away I was in the red light district (aka: the hooker  street). At least my ego was receiving a little boost from the ladies of the linen life, and some parts of my body were waking up a bit more than I should have wanted , nice view doesn’t kill anyone of course!.

It might have been luck, faith or destiny, but I think I had to be in that street. As I was enjoying my sight with the display of women bodies, I also saw there was a hotel in the middle of the street. Yes, it looked crappy ..Extremely crappy. That could only mean one thing: cheapy cheapy!!  I entered the hotel, checked the rates, and was more than happy to see it costed half of what the others hotels were asking for a night (although it meant taking a room with no private bathroom…who cared?). I paid right away, got my keys, searched the room, opened the door, saw the room, threw the keys on the floor and jumped to the bed…and away I was from this world, in what was probably the best night of sleep I have had in all my life.

The phoenix has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again. The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self

Fourteen hours after (yes, 14!) I finally came out of hibernation mode. I checked the clock at it was 6 am in the morning.

The phoenix was awaken!!!

After my long sleep, I woke up as a different man, literally and figurative speaking. First, after a good shave and a decent bath, the Neanderthal look was gone. Second: after reviewing the map of the city I exactly knew where to go. Third: I left the hotel, not before trying to get the receptionist’s phone number as the chick was hot….no luck though. As I left the street where the hotel was located, and followed the direction I had marked, I asked myself : will my plan work out?

Coming soon:

Part III: Real life, Belgian version

The story of a Journey - Part I

An uneven match

It was 9 years ago that I arrived to Belgian shores, on a Sunny day of summer. To be more specific, I arrived at 2pm on the 26th of August of 2002, via an Air Switzerland flight from Miami -with a brief connection in Zurich. I brought with me an X-size piece of luggage, a backpack, a broken guitar, and my winter jacket on, as there was no place left to put such a gargantuan piece of apparel. I’m not kidding when I say that an army tent could have been easily built with all the layers of textile in the jacket, and its weight alone could have served to do some muscle building training.

So there I was with all my stuff at the Brussels Airport. After coming out of the immigrations office my first stop was the local telephone booth, from where I called a Peruvian dude who was supposed to host me at his place during my first days in the Low Lands. Now, I didn’t know the guy personally, but he was a friend of a friend, and being the only person I knew in this side of the world I sent him an email asking if he could lodge me for some days, at least till I could find my own place to live. The lad seemed happy to have another country mate in Belgian soils, so he accepted my (own) invitation to his place.

Back to the phone booth part: First call, no answer, so I waited 5 minutes.


Second call, no answer. I waited another 5 minutes.

By the third phone call- and again with no answer, I realized that he either wasn’t available or that he was just neglecting my call…but, could he really? I was faced suddenly with my first -of the many to come- dilemma: to wait or not to wait (that is the question, said my dear Shakespeare). “I’ll take the train to his city and call from there” was my conclusion.

And so I headed towards the train station, carrying all my stuff…feeling tired…checking the girls….feeling anxious…checking the girls…feeling hungry… checking you know what by now. “First things first” – I said, “let’s change my hard earned dollars into euros” . I looked around for a minute or so and spotted almost right away a Western Union shop. After checking their prices I realized the bastards were using a ridiculous under priced rate! (Working against me of course). “Screw them” I thought while searching for another competitor at the airport. After combing the WHOLE place during I don’t know how long, I realized that Western Union was the only shop where I could change my money.. I had no other choice than to go back with resignation to the yellow colored local, and accept what was obvious that was going to happen: I was about to get screwed … Belgium 1, Luis 0. Nice way to start my new life in a new country!

Bon, I think I changed only $200 or so, enough to survive during some days till I could get my money withdrawed from some local ATM. So I changed the money, went to the station, bought my ticket, and got all my homeless-like equipment in the train. After 40 minutes of travel I arrived to the city which would become my second home during that year, and where till the date of today I’m still very fond of and happen to live in: Gent.

