Goals 40, 97, 100: Belgium

March 3rd to 7th marked a trip to a country of B's. The beautiful and bright country of Belgium. In Belgium, we went to the Cities of Brussels, Gent, and Brugges(?), and had quite a time exploring without any real direction or instruction, besides knowing that Saturday was going to be Museum Night Fever, a museum extravaganza featuring 20 museums in Brussels.

Goal 97: Make Street Art

Because we travelled in a group of 9 people, we split up into two different groups of couchsurfers, and one group of 5 had to mix up our plans a bit when they decided to stay in Gent. A trip to Gent had been a possibility, and so this change of plans was welcome, and gave us business for our first day.

Gent was a beautiful little city with cute architecture everywhere. I got on a boat with Aaron Kahn after jumping some fences, and later we found a little alleyway with some really excellent street art on it that looked like a huge crossword puzzle. So guess what we did before we left.

It was a multinational wall with many different languages, so all of us chose a few words to add, and I added words from four different languages that I am fluent in.

Playa - Spanish - "beach" (not "Playa" in ebonics)

Progress was the group contribution to the wall. We made Progress the theme of this trip after reminiscing about a previous roadtrip to Canada.

Mycket - Swedish - "Very"

also

Et - French - "And"

Molto - Italian - "Very"

Design. My personal English contribution.

We also made additions in Finnish and Bulgarian.

Goal 100: Get In Brugge

The next day we got In Bruges.

"It's like a postcard"

This is the tower in Bruggs that guy jumps off an 'spodes all over the ground in the movie.

Look at this dog. He just sits there, like a dog. All day. This is his window in Brugges.

We just happened to be there on the day that there was only 100 days of school left. All of the highschoolers and youngons take to the streets in ridiculous attire, and hit eachother with shaving cream and flour. This is called "The 100 Day Ravage." We went to a club bar, and it was about 3:00pm, it was selling meters of beer, and had a full nightclub going, equipped with all the kiddies you could handle. This is the beer I drank in Brugge.

There are two famous green boxes that sell Belgish food at the town square in Brooge. Apparently it's an age old competition between the two, and we chose the one on the right for whatever reason.

We played ping pong at our couchsurfer's house in Bruge.

"If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't." -Colin Farrell in In Bruges

Goal 40: Perform a Heist

In Brussels, we attended Museum Night Fever, and at the Museum of Brussels, there was an odd arrangement of clothes and costumes that people were dressing up in and taking pictures with.

All of the stuff was just layin there on the table, with nothing really to do except to get wrangled and touched by all of these filthy museum-goers.

So I decided to wrangle some up and pick out some wicked awesome rags to take a few pictures in. This picture is of me shortly after scoring an ace and winning the Wimbelton cup.

There was a blonde wig that was pretty popular among our group.

So then I was getting ready to take this sweater off that was way cooler than anything else I own, and I started to reconsider.

Rather than be torn from an existence without the green sweater...I heisted it.

I own it now.

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Goals 50, 72, & 94: Italy

Let February 17th-22nd be named the most epic time period of the year. The trip to Milan, Italy included many of my favorite things such as dancing, design, destruction, dialects, and smuggling. This was all sponsored by a very good, old friend, Elis Bonini.

Goal 72: See my Italian friend, Elis, in Italy

It's been quite a while, at least 2 years since I've seen this old friend. Once a foreign exchange student to my high school, he knew me as the asshole that poorly imitated his accent for six months. We became good friends over doing ridiculous things in and around Albuquerque.

Well now it was my turn to return the favor with a ridiculous trip to Milan, where he now lives and goes to school. We wasted no time before beginning progress.

Goal 50: Eat an Italian Pizza

The first stop was a small pizzeria in Milan where pizza was sold by the gram, square, thick, and delicious.

They give you little forks to eat with.

I ate with those little forks.

Later on, Elis grabbed a couple of mushroom pizzas from another shop, and we dined on a circular Italian pizza.

After a day in Milan, we left to see the infamous town that formed Elis, Reggio Emilia. This town is very small, but has great importance. Not only did the Romans feature a road right through it, but it is also the birthplace of the current Italian flag. Reggio featured some incredible treats, including more Italian pizza at Piccolo Paradiso.

