One Beer to Rule Them All

...and in my mouth bind them

Look at that, a title this week. Can you tell I'm in a good mood? I have good news and bad news for yall. First, the positive: yall thought I forgot about this bitch, but I'm back and dropping some more Euro knowledge for ya. Despite the fact that I'm currently dripping with sweat and suffering the emotional pain of finishing my last day at the Parliament in Brussels. I've even littered it with helpful links throughout for the less enlightened among you. Bad news is my camera is gone, so don't hold your breath for pics. The only certainty is that it's somewhere in Luxembourg. Now let's never speak of it or what drunk me tweeted about it again.

(P.S. even the random internet cafe I'm typing this in still produced a Chimay Bleu for me. I'm gonna miss this country.)

Lots in my notes for this week. Had some more sweet delegation at the Parliament, including one headed by the speaker of Tunisia's new Constituent Assembly, one Mustapha Ben Jafar. Guy looks about as Tunisian as my uncle and is more belligerent than my uncle after eight Pilsners to boot. Still, the guy is obviously pretty canny if he manuevered himself into one of the top government jobs post-revolution, and he's not having any of these questions about potential Salafist entrenchment in the constitution or amnesty for the ancien regime. Like always, I am a paragon of focus and diligence and am faithfully taking notes for the Zeller. The girl beside me is morally bankrupt and texting the whole time, only keeping pace by copying my pristine information. Now I know how the Chans and Lees of the world feel. So I start writing random ahit in the middle of my notes to fuck with her. Something like:

-1/4 of budget devoted to social programs
-stresses need to address regional inequalities
-demands "All Power to the Soviets"
-insists that sharia law will not be incorporated into new constitution
-says instead all non-believers will be forced to drive Toyota Priuses

A note about the translators here. Generally they do a pretty damn good job at translating from 20-odd languages on the fly direct into English. They were working overtime this day handling Arabic, too. One thing you don't immediately realize is that they have to get the tone of the speech right, too. Occasionally you get one who's having an off day and uses a happy, lighthearted tone while he's describing rampant organ thievery in Kosovo. Free kidneys for everyone under 12!

It's funny how the Germans view this country, too. Jan finds it bizarre that I enjoy Brussels at all and says if he couldn't fly back to Germany every weekend he would commit. According to him the beer here is all made with the wrong ingredients and unfit for human consumption, too. Not the first time I've been indirectly called a pig. Me and Joanna were having a convo about culture shock and anything that might be throwing me off in Belgium. I tell her it's basically been cool (as if Western Europe was really going to be more jarring than a country that wrestles its camels) and that the only thing that's really pissed me off is the absurd opening hours of all the shops here, with nothing open past 6 or on Sundays. She gives me a look of exasperated understanding and we bond as we spend the next ten minutes bitching about the insanity of it all. I'm starting to love the Deutsch.

By the next morning my computer is so far removed from working condition I have no choice but to take it in. Someone needs to smack those bloody Japanese around. I fire off a quick Ipod email to Joanna to let her know I'll be late. Below is the text word-for-word:

Hello Mrs. [name redacted],

Just letting you know I'll be in around 11 today. I need to take my computer in and the nearest shop is only open from 10 to 6. Fucking Belgians, am I right?

Regards,
Neil

At least that's what I typed up prior to discovering that the internet was out, too. But you still laughed. I think I went in and probably did some stuff after. There's no way we can be sure. Visited another sick lambic brewery on Friday and picked up some goodies. My wallet hurts.

Saturday, and that means traveling time. Brace yourself Ypres. I initially planned on using my amazing morning skills to start my day at 8 30. Somehow this became 9 30, then 11, and by the time I finally dragged my ass out of bed it was damn near noon. Oops. Guess I won't be biking around the Salient today. The massive WWI museum stops taking visitors at 5 pm, so I scramble through the hotel check-in and make it there with ten minutes to spare. Only to discover that it's getting renovated until next Saturday. I think the only Dutch word I've learned here is GESLOTEN - CLOSED. At least the service for all the fallen Canadians in the evening is still pretty dope. Respect.