At the station I tried calling my local contact, again with no luck! Soon resignation invaded me, and I realized I was on my very own in this strange land. Poor guy you would think.. but Alas!, I will have to disappoint you, since not all is as bad as it seems, and not everybody is as fool as not to have a plan B (B of Bad ). While booking my ticket to Brussels, in a rationale moment (strange for me) I had searched and printed out the address of a youth hostel in Gent, just in case and as a last resource measure. Time to put Plan B in action!

As I emerged from the station, I couldn’t help noticing that it was a beautiful day, with people walking around in their summer outfits, big smile in their faces…all of them seemed to happy to be there. I also realized that I was somehow messing up the hole picture in my astronaut outfit, my expedition bags, and my Molotov- cocktail hangover face…it was like having the ugly fat bitch in the middle of the beauty contest, you get the picture right?

My very first interaction with a Fleming (funny name for this people) was a local teenage girl that helped me find the right tram to get to the city center. My second interaction was with the angry tram driver, telling me to hurry up since it seemed I was forming some kind of bottleneck at the entrance of the tram. My third, fourth, fifth and all subsequent interaction was with all the passengers in the tram I had to push asside to get my stuff in the tram...no kind interaction back from them neither of course.

Anyways, I managed to get on the tram and enjoy the ride a bit. As I approached my stop, I saw that I had a couple of buttons to press in order to announce I wanted to step out: a blue button and a red button. Since the red button said STOP, I pressed that one. Now, If you have ever been in a tram, you might imagine by now that I pressed the EMERGENCY STOP button, so you might also imagine what happened next: the tram stopped in dry, everybody looked around confused, angry tram driver got out of his seat to see what was going on, foreign dude was trying to hide among passangers (although impossible) after realizing the mistake, angry tram driver and angry passengers staring at foreign dude … Belgium 2, Luis 0, damn :s.

By then time I arrived at the stop in the city center I was more than happy to get out of the tram. Now I was finally in the center du Gand, the place to be, the city of mis amores. As I put my feet on the ground and started walking towards the address of the youth hostel I realized my next challenge: the whole city center had bricks on the sidewalks and on the roads. Why is that a problem you might think? Normally is not, had it not been for the fact that my luggage was weighting a bit more than 35 kilos, and although the cement bag had wheels, the bricks in the floor were making my task as impossible as you trying to smoke some dope with the pope. To make matters worse: I had to walk in the street, since the sidewalks were full of people and tables of restaurants. And there I was again, the freak carrying a house -don’t forget the ugly Eskimo jacket, walking in the middle of the street like a nerd, with EVERYBODY watching me as I was trying to go forward, step by step (or I should better say brick by brick)…Nothing like the sweet taste of humiliation in my lips once again. By this moment the score was Belgium 3, Me nada.

It took me about 30 to 45 minutes to get to the youth hostel I think. Not bad for a 300 meters distance :s!. Finally, I arrived to the city’s youth hostel. By the moment I approached the door of the hotel I felt like being the king of the world, like the Caesar proclaiming ‘vini, vi, vinci’, like Kid Rock banging Pam on the boat, like a Goldman Sachs CEO claiming a billion dollar bonus after screwing the financial system in 2009…I finally got away with it, my journey was finished, and I was finally there!

Murphy said once ‘Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong’, and hell he was right.After announcing myself at the frontdesk, the receptionist told me with a very dry face: “Sorry mate, the hotel is full. Next opening is within 3 days”. As he sat back in his desk my W.A.C.K.O 7.0 operating system could process his words in echo (and don't forget to insert the 'Psicosis' soundtrack):

“Hotel….

Full……


ull……..


ull…..…


ull…..

After 3 minutes or so of being lost in the twilight zone, a voice told me to get away from the white light and come back to reality, which I had to do with resignation. Suddenly, the king feeling was gone. I realized my journey was far from being finish. Worse of all: I was killing/begging/dreaming of a bed to crash in and give myself away in the arms of Morpheus...but that couldn't happen, not yet.

