I’ve been moving apartment for the past few weeks, packing, repacking, jettisoning kit, repeat. Ikea furniture is quite terrible for non-drivers, its heavy, often one-time use, and in switzerland its difficult to get rid of.
Swiss apartments often have built in cabinetry and closets with shelves in the walls.  This makes purchasing bookshelves and clothing closets […]

Americans (and perhaps other English-speakers) have the saying,
“There are only two certainties in life: taxes and death.”
This is quite appropriate, but for most of us, paying rent or a mortgage, and thus employment are further chapters in this long saga of necessary evils.  Unfortunately, full-time gainful employment robs us of a quarter of our life, or half of […]

Had a great weekend in that worldly city of Berlin. Flew back, and checked out the weather greeting me on the tarmac. To the left, France and the rest of Europe. To the right, Switzerland!

Its a drag buying a laptop which is obsolete in X years and whose hardware is impossible to upgrade. 
A step in-between a laptop and a desktop is to buy a small desktop, a flat-screen and the typical external components (along with the indispensible external harddrive), and pack into a suitcase.  The only thing potentially ‘missing’ is a battery […]

Gather around the glow of this campfire and hear yet more of uncle willnillchen’s tales on the greyhound bus.
I used to travel Greyhound to the tune of $40 and 18h roundtrip between Pittsburgh and Washington DC. Back in my first two years of college. Its a great price but takes a toll on […]

gather round the campire kids cos uncle willchen has another harrowing tale of transportation in the u.s.of.hey. 
back in my very first college i had to travel about 250 miles between my college and washington d.c. about once every 6mos.  they shut down the dorms see, so i had to go back “home”, or at least […]

Belgium was the plan for last weekend.  Beautiful beautiful Belgium.  My plans were shakey and almost non-existant, but who needs plans when the destination is as surprising as Belgium!?! 
I could stare at this map of Belgium forever.  It makes me dizzy, the possibilities.  Its posted on the wall of every Belgian rail station and it […]

 I left Switzerland a passenger in a car of a Flemish acquaintance who was going home to the ‘rents for the weekend.  I pestered with questions on the mothercountry the entire trip north, which made my trip fly by.  We rolled on through the French-speaking bit of Belgium, Wallonia, and decided to get a celebratory French-fries in […]

At the end of a 3 hour museum visit I was almost headache free! 
When greeted with such window art, any hangover will melt away:

I proceeded to Ypres, a town in western Flanders. Ypres always managed to become the battlefront in the world wars.  What was it about the geography which made nations want to battle […]

When does this type of fun ever end? 

zoom in
I went back from Ypres to Kortrijk in the train, passing through the anomally of “Comines/Komen”.  That town is a French-speaking enclave in Dutch-speaking Belgium.  From the train, however, it looked quite sleepy.  
I had brief flashbacks of my Mouscronite desolation, and decided to stay in the train.  Another tick […]