argh!

So we've been away for something like 27 days and only managed to write about 5 days worth of blog! nightmare.....

Al and I hitched seperatly from Amsterdam back to Brussels, Claire, Thom and I hitched a straight lift with Rik, the managing director of the Belgian Anti Piracy Federation ( the equivalant of FACT) once again an incredibly interesting lift, and he took us all the way into the heart of brussells from Amsterdam, pointing out the NATO HQ and the European parliament.

Unfortunatly, our luck in getting such an easy lift to Brussels, did not hold as the hostel we were to stay at was full! Furthermore i was unable to get in contact with the people we had hoped to stay with, and so keeping our budget in mind we decided we'd rather spend our limited cash on some good beer in the excellent "A la Mort Subite" (Sudden Death) belgian bar, sampling some of the highly alcoholic Belgian culture!

Having spent our money wisely we proceeded to spend the night sleeping (hiding) behind a hedge outside the Grand Palace directly in the city centre. Not the most comfortable of nights, but certainly true to our budget and spirit of adventure! - We certainly went some of the way to earning our sponsorship!

From there we were woken early by a light rain and were able to get free train transport to Werchter, where we spent an amazing 4 days at the music festival there. (This trip began life as this 4 day break in Belgium, somehow it spawned into hitching to Istanbul.)

The four day music festival is largely an excellent haze in my memory now, but good times were had! From there we were able to get the train back to Brussels and were put up by an amazing host, Vicky! ( we spent 2 days recovering, and getting clean, watching her incredibly girly collectiong of DvD's, with the occasional venture wandering the streets of Brussels.

It was with heavy hearts that we finally left our extremely comfy nest in Brussels, said goodbye to our travel companions and got back on the road properly, heading to Berlin!