I realized I was dekcuf*…….big way. Belgium 10-Luis cero


*Tip for the not so gifted ones: to be read backwards


Coming soon


Part II: El Luis strikes back

El Luis...back from the Dead

Hello friends from here and there, north to south, west to east, up and down, black & white, and any other possible combination to stress the point that I'm say hi to everybody :).

It's been a looooooooooooong time since I haven't been writting anything here. Many reasons for that I guess. The first one is that nobody gives a shit about what I write of course! (only 250 vists since 3 years ago...out of which 50% ar mine hahaha!). Second: I'm a lazy bastard (easy to guess), and third: Facebook, hi5,twitter,free ilegal downloads and free XXX sites (no words necessary :p).

Anyways, just to put those up to date all those bored souls out there about what's been happening on this side of the continent:

1. I'm a happily married man since August last year :)
2. I'm a proud father of a baby boy....Mikelo (aka: My precious!)
3. I'm still working at the same company :)
4. I've recently formed a music group (my dream for a long time), where we're playing all the compositions I always had in my head but never had dared to 'get them out there'.

That's about it I guess. More posts to come soon with new anecdotes, stories and master plans to conquer the world!

Me

Say....

One of the 'benefits' of being an 'expat' in a foreign land (eventhough I'm not exactly sure that status really applies to me :s) is to always have the benefit of doubt, coming from other people of course ;)....not sure with what I'm saying? I'll go on to explain it then.

Let's say for example that you're on your usual routine of waking up in the morning, having a more than quick breakfast (if you have the luck to have it), and drive on the way to your work. Just when entering the office building you notice a strange fellow passing dressed with an implecable outfit, but with a Viking hat (yeah, you know..the one with the goat horns and all that). Undoubtly your first have a stare in your eyes that would look something like this ****, followed by the ironic gossiping of the somewhat perturbed fellow with the funny hat with that other colleague of yours you just meet at the front office. Now, imagine that your colleague replies 'Well yeah, this guy was just released from the mental institution a couple of days ago'. Having said that, your grey stuff goes back to its normal state of mind and you don't mind too much about the recent event...because in the end, the guy was just crazy, so he had to right to behave as he wants and not be really judged for what he did. Great excuse right?

Without going to the extremes, I can say that being foreing in this land has given me this kind of 'special' status, where sometimes I am allowed to behave/say/do/etc etc below or beyond the normal 'social rules' of Belgian society :). Of course no theory can be explained withour practice, so here go some anecdotes where I exercised as much as possible my foreign mojo:

1) "Do you guys always dance that that close?"
"Yes of course, that's how we do it in Southamerica, you're actually a bit too far, come closer.."
Me with unkown girls while dancing, leaving a separation of less that 1cm between eachother, and with both hands on the lower back side of the lady (in my bachelor times of course)

2) "Bla bla bla" (Person coming to me in the street asking for money, directions, donations, etc)
"Ik spreek geen nederlands / Je parle pas français"
Me answering that I don't understand them, and if they ask
"Do you speak english?"
" Me speak only spanish" - Is my usual reply

3) "Are you a spanish speaker "
"Yes I am"
"Nice! I've been to Spain a couple of times"
"Poor you! don't worry, we all make mistakes in life"

A stare like this **** draws in the other person's face normally, to which I have to always clear out that I'm peruvian and not spanish.

"Oh, so is there a big different in language and culture?"
"Of course, we're the improved version :"

People buy it the whole time ;)

More examples to come soon...

"Gringo's in Peru: crazy belgians as usual :s"

I was yesterday watching the final episode of a Belgian TV program called "Pekin express". What's the concept of the show? Well, they grab something like 10 couples, and make them race from one point of the planet to another distant point with 1 euro in their pocket...the winner of the race gets of course a specific amount of money based on how many challenges were completed ok during the race.

So far there have been 3 editions of this program, most of them in Asia. However, the last edition was held in Southamerica..where the race started in Brasil, and has as finishing point the city of Lima! (capital of Peru...my home country for those who ain't following).

