I sauntered over to an interesting looking pub that promised free Wi-Fi (which, I learned later in Namur, the correct prounication in French is "wee-fee" -- something I just thought was kinda cute when spoken by the female server).
I took my place at a random table and chatted with the cocktail waitress for a bit -- a very attractive Polish woman who spoke no French; only English -- and, upon learning that I hailed from Texas, we went into a fairly long discussion about her ex-boyfriend from Houston. Shortly thereafter, a French-Canadian who was originally from Montreal, but now living in Brussels took a seat next to me -- a guy named Rene -- and we had a good time talking. Particularly funny was when I mentioned that I had just arrived from London and his immediate response was "Aren't the girls ugly there?! They dress like complete shit! They're all trying to look like they're 12 years old!" Ha! Sweet validation! I guess it wasn't just my own observation. Seriously, though, the London girls' style was worse than the hipsters on the East Side in Austin (which is awful enough). It was completely different (i.e. excellent) in Belgium.
Another aside -- It's felt kinda strange to me how easy it's been to make friends throughout my travels. I think that's one of the benefits of traveling alone; instead of chatting with a travel partner, I've tried to engage as many people as possible -- everyone I've met thus far has been amazingly friendly. Definitely not something that I feel that I've encountered in my travels in the States.
Back to the story -- while we talked, another of Rene's friends (I don't remember his name -- I think it was a dual name like Jean-Luc, or some such) materialized. Apparently, he was in the band that was to play shortly. Amazingly, he was smoking this "brand" of ciggy:
Jean-Luc spoke hardly no English, so I talked almost exclusively in my broken French. Rene translated as Jean-Luc got more drunk and spoke too fast for me to keep up. By this point, I was up to Chimay #5 or #6, and I was feeling really good.
A really crazy, and I mean seriously f$cked in the head regular was hanging out in the bar and would periodically come up to our table and mumble something incoherent to us. He was known as the "cowboy" (finally someone else was being called cowboy!!). He wore what looked like a New Mexico styled black suede jacket, complete with the strings coming off the back (awesome!); black cowboy boots, of course, with steel tips; black jeans with a rounded gold belt buckle about a foot in diameter (I swear, that thing was almost the size of a boxing championship belt); and a diamond encrusted watch about 5 inches wide. Abolutely crazy! His dancing was even better; it was a combination of a siezure and uncontrollable fit. Awesome!! I would've taken more pics, but my phone and computer had died at this point -- funny story, but I didn't realize my power cord adapter worked in Belgium initally. I tried it when I arrived at the hotel, but it didn't seem to fit. So, I was a little panic-ed that I would be without my camera and computer for the duration of my stay. In Namur I realized I had tried the adapter upside down [face palm]. Once I put it in the correct way, everything was good (that's what she said!!).
The band played exclusively American songs, mostly from the 70s and 90s. Afterwards, Rene and I went outside and partook in some party favors in the middle of the street, before heading over to another club / bar. Some fairly sketchy people joined us, and after an hour with them, I decided it was time to make my exit. The details aren't exactly clear to me, but I ended up walking near some sort of freeway before I managed to hail a cab. The cab drove for quite awhile, so I really have no idea where I was -- I checked a map the next day, and I didn't see any nearby highways, so I have absolutely no idea where I was. That was interesting, but hey, I survived ;p
Next up: Namur and Hooverphonic.
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