Update!

We are still in Vancouver, BC. Alot has happened, but we barely traveled  Our good friend Tom flew into Van City yesterday and rightfully so pointed out over supper that we did not write any more blogs. I think one is due. Look out for updates soon! Until that moment I leave you with this wisdom by the great Darwin:

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."

ben

III

I find it to be funny that many people I meet believe their life is ruled by reason: methodically calculating situations and believing they somewhat control the outcome of those decisions and as a product of that - their lives. There is belief in the illusion of control. I see reason, and religion for the more devout readers, to be ideas that we created to comfort us and help us deal with thoughts and feelings which are natural to being human, but are so hard to understand. What we try to do is break it down to subsets of things we can understand. Placing those small unrelated pieces together, we try to make sense of whatever the hell we are feeling, or whatever we are doing here anyway. We all agree on the fact that this crooked puzzle looks good and that we shouldn't talk about it.

We are taught by others to think in certain ways and our parents and loved ones say it's all going to be ok. All you have to do is not feel upset, conform, agree but still have you're own opinion about things so it wouldn't seem like you're a totally uninteresting person. We get by every day, doing crazy routines we were taught when we were young. We hardly question them because hey, who has the time to question things when we have jobs to go to, schools to attend, sports to physically strain ourselves with or just mindless entertainment that comforts us in any way we would need comforting. Even when we take time to ourselves we go on vacations to punish ourselves with ideas of how relaxing should look like and how we should make the most out of our time. We will tend to do that our entire lives: living to the fullest extent from one amazing moment to another trying not to miss out. Some of you might call me cynical saying that and you are entitled to your opinion but let's agree to disagree.

I believe a reality without the concept of reason or any religion constraining you to a certain path is way more beautiful. We all have no idea what we are doing. We're just beings trying to understand what we are doing with this entity which we call "life". We all have our poets and writers, but apart from a different timeframe and intellect or insight, they are exactly the same as you and me: trying to figure out what the hell we are doing. They leave their traces on human history, but nobody really has answers to anything, because we cannot define what defines us. I believe therein lies beauty.

I look up at the sky in the middle of the night and realize that I can't see beyond the black and that all the chaos in the world and all these unrelated events give meaning to my life. A life which I will keep on trying to define until my death is near.

Ben

Travel map so far

This map is a rough sketch and doesn't note all the places that we've actually been to. Traveling to all these places in this order equals 80 hours and 48 minutes of non-stop driving which equals 7261 km. Sweet!

Ben

II

Like everything I mostly do, have done or will do: this blog is long overdue. Combine this personal trait with some crazy times, drunken times, exhausted times, fighting times and times of joy – well, that doesn't really leave time for writing and thinking about home. I find this to be sad, but nevertheless true. Traveling from one place to another without much time to think about what you're doing, besides the moment itself, is a very unique, powerful and fun experience. Days fly by and you lose yourself in the rush of traveling. During our trip through the USA I more than once caught myself wanting to leave one place for another when we were somewhere for an extended period of time. That was mostly only 3 days. The soundtrack in my head went: faster, faaaster, FAAASTERRR! No down-tempo music in the world could slow that tune down.

However, your body can only take so much battle and approaching our limit of 3 months traveling in the USA, things surely slowed down. Meaning that we stayed in one place for more than one week. Considering we were couchsurfing, the drinking didn't slow down at all. Seattle and Portland are bookmarked on my liver I'm afraid. After hitting our last American destination, Portland, making a loop across the west coast, we headed towards Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Arriving in Vancouver we could hardly believe how many miles we had done and we both had a feeling of relief: “finally, we're here”. Having no place to stay though, that first night proved to be eventful as well. Posting a last minute couchsurf request, without much hope, we got saved by a girl living in what she described as an art studio. Well, knowing only one thing about the city of Vancouver, through stories and music, we ended up in the one place that I vowed to never visit: East Hastings. If you have never heard of East Hastings, look it up on youtube. There are no words to describe that street.

