March 12/13
In my previous post I mentioned my plan to travel to Antwerp for the Raw Circles bboy jam. The weekend of the jam arrived, and I woke up early saturday morning, took the 30 minute or so bike ride to central station, and then grabbed the train down to Antwerp.
Upon arriving in antwerp's
central station, I was immediately impressed - the Antwerp train station is pretty grandiose, especially for not being that big of a town. I arrived around 10 am, and walked around town.
Antwerp is a pretty touristy town (as many European towns are), but was still quite nice (as many European towns also are), and an enjoyable change of pace from Amsterdam. After noon, the town started getting more lively, and I fulfilled one of my goals for this trip - consuming belgian waffles. I wanted to see if belgian waffles from belgium were better than the ihop variety.
The waffles were really good - I don't think they were decidedly better than a typical waffle, but the flavor was slightly tweaked. Definitely a worthwhile experience.
After the waffle, I checked
out a few other touristy areas around the city,
including Het Steen
("the stone") - the local castle, and a cathedral. It seems as if every european city has a least one centuries old and incredibly ornate cathedral. I walked around for a few more hours, and finally took the tram over to the event venue.
The jam was dope! There were many cyphers (circles where dancers take turns freestyling) and 2 circles set aside for the preliminary battles. The main event was the top 16 bracket of the jam, where dancers from all around the world competed for a cash prize. It was really fun to watch.
One of the best battles of the night was Morris and Gravity vs. Knuckleheads Cali. All 4 of the dancers are highly respected dancers from the states. The energy was through the roof during this battle.
Shortly before 9pm, I started getting ready to leave, so that I could catch the last train at 10 back to Amsterdam. I had been sitting in the crowd, so I walked over to grab my bag. This proved difficult, as my bag was nowhere to be found. I frantically looked around, asked the emcee make an announcement, and had the groups of people sitting near the last known location of my backpack stand up, to no avail. Even after the event ended and the venue cleared out, I could not find my bag - it had disappeared.
What worried me was not the loss of my mildly tattered nike backpack, but the loss of the bag's content - in the backpack was my passport, wallet, ipod, money, and train ticket. I looked around until about 10:30, and then headed over to Antwerp's central station, really disheartened and worried about what I would do. My plan was to chill at the train station overnight, and see if the person working the ticket counter would let me take the train back to amsterdam in the morning after hearing my sob story (it wasn't exactly an air-tight plan, but it was the best I could come up with). Since I evidently was lacking a great idea about what to do, I called a friend in amsterdam asking for advice.
In a good samaritan-esque show of kindness, that friend reserved a room for me for the night and took the train down the next morning to pick me up. I was amazed at that - I didn't have any other recourse, and I was helped out tremendously. I made it back to amsterdam okay, but was still left without my wallet or passport or anything. Later that week, I got an email from the managers of the venue saying they had found my bag, and would be able to ship it to me. I eventually got the back bag, with only my ipod and the cash missing. Happy ending! (more or less)
Entirely unrelated song post:
Producer Tor mashed up Sufjan Stevens' "Star of Wonder" with Aesop Rock's "None Shall Pass".
Both are good songs on their own, and the product of the two turns out great.
Shortly before 9pm, I started getting ready to leave, so that I could catch the last train at 10 back to Amsterdam. I had been sitting in the crowd, so I walked over to grab my bag. This proved difficult, as my bag was nowhere to be found. I frantically looked around, asked the emcee make an announcement, and had the groups of people sitting near the last known location of my backpack stand up, to no avail. Even after the event ended and the venue cleared out, I could not find my bag - it had disappeared.
What worried me was not the loss of my mildly tattered nike backpack, but the loss of the bag's content - in the backpack was my passport, wallet, ipod, money, and train ticket. I looked around until about 10:30, and then headed over to Antwerp's central station, really disheartened and worried about what I would do. My plan was to chill at the train station overnight, and see if the person working the ticket counter would let me take the train back to amsterdam in the morning after hearing my sob story (it wasn't exactly an air-tight plan, but it was the best I could come up with). Since I evidently was lacking a great idea about what to do, I called a friend in amsterdam asking for advice.
In a good samaritan-esque show of kindness, that friend reserved a room for me for the night and took the train down the next morning to pick me up. I was amazed at that - I didn't have any other recourse, and I was helped out tremendously. I made it back to amsterdam okay, but was still left without my wallet or passport or anything. Later that week, I got an email from the managers of the venue saying they had found my bag, and would be able to ship it to me. I eventually got the back bag, with only my ipod and the cash missing. Happy ending! (more or less)
Entirely unrelated song post:
Producer Tor mashed up Sufjan Stevens' "Star of Wonder" with Aesop Rock's "None Shall Pass".
Both are good songs on their own, and the product of the two turns out great.
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