It was absoulutely hillaaaaaaaaaaaarious watching these crazy Belgian gringos (for the record: for us south americans a gringo is anybody that looks caucasic) going nuts in Lima asking for lifts and for directions on how to get to a specific place. One of the tasks they had to fulfill was to sell as much as possible portions of "Anticuchos" at a market in the city center. "Anticucho" is a typical peruvian dish, wish is basically cow hart sliced in small pieces, joined together by a bambu stick and cooked in a bbq grill. It is normally served with boiled potato and choclo (corn)...and for those who haven't tried is deliiiiiiicious!. Anyways, the two last couples (during the race there are certain challenges, in which some teams are dropped out of the competition till only the two best couples get to race the final stage) had to go with a "Triciclo" -which is kind of a modified bike, with a huge wood basket on the front to be able to take different things) from the city center to the central market in Lima. Once at the central market, they had to build their BBQ sets, buy cow heart, prepare the anticuchos, and sell as much as possible of it.

If I would be just a normal guy walking in the city center at the moment that happened, I'm sure I would have asked myself "what the fuck are this gringos doing cooking anticucho????????"...it was have been quite of a show, which it was in fact. Lots of people were surrounding the couple from curiosity...which was in the favour of the couples because they could easily sell their improvised food to the audience gathered by. I really enjoyed watching that, because my home city was being shown from an european perspective, and I could can of picture how people look at us when coming from abroad.

The last stage of the race was going from the central market to a light tower in the district of miraflores, which is something like 8 km away from the city center. In the end, only one couple one the race of course...and took home something like 60,000 euros, and a whole experience of having lived such adventure....not bad eh?

Comida peruana a la belga

Llegue a Bélgica alla por agosto del 2002. Para ser mas precisos llegue a la ciudad de gante un dia caluroso de verano (europeo) en los ultimos dias de Agosto de ese año. Los primeros dias fueron un concierto de viacrucises existenciales sobre el motivo que realmente me habia llevado a dejar la comodidad de la famila, amigos, enamorada (la merfi y la no tan merfi), casa, comida, pichangas, combis, año nuevo en el sur y demas, para estudiar en un pais donde no conocia a nadie, donde el solo solo se asoma un par de meses al año, donde la cultura es muy diferente a la nuestra y donde el idioma era algo nisiquiera cercano a nuestro oriundo español…en fin, esa es otra larga historia.

Vamos al relato en si : resulta que la escuela de negocios donde estudiaba, organizaba cada cierto tiempo actividades para los estudiantes. Una de estas actividades era llamada el « international day » (el dia internacional), en el cual los estudiantes de los diferentes paises tenian que preparar un plato tipico de su pais. Dado que mis cualidades culinarias eran las del tipico hijito de mama que tuvo a una empleada cocinandole toda su vida, opte por la solucion que segun yo se acomoda a cualquier peruano que haya asistido alguna vez en su vida a un tono casero : preparar pisco sour .

Fue asi que decidi dejar degustar a mis compañeros de aulas el popular trago peruano. El problema fue que cuando fui al mercado solo pude encontrar pisco…chileno !!! A falta de otras opciones no tuve mas alternativa que preparar 5 litros de pisco sour con el ‘pisco’ oriundo de nuestro pais vecino. Para que no me puedo quejar, el pisco no salio tan malo, y si mal no recuerdo los cinco litros se fueron en algo menos de 15 minutos (ya se imaginaran el resultado que eso trajo entre mis amigos europeos unos minutos despues jeje).

Tiempo despues me ocurrio una anecdota parecida. Un año despues de haber acabado la primera maestria, decidi cursar una segunda con especialidad en economia en la historica Universidad Catolica de Lovaina. Mientras cursaba el segundo master se me dio por organizar otra noche internacional con mis compañeros de clase, solo que esta vez decidi variar un poco la oferta y me decidi preparar una muy rica mazamorra (el que viene en bolsa nomas, pero al menos sirvio !). Lo que hice fue dejar la olla llena del postre en la mesa donde se ponia toda la comida, y me limite a observar la reaccion de los otros al momento de probar el postre nacional. Lo que paso a continuacion casi me da infarto, y estoy seguro que si algunos de mis antepasados incas llegaba a presenciar tal acto facil sacaba un cuchillo de algun lado y se bajaba la cabeza a medio mundo (sera que he visto apocalypto muchas veces ??). Los belgas cogian primero un panqueque, y en vez de rellenarlo con mermelada, platano o mantequilla, lo comenzaron a rellenar con la mazamorra !!! (yes I know, oh dios !!) mismo Mexican brother comiendose un burrito relleno! Y no es por nada les encanto.