No avoiding the biking on Sunday. Today's target, Westvleteren Abbey, is out in the countryside far from any public transit and well out of walking distance. If you want the world's best beer, you have to work for it. Somehow I'm still pretty bad at this whole traveling thing, and for some reason I elected to bring only the pair of jeans I was wearing Thursday with me. I'm not even sure why I bought these things - they barely fit me after fasting for twelve hours and are so skinny you'd think I was a diehard My Chemical Romance fan. You'd actually be close, my brother is. The fucking jeans would probably fit him a lot better, too. I briefly consider cutting them into denim shorts Tobias Funke style, but decide instead to just become an incredibly chafed human being. There are dozens of us!

On the seventh day, God looked at Belgium and gave it a once-over with a meat tenderizer, so the whole country is flat as fuck. It's like he knew I wouldn't have exercised for four months before coming here. I rip across to the abbey in an hour flat. I've been anticipating this moment for years months weeks and am literally tingling with excitement. Maybe I can even get one of the monks to sprinkle some of his dandruff in my beer and make it that much more authentic. Sit down, order up and I'm presented with a glistening amber chalice. My first ever pint of Westvleteren 12 looks every bit as refined as I'd imagined. Even the head looks like something you'd get on your knees to drink out of the gutter. And my fuck does it ever deliver. The taste is like Rochefort 10 (the world's second best beer, in my unquestionable opinion) on steroids. I could sit here spouting adjectives that most of you can't really relate to for the next ten minutes, but I'll just let Ratebeer do the talking. If I had to describe it in one sentence, it would be like the resurrection of Christ in your mouth (no homo). Totally fucking awesome. Book the next flight to Belgium and see for yourself.

Initially I'd planned on hitting the nearby De Struise brewery, another total beauty, later that day. After an 8, a Blonde and a double dip in the 12, my legs have other ideas. I'm lucky to stumble to the shop, only to find out they won't sell me a single bottle to take home. Lucky for them I left my Uzi in my other pants. With great focus and determination I make it back to town, slam a couple litres of water, sample some more regional specialties and make it back to Brussels. Without even losing anything. I wish that wasn't as impressive as it is.

I'm still soaked in my suit and getting thirsty. Plus I gotta change in time to watch the Germans annihilate the dirty broke Italians in an hour. Factor in getting stuck in the elevator for another half hour and I better head out now. If you're lucky and I can't make more friends I might type another entry next week in Strasbourg. Until then go outside, or something.

Christmas came early, kids. You thought I had forgotten about this bitch. You were wrong. My ASUS bit the dust two weeks into my trip, just as I hit the end credits of the Game of Thrones season two finale (thank you Scott and Krista, cause that show fucking owns). But since I love you all so much, I just parked my ass at a greasy computer gaming cafe for the express purpose of updating you all on my life. With great focus, Red Bull and drum and bass I'm resisting the temptation to join the crowd playing Magic: the Gathering to translate my notes from my Ipod onto here. I might even get through my world's-best-beer and Antwerp entries today. You can save any awards until I get home.

Let's pick up with the second week. This week the Parliament is holding its plenary session in Strasbourg. All the members and most of the assistants are there. I am not. Neither are Mr. Zeller's assistants Jan and Joanna, and they tell me I can hole up in his office for the week and basically stream the session, read articles and chill. But I was looking forward to soul-crushing clerical work! The office itself is pretty dope: top floor, and Zeller has all sorts of cool shit from Central Asia, travel guides to the Congo and Taiwan, dictionaries for Deutsch-Polish, -Japanese, and -Bulgarian, plus lots of other shit. I also notice some reports from the election monitoring he did in Algeria, Tajikistan and the DRC. Guy gets around.

