april 23 – through the woods & over the river to mainland europe, passover in brussels

spent much of the next train ride signing cds for the band and crew. allen went up and down looking for somebody with a sony cybershot so we could weez on a power supply (which i left somewhere in rotterdam i think), but to no avail.
this train from manchester to london was filled with a bunch of randy nurses drinking mimosas, as evidenced below:
allen (retrieving luggage): do you mind if we slide by?
nurse (striking similarity to flo from mel’s diner, but with glasses): you can slide by me anytime.
allen: ok, we’ll do it real slow.
(adam runs over her foot with his bag.)
nurse: oh, i didn’t know it was gonna be a toe job!
stopped at london euston, scanned the papers for show reviews, tube to waterloo, adam got a tuna paste sandwich, there was some sort of bagel fight about bagel love (living proof we’ve been on the road – tensions running high over bagels – as we discuss it now seems totally ridiculous), then onto the chunnel train (eurostar) to brussels. before i move on, might be worth mentioning that the entire eurostar area of waterloo station had no trash can. carson cased the joint. no trash, so we just left ours on the table. sorry london...
finally found a passenger with a cybershot, he let us borrow his power supply and we juiced up our digital camera. breathed sigh of recharge relief.

lodging in brussels was with couchsurfer.com host #2, sarah verhees (not vorhees like friday the 13th), who was sick and basically out of commission, but her boyfriend fabian (french dude, former couchsurfer as well), brother johannes, two belgian cousins jeroen & thomas, & nico the italian visitor made us feel totally at home in their spacious apartment (replete with pool table/game room) above the car wash where jeroen & thomas work.
i ran out for a bouquet of flowers, as i would be attending a passover seder with an american diplomat somewhere near the brussels forest. i left everyone thereafter and headed off to the seder, while they spent the evening enjoying a multiple-course italian feast prepared by nico. farfalle with little shrimps & cream sauce, cucumber salad & meatballs. large portions and authentic italian. jeroen (or maybe thomas) apparently tried to make margaritas with lemon juice and 6 cubes of ice, but which were mostly tequila, making for a hefty night...
i got a ride to the seder, drove through the brussels forest (apparently reserved originally for the king to have some place to ride his horses in the city). seder was very nice, jonathan & sandy bensky, american diplomat hosts, a few other diplomats living in brussels, and other civilian english speakers. four questions were performed by mo, in japanese, and myself in hebrew. much thanks to the benskys for opening their home to me, a warm home away from home.
allen at some point blew up the bed, causing quite a stir upon turning in. fixed it once, fell through a 2nd time, then jerked the mattress off and put the frame up against the wall. carson felt this would be a good time to assemble a styrofoam puzzle to block out the morning’s sun. i must have been online downstairs at this point, but returned to what i thought was a normal scene...