Kiev and Brugge from Marcs Perspective

Yesterday we went shopping for beer at a grocery store in Berlin. The grocery store was massive and had two parts. One part was dedicated to the wide selection of German beer. The other part of the store was for everthing else. I filled half the shopping cart with individual bottles of beer and pushed it over to the cashier. I can't remember a time in my life when I was happier. We are staying with one of Veronika's relatives who showed us aorund Berlin and accompanied us at the grocery store. After he scanned the shopping cart he asked me, "Do you think you have too much?" My heart stopped and I found myself choked up. How could I possibly part with one of the beers I carefully selected over my 25 minute shopping extraveganza? I made it seem like it didn't bother me that much. But the truth is I wanted to throw a temper tantrum in the store or run out crying. Anyways, I drank a few bottles last night and told Veronika I would blog today. I don't remember this and like to think of myself as a man of my word, so here it is.

KIEV: On the last night of our Asian leg, I found a pimple in my ear. The damn thing was throbbing and drove me to the brink of insanity. I took a Q-Tip and poppped that son of a bitch. I took great satisfaction in my relief. But the war was far from over. We touched down in London and my ear was hurting even more then before. I weighed the pros and cons of ripping my ear off, I was in favor of ripping it off and Veronika convinced me to not.

Over the next few days my ear had gotten worse. It hurt so much that I couldn't properly hear out of it. Russians believe that if you have a sore ear you should stick a cotton ball in it to keep it warm. So not only did I have an ear that was growing more useless by the day I was walking around the city looking like an idiot. Veronika took me to a Ukrainen doctor and it is this experience that makes reading this story up to now worth while.

It is a beautiful thing when you can walk into a doctors office and see a specialist on the same day. However, a red flag goes up when you see the secretary making a chart for the doctor with a pencil and ruler. I forgot what it would be like to make a chart without using an Excel spreadsheet. The doctors desk was right beside his secretary and he invited me to have a seat next to him on a stool. The doctor was wearing green scrubs and had a black head band with a reflector on it. I had only seen this disk twice before. Once on the cover of a childrens book with Grover dressed as a doctor the other time was at Pioneer Village. Staying with the pioneer village theme, the doctor took a small metal funnel and stuck in my ear to take a look. The doctor then took a pair of tweasers and stuck a cotton ball in the sore ear. The doctor explained that when we were in London I must have gotten some wind in it that caused an infection. Can anyone possibly see this as a reasonable explaination from a doctor? After the Mickey Mouse explanation he prescribed some drugs for me and instructed to return the following day.

The next day my ear felt much better but not 100%. The secretary had left for the day and the doctor was filling in his chart when we walked in for the check up. My reason for the follow up was to make sure the ear was healing properly. The doctors invited me back with the hope that someone would explain to us that it was customary to leave the doctor a tip. The docotr skipped the foreplay with the funnel and grabbed a drill bit and decided to go to work. He told me to relax. Relax? You are sticking this giant screw in my ear and I'm expected to relax? Sure you put a cotton ball on its tip but I really didn't feel comfortable with the ancient medical training this doctor had recieved in school. After the drill bit fiasco he took a calking gun and once again told me to relax. At this point I was already willing to remove my ear so I let the doctor do his work. He proceeded to flush my ear and follow it up with another round of the drill bit. After all of this my ear is back to normal and remains intact with my head.

One more thing. Do not drink with Russians! I learned my lesson after waking up in our bath tub the next morning.

BRUGGE: A few moths before we left I watched In Brugge with Colin Ferrel. I think he's a ponce but the movie was better than expected. This is the only reason why we went to Brugge.

Old people make up 99% of tourism in Brugge. As a result, every kitchen in every restaurant closes around 9pm. We found a restaurant that would give us some pasta and had enough beer for me and the party at the table next to us. The party consisted of one old man waiting for his buddy who owns the restaurant where Colin Ferrel punched the Canadian guy. The old man's name is Roger Moore, not the actor but the self proclaimed best waiter not only in Brugge but all of Europe. When we started talking to him he was at a point where he probably shouldn't drink anymore, unless he was planning on sleeping in a bath tub. During our time at the restaurant the old man drank 7 more pints and started telling us stories. We would ask him a question and he would answer by telling us how much beer he drinks in a day or how he owned a very prominent bar in Amsterdam. Couldn't have been that prominent now that he is waiting tables.

Belgium not only has the best beer in the world their waffles are the bees knees too.


Toodles