Tuesday starts off boring, but the Strasbourg plenary has a pretty sweet debate. The European Parliament is interesting in that it faces the challenge of reconciling 753 members and the dozens of national parties they represent into coherent political groups. To this end the various MEPs coalesce into ideologically-based groups and coordinate policies along these lines. Thankfully the guy I'm working for is sane and a member of the centre-right European People's Party, which is also the biggest group. As you'd expect most of the parliamentarians are happy to jerk each other off about how harmoniously end-of-history their European integration project is, but about one in ten is an asshole Euroskeptic. Most of these guys are Brits and fucking funny, too. The best one is Nigel Farage, who leads a UK party that basically demands tearing up every multilateral treaty the country has ever signed. Smart guy, too. His speech this day was brilliant. Check it out.

I typed up a huge polemic on the merits and drawbacks of the EU back when I thought I'd be updating this every couple days, but it's taken me a half hour to type all this shit so I'm just gonna move into the second sweet five-day weekend in a row. I had long ago bought a ticket to the Netsky show Friday night, because who doesn't like Belgian drum and bass live in the sweetest venue in Brussels? Searching for other random nearby concerts, however, I stumbled upon something far sweeter. Judas Priest, finishing their last ever world tour. In London. On Saturday. Ten minutes and way too many euros later and I have a ticket, a round trip on a train and two nights in a hostel with a 24-hour bar in the basement. I really hate Europe.

There's so painfully little going on at the Parliament that they give me Thursday off, too. Who said the Germans aren't merciful? I hit the Cantillon brewery for some epic lambics, basically beers that are brewed using only wild yeast from the air and are stored and age like wines. Much more on them in a future entry. Friday arrives and I head down to the Ancienne Belgique dead in the old town heart of Brussels. This is the guy's homecoming show, so he brings out the big guns: a live band with a keyboardist, a drummer on a Roland kit (this could have been you, Eric Chiang) and an MC. Five Duvels and two hours of insane drum and bass later I can't hear anything except my heart in my ears and I look like I just got out of the pool.

No rest for the wicked and I'm fighting my way through British customs early the next day. Black woman at the counter gives me the business about not having a copy of the receipt for the hostel I booked online or my flight back to Calgary fucking two months later. Am I visiting England or East Germany? The bitch's best efforts still can't stop me from showing up at the Hammersmith Apollo just as the first opener heads on. Decent enough. Saxon follows them. Old school New Wave of British Heavy Metal dudes that I never listened to, but they have some crunchy riffs. Pretty impressed. Spot a guy inexplicably wearing an Oilers jersey. I guess failure transcends continents. The lights go down, I chat with a British dude about dirty continentals and it's time.

The Metal Gods come out with all guns blazing. Immediately rip into some classic British Steel before spreading out into all eras of Priestly goodness. Even standing at the very back of the sweltering arena I'm still covered in goosebumps. Rob Halford is ten times better than he was at the 2005 show, nailing every high note on Painkiller and all the rest. This can't get any better. Then come the first few notes of The Sentinel, the best Priest song of all time. Fuck it, the best metal song of all time. The best song of best song time ever. Rocked out like I was in the first row, and in a couple months if you really squint you'll be able to see for yourselves, because just before the last song the drummer comes up and announces they've been filming the show for a DVD. I drop twenty euros on probably the coolest fucking band shirt I own at the merch stand and head back to the hostel to get lit. Fifteen-year-old me would be so proud.

Pretty normal college kid tourist shit for the rest of the weekend. Made it till 5 am that night drinking with some beauties from Chicago and some other kids. Walked around the city until my ass was too chafed to continue and fleeced some Hungarians at poker for twenty whole pounds. Pretty sure there was a Sunday, too. Who knows. Do you really want to read another three paragraphs about the fucking zoo? Check out the sweet pics I'm about to facebook. Please.

EDIT: Even Batman needs Robin sometimes (no homo). Big ups to my boy ET for suggesting the Cantillon tour, because apparently the quiet satisfaction of knowing it himself wasn't good enough.