French fries come from Belgium

So what’s my news…

Davit came home on Friday to tell me I’d left the key in the door (outside in Brixton). I had been trying to pull the latch out thinking it was the key and gave up because I didn’t want to wake him up. I felt embarrassed and a bit stupid when he told me he’d found it in the front door on his way to work. Thankfully no-one stole anything.

Davit took me to an Ethiopian restaurant on Friday night and introduced me to 3 of his Eritrean friends, really good night.  Ethiopian cuisine consists of a sort of sour pancake called n’jera that covers the underside of the plate and also covers the fillings of whatever it is you’ve ordered. It’s very tasty. Unfortunately we also had it on Saturday night at a different restaurant and I was sick and felt ill all Sunday too. Never mind, at least I enjoyed the taste and the Ethiopian music (the singer wasn’t bad either, I wouldn’t have said no). 

I had a chill day on Monday. Popped some dihydrocodeine then sat in the park all day in the glorious sunshine reading a Chinese dictionary. 

 My belgian couchsurfer cancelled on me at the last minute and I didn't have the time to scope out good safe locations for sleeping rough. I decided my bag was too cumbersome and because I failed to get any couches to surf on in Europe I went for hostels instead. I felt it was not worth my while carrying my arctic sleeping bag so gave it to Davit, he's been very generous to me the past week and if it can come in useful to him then it's the least I can do. I reckon my bag weighs no more than 13 kilos now. Whilst looking at Couchsurfers profiles I noticed how uptight Belgians get about chips being called french Fries. One even said his lifetime mission is to educate people on the origin of frites. 

I got up early this morning and hopped onto the bus to Brussels. We’d stop for cigarette breaks and I got chatting to a guy Demetri and Tony, if you have a bad social life you should definitely take up smoking, it's a great way of meeting people. Apparently people with good social lives live longer too. However, I was out my face on painkillers and slept most of the way (how antisocial).

We arrived in Brussels at 8pm. Brussels is a strange capital, the people speak French but the street signs are Germanic. It seems very multi-cultural  but doesn’t have that big city cosmopolitan buzz that I’ve become used to in London. When we got off the bus Demetri’s dad was good enough to drop me off on the street I had booked a hostel. Unfortunately it’s about 4 miles long and I was right at the end of it. To make matters worse it changes its name temporarily then reverts back to its original. I was a bit confused. A geeky guy with dirty blonde dreadlocks and his smoking hot girlfriend helped me out with that wee problem. He was the ugliest guy I’ve ever seen but so helpful and kind. I reckon his girlfriend must have been lost when he made his move on her, his world class directions could woo anyone.

I spotted loads of cozy looking places where I could have slept rough on my two hour hike, never mind. I got there eventually. I had some Belgian Frites on the way to see what all the fuss was about. It took about fifteen minutes for the guy to make me a bag of chips but I have to admit they were the best french fries I've ever tasted. 

I’m basically staying in a sports centre which is the last building in Brussels. It’s the sort of place they’d have world youth squash championships or something. The place is full of kids in various sporting groups and you have to be quiet after 10pm. I’ve got a Brazilian Marcos from Sao Paolo in my dorm. He’s a top guy. I’ve had plenty of practice in Portuguese and had a good exchange of latin music.

It’s pouring with rain today so I reckon I’ll chill online for a while, do a greater than Sudoku, guess the city on skyscrapercity.com, I might have some DF-118 and go to a science museum in the afternoon (the Brazilian is a physicist), then I’ve got to change hostel. I’ve gone commando today because I’ve no clean boxers. Ciao for now.