Now you know what I'm talking about I'll ask you kindly to click the following link and listen to the amazing song dedicated to that particular street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kfkUUkEGtc. Don't worry, it has no crazy vocals!

So, reading the address the girl texted us I instantly started laughing with great concern in the back of my mind. The one thing that separates us though, me in that moment and you the reader right now, is that I had no idea how the street actually looked like. You can only imagine the expression on my face when we were walking through that street with our 25 kilo backpack full of valuable stuff, making us a perfect target for crime. We didn't find the house right away and we started freaking out, but then out of the blue a girl across the street yelled for us to come over. It was the couchsurfing host. We talked to her for a bit and while we were talking she unlocked an almost unnoticeable door, showing us her art studio. In reality it proved to be a squatted building, housing a family of rats. At that point we both were glad enough to be off the street and safe, on the first floor of the building. That night we slept on the floor. I was comforting myself with the thought that rats wouldn't bite my face off because I'm a loud snorer. I wasn't too sure though and hearing rats crawl behind the walls while I was taking a dump didn't really help. Luckily, we made it through the night safe: accompanied by the drug addicts barking and yelling at each other the entire night. The day after, we met up with a friend of ours who we got to meet in San Francisco. Eventually it became apparent that she was leaving Vancouver and that's how we got to rent her room. Having our own place, close to the beach, during the summer time, has been a blast.

We met loads of cool people, had some crazy house parties, swam naked at night on more than one occasion, chilled on the famous nude beach of Vancouver and just had so many beautiful days doing things young people do.

Having traveled for a short time I can tell you that traveling can be harsh and wonderful at the same time. I felt I was exchanging a part of my identity for something different, undefined, that transcends me as a person. The overwhelming beauty and greatness of nature is a big part of that experience. People who share their homes with us and are so kind and giving make me feel humble, wanting to return such friendliness to others. But at the same time I'm confronted with the fact that not all of those acts are so unselfish as they seem to be. A few people want something in return, in whatever practical or abstract form that might be. However, my sense is that in this case the positive beats the negative, and I feel content about that.

The personal challenge that I face is that I'm wanting to change myself for the better, discarding the old and embracing the new, without losing the good during that process. Real positive change doesn't come that easy, even if we want it to.

I believe Montesquieu was exactly thinking of traveling when he wrote:

“False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.”

Ben

Vancouver Indie Folk Festival

So after some crazy luck, a shift on the folk festival, one amazing Dan Mangan gig, a drunken night without much sleep - we got invited for a radio appearance. Both not fully realizing what was going on we accepted the invitation and shortly after we were seated behind the microphones.

It wasn't a glorious interview from our point of view because apparently they were more interested in the Canadian woman living in Kenia than the two red-eyed Belgians traveling without a plan.

I posted a link to the podcast in this message. Our part of the interview starts around 3:24:10, but you'll probably have to skip to the time closest to that.

http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20120714-080000-to-20120714-120000.mp3

Enjoy our 15 minutes of fame!

An update is pending!

Ben

 

I

It is hard to put into words the things that haunt the traveller's mind. Going back and forth without even thinking straight and taking every possibility and opportunity with both hands, we've been bumming aroung San Fran for about a week now. It all starts with shitloads of coffee and American pancakes in the morning. Right now we are staying in a youth hostel called Amsterdam Hostel on 749 Taylor Street. It is kind of weird to see all these people hanging around with all of them different views, perspectives and ideas on travelling and things in general, I reckon. Pretty much every nationality is represented and still there is kind of a universal atmosphere that covers it all. Drinking, talking, making out, the universality of the world still baffles me every instant. America is way different from the smalltown Europe we are used to, but at the same time, it is so much alike that it tends to feel like home very quickly. We came over here with the idea of living on the road without  planning anything in advance and that works out quite great, thusfar. In comparisson to what most people consider to be the real world, we kind of created our own kind of reality without having to take the world into consideration and it feels great, I can tell you that. The touristy streets of the city seem to be empty with meaningful thoughts but the suburbs burn with great ideas like a big coastal wind haunting down the more corporate parts of the city like a boss. It is confounding how big is the difference between the different areas in a city like SF. You can literally walk three blocks and find yourself in a totally different country or in a fucked up sketchy neighbourhood that will scare the living shit out of you. It's the variety of people, the divergency of people that rules the city, in a way so beat that it seems to be the most normal thing in the world whereas the corporate stock broker would piss on the bum's head if he could.