I had four different types of pizza here, all custom made, with different types of mushrooms and meats that I've never been privileged enough to see on my pizza dough.

The paradise had some unexpected bonuses as well. This was an anchovy bread combo that was gratis. In addition to this, I was seeking to eat a leftover pizza. The others I was with asked a waiter for permission, and he kindly rejected the privilege, but then brought out two of the largest sandwiches I had ever seen to be polite. These huge sandwiches play a major role in an adventure later on.

Goal 94: Laugh Until I Cry

The morning after our first night in Milan, Elis, Kenny and I were eating breakfast and discussing various things. One of the topics was of my previous night's rest with no blankets, on a bed in the living room. This was peculiar because I was awoken by Elis's roommates as they were eating breakfast at a table that was in direct line with my face while I was sleeping. We laughed about dumb things, but it was a good laugh we had.

Notice Elis is wearing the I heart 06 shirt, our senior shirt at St. Pius.

Nutella was the nice breakfast treat, who knew it would play an interesting role later on.

Epic Italia

Besides goals completed, Italy proved to be such an epic trip. We got free drinks at a club that left us wasted and bumbling about until 6am. That was then followed up by an authentic Italian meal by Elis's aunt and uncle where I nearly 'sploded from all the delicious, homemade food I ate.

After the drink and food, we found an abandoned factory that was inhabited by gypsies. We explored it a bit, and then started smashing up whatever we could.

That's not all though, because once we were getting ready to leave, we arrived at Bergamo Hotel/Airport the night before our 6am flight.

That was the worst of our problems though, because we had a 750g jar of Nutella that we had to smuggle back to Stockholm. Upon checking the rulebook, we saw that cremes can be in a maximum of 100g containers.

Lucky for us though, there is an exception to this rule...sorta. In the book, it cites that cremes "inside of sandwiches" is ok. Well then, it just so turns out we were given two oversized sandwiches that would be perfect for putting 750g of Nutella on.

My first time smuggling something across the border couldn't have been sweeter.

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Goals 11 & 14: Paris

Our first weekend long (6 day) trip, we went to Paris. We stayed with two most excellent couchsurfers, and did about every touristy thing you can imagine, and then some stuff that was not so touristy (like a catacomb party).

This post comes a little late, as Paris happened about 3 weeks ago now, but better late than never, right? While I was in Paris, I completed two of my goals, to see the Eiffel tower, and to go to Disneyland Paris. The Eiffel Tower was almost the first thing we saw, and we wouldn't see it again until just before we left.

Goal 14: See the Eiffel Tower

The work was really something. It was so industrial, yet so elegant. Such a symbol of industrial revolution, it was beautiful. It was really something to see THE tower that is featured in countless everythings.

Goal 11: Go to Disneyland Paris

Get ready for castle.....

Sleeping Beauty's castle was very ornate and...pink. It was a very nice castle, but I thought it a little cheezy. Was it really necessary to include Tinkerbell frozen in flight around the top steeple?

That is where my complaining about the castle ends, because everything else about it was excellent. You can actually go INSIDE of this castle, and it's filled with custom embroidery and stained glass that was beautiful.

The Fantasyland that the castle was connected to was also really good. It really gave the impression of a medieval little village, all joined up and part of the castle. I was a big fan of that.

Called "Tic and Tack", I'm pretty sure Chip and Dale were getting pissed at me for calling them by their American names. BUT, if that was the case, they certainly didn't show it. All of the characters were super chipper and fun to play with. Probably because it was a cold day, and there weren't many people in the park. Chip...Tic...Took the above picture on my camera for me.

Hollywood Studios is also part of the Disneyland Paris Resort.

Paris was a good little trip. Baguettes every day, Nutella every night. I saw epic and historic things every day, which was pretty neat in itself. Things like the Arc de Triomphe and the Mona Lisa make an impact on your memory once you've got your own point of view on them.

Although we did do lots of things, coming home I felt like I had not accomplished much more than being a tourist. Although we did do stuff a little out of the ordinary, such as the catacomb party, or the farmers market, we mostly stuck to the typical sightseeing things. Although I understand the necessity to get this kind of thing out of the way, future trips should be as much without the plain as possible.