Es en oportunidades como esta donde una realmente saca pecho por la patria, y por los atributos que hacen de nuestro pais un lugar inigualable. Long live Peru !

Little Belgium

Having lived a bit more than 4 years in this side of the world, I couldn't help noticing some "funny" aspects of people here. Here goes a preliminary list, which everybody is welcome to complement of course!

1) In flanders: they use the diminutive form for almost every darn word. E.g: kindJE, frietJE, wagenJE...etc etc and so on and so on and so on.

2) Almost every Belgian knows the name of at least 10 sauces that can along with fries




3) Dutch speakers pronounce the word IDEA as ID (like 'I have and Idee " instead of "I have an idea")

4) French speakers think dutch speakers kind of suck...and viceversa

5) People in Wallonia drive in summer for around 3 hours in the middle of the traffic jam, just to make it to the coast which is already packed with thousands of people chillin' out.

6) As soon as there is an itsy bitsy ray of sun, everybody goes inmediately out to 'enjoy' it. I mean d***I've never seen people in terraces at 10°C only because there was a bit of sun outside!

7) Apparently people think is absolutely normal to go out to eat in a restaurant everyday of the week :s

8) Unless you're southamerican, african, scandinavian, russian or something alike...people will think you have an awful tase or just look ridiculous if you wear anything that is lighter than dark green.

9) Do you know the capital of the german speaking part of Belgium? Don't worry, nobody does ;)

10) In the same line with the previous remark: Ask a Belgian the first sentence of their national anthem. At least 50% will answer they didn't knew there existed one!!


11) People are ok with the fact of driving with the lights on even though it's bright and sunny.

12) In Flanders: The more you try to learn flemish, the more the flemish refuse to speak flemish to you and the more they complain that you haven't. learned flemish (this one isn't mine, but it's 100% true don't you think?)

13) Is it really necessary to have up to five names when you will be using only one?(got a friend called Jean Paul Marie Laurant Charles :s)

14) Belgians have made out of dish washing a really national cult. Instructions of how to wash dishes Belgian style: In a team of at least two (actually, the whole family can take part of this), position yourselves in such way that you stand next to each other and in front of the sink (which is commonly divided in two as most of you might have noticed). Fill the two sinks with water, but only purr the washing material in the left sink. The left-standing person will gently wash the dish, put it on the water of the right sink, and pass it to person number 2 (or 3 ,4 or 5). Person number 2,3,4 or 5 will gently receive the dish and proceed to dry it with a drying handtowel. Voila! You have the formula to success at any house event ;)

15) Top three national topics of discussion: the never-ending works around the kennedy tunnel in antwerpen, the louzy soccer team, and Prince Laurent's strange love towards its dogs

16) If you feel like giving your walloon friends a nice 1st of may joke, tell them Flanders has decided to become independent. 100 % horror guaranteed!

17) Where else in Europe will you find people crazy enough as to wake up at 4 am in the morning, just to make it to a place so they can see the begining of the 'tour of Flanders'?

18) Customer service is a priority here indeed! Otherwise take a look at all shops and services that are open after working hours!, isn't it good to know you just have to take a half day off at your work in order to be able to do anything :s??


19) Why do people keep pushing me in every time I want to get out of the metro station in brussels?

20) Unless you want to wait for a never ending explanation, don't ask a bartender in a cafe how many kind if beers do they have whenever ordering a drink.

You have more than enough reasons to love this country don't you think :)??!!

L