I remember this one day, we had to walk through the Tenderloin in broad daylight. Being one of the most sketchy neighbourhoods in the whole of San Francisco, you can imagine the feeling of fear and dismay controlling your every move. 6 ft tall gay body builders, crack smoking grandmas and an air filled with pot in a way that it's hard not to get passively baked, the Tenderloin is a place where no common guy like ourselves would ever feel totally safe. When we where passing it, the Swiss girls that we met earlier on wanted to go and get some tobacco and we entered a small, undersized tobacco and liquor shop. Standing there, a black person, 6 ft 2, long put up hair and wearing a skirt that just covered his junk passed me, yelling and acting really weird. Before I was well aware of what was happening I saw a fist glancing off my face while, what seemed to be his boyfriend, swung at the other "guy". I felt like a referee in a gay boxing match and was kind of relieved that his fist just missed my face as I reckoned the guy had a fair right hook. In fear and faith I can say that I can honestly admit that I hadn't been as afraid as in that specific moment right there in the San Franciscan Tenderloin.

Leaving the Tenderloin, you walk straight into the commercial center of San Francisco, which, I guess, puts into perspective what I told you earlier on. We were walking to Dolores park, up on Mission, the more arty and hipster part of San Francisco. The sun was ruling the West American sky and we got ourselves some beers and a grab to eat at Ike's place, which is known for its legendary sandwiches. I reckon it's the only place where you can drink alcohol, smoke pot and get wasted in the open. The police knows about the place and created kind of a free and liberated open space, far away from the corporate political world that seems to be ruling the United States at this point. People are openly selling weed and booze, dogs are going wild and people are dancing, playing music and doing sports. Everybody seems so at ease and happy, it's like this park creates a certain form of escapism for the restless population, inhabiting the city. We, 3 Swiss girls, an American guy called Jesse and a Russian dude called Alex, were lying there on the grass, having a drink, talking and just enjoying each other's company, sometimes, life's just really simple, you know.

Living in a hostel it's truly very normal to meet new people every day, which isn't a bad thing if you meet the right people, that is. The first night we sat outside to eat our poor meals and we asked three girls, Chanti, Ruth and Catia if we could sit at their table, since there was no other place to sit down and they seemed like some cool chicks. While travelling, every conversation starts in a shallow way. Where are you from, what are you doing here, when are you going back and all that bull. But these girls were different, before we were well aware of it we were sitting there for over two hours and found out that we have shitloads in common. At that point we were joined by Jesse and David, two guys from LA. Like real teenagers we decided to play a game called never have I ever. David proposed to make it a drinking game and that's when it all started. We drank for 4 hours straight, talked about the most personal things and it all came so naturally.That's when I discovered, Swiss girls are off the hook but so fucking awesome. The next morning we all had breakfast together and eventually spend the next four days hanging around, going places and drinking for four days straight. After what had been four amazing days, The Swiss girls left for Mamuth lakes, Jesse left for Mexico and we were still here, with the same people, in the same environment where nothing had changed. It still baffles me how attached you can get to people in that short of a time. I hate goodbyes, I can tell you that for sure, but then again, traveling is saying goodbye and moving on. Traveling is leaving. Goodbye.

Koen

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This blog marks the start of a project that will be undertaken by two people who will cross a lot of roads and even more angry men. Nothing new will be done, no revelations will be made – i.e. it has all been done before. However, doing something you dreamed of doing for a long time is a powerful experience. Therefore there will be some kind of spiritual connotation to this undertaking. But for now, we are still way ahead of ourselves. There is still a lot to be done and complex things to be felt before this project will set sails.

Tune in and buckle up.

Ben