In true Jess and Jase style, we arrived at the venue, Paradiso earlier than needed. Entering the main concert hall we were very impressed – Paradiso is housed in an old church that was built in the 19th century, and while it has been refurbished to be suitable for concerts, it still retains a lot of it’s former charm.

Since we were there early we took prime position at the front of the stage and before long the support act, Two Door Cinema Club played. We stumbled across them well before we bought the tickets to the concert, and when we found out they were the support act it was a sweet little bonus. It was great to hear them live and see a solid performance out of them.

Phoenix followed up with an absolutely phenomenal show. To me, everything was perfect. The music was spot on, their “act” was top quality, and the light show just sealed the deal. To sound as good as their album while playing in front of a few hundred people is something they should be proud of. Much screaming, clapping and whistling saw Phoenix return to the stage for one of the longest encores I’ve seen. Initially vocalist Thomas Mars and guitarist Christian Mazzalai returned to play a few very touching covers, before Thomas told everyone that it was their bass player – Deck D’Arcy’s birthday. The crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to him and then the full band put on the second half of their show.

Special mention goes out to their drummer Thomas Hedlund who looked as though he was putting every last bit of his energy into the show. His intensity on the drums was just another reason why this was one of the best concerts I have been to.

Nevertheless, travelling through Brussels was the cheapest way for us to get to Amsterdam from Rome, so we thought we would spend a few nights there to check it out. What we didn’t realise is that the accommodation prices would just about negate any savings we made from the cheap flight. In the end we stayed at a place called Hotel de Fierlant for €69 per night. This was the cheapest we could find aside from staying in a place with permanent bed bugs or an hour away by bus.

We arrived by coach from Charleroi airport at Gare du Midi station in Brussels around 7pm and began to look for clues as to where we were heading. Our walk to the hotel was only short but wasn’t through the classiest of areas. At times we didn’t feel welcome but we never really felt unsafe.

We checked in, opened the windows to cool the place off (the hotel was always boiling), and spent the night planning any miscellaneous accommodation for the rest of the trip. We retired to the TV, watched Police Academy (the first movie we have seen in English since Singapore) and went to sleep.

The next day we tried to check out all of the local sights. We dropped by Grand Place, a square surrounded by (as the name suggests), very grand buildings. We spent a while in the centre just talking and looking around, constantly finding architectural details worth making a big deal about. Once we were done we walked through the shopping district, including St. Hubert’s Gallery, just taking our time and seeing what was popular in Belgium.

We had some hot chips in a square nearby, watching a skateboarder and some people do parkour (similar to freerunning). We spent the rest of the day doing more of the same – walking, sightseeing and relaxing.

On the way back to our hotel we wanted to see the Mannekin Pis, Brussel’s most famous statue. It’s basically just a boy pissing, and the locals love him. As we were walking in his direction we found a bunch of men all dressed up in royal looking costumes, all chanting and playing drums and trumpets. They walked us and everyone else who was following down to the Mannekin Pis, where he was wearing the same costume as them. Before long the little boy was pissing beer into cups that the locals were gladly drinking. It was one of those things that happen only by chance, so it was great that we stumbled across it.

The day after we had planned a relax in the park but it was raining. Instead we checked out a few of the local beers in some of Brussels’ pubs. It gave us some time once again to just catch up and talk about everything. Life goals, friends and family back home and abroad, and of course the travel we are yet to do.

We returned to the hotel, found some directions for our hostel in Amsterdam, and packed our bags ready for the early morning we had today.

I don’t know if this city knows what it wants to be. As I mentioned, it has a reputation to be a boring city due to it’s political history, however the population that we saw appeared to be quite young. The city is dirty in a way similar to that of Paris and, like Berlin, it appears that it was planned for a much higher population than currently lives there – many buildings are vacant, with some completely vandalised.

All up though, we enjoyed ourselves in Brussels, I just doubt we will return in the near future due to the price of accommodation.

I all seriousness though, Tarvisio is a great place. Although others insisted on paying for the snowboard hire and lift pass for us, I don’t believe it was too expensive for the day. I do know that for 4 hours on the slopes it will set you back 24EUR.

It was just over an hours drive from where we are staying in Zompitta, (Udine) and very close to Austria and Slovenia. It’s surreal for us to be an hour away from the snow, and an hour away from the coastline. Let alone at the corner of three countries!

If you’re looking for a place to go skiing or snowboarding, definitely check out Tarvisio. There were very few people around which made it a lot easier for us to keep learning in confidence – Jess and I are really starting to link our turns well!

I’m no music reviewer, I’ll leave that to my brother in law (re: savetwofour.com). I am however, a music lover and a tourist in a foreign country and these two things combined with an awesome set is a beautiful thing.

Jess and I booked these tickets quite some time ago. We had no idea where the Astra was, how big it was or what the crowd was like. We have however, been fans of Vampire Weekend for a few years now, and we planned on being around Berlin at this time so we took the chance.

We walked towards where the Astra should be… It wasn’t there. No signs, just a scummy looking courtyard. We walked passed assuming it was elsewhere but ended up back at the gate to the courtyard trying to find out where to go. We walked inside, through the snow and mud and found a light with an “Astra” logo. As it turns out this whole area was some sort of (probably pseudo) underground music scene.

While the outside of the building was tired and covered in graffiti, the interior was very grand. There were multiple bars, cloak rooms, plenty of velvet and a couple of chandeliers to light the place up.

We grabbed a few overpriced drinks (5.50EUR is a lot to backpackers!) and then found our way to the front of the stage in prime position for the support band, Fan Death.

Fan Death were alright. They supported well with some quality music and their drummer was great, although their general act and image was a bit too “bandwagonish” for me. You know.. Karen O (YYY’s) clothes, an ET doll as their prize posession and so on. Regardless, they put on a good show and lets face it, a live band is always better than on an album. No disrespect! Before Fan Death finished, I was lucky enough to take a quick photo of Vampire Weekend’s set list. Jess and I were both so stoked at this point – it was the first concert we’d been to for years as we’ve been saving for this trip.

Vampire Weekend went off. For those who don’t know they are an Indie Rock band from New York City. Ezra Koenig, the lead singer kept telling the crowd he wanted us to sweat. We were drenched by the time the concert was over, and we weren’t the only ones. The concert was an opportunity to see the band as musicians, rather than seeing them on a film clip. Bass guitarist Chris Baio swapped guitairs every second song, and played a double bass at one stage.

They played songs old and new. Jess loved Oxford Comma while I’ve been struggling to get Cape Cod out of my head ever since. Their set actually helped me to enjoy and understand some songs of theirs that I had previously felt indifferent to.

Ultimately we had a great night. We were able to really let loose and have some fun. We walked back to the S-bahn and went back to the hostel for a few hours sleep – at 5:30am we were up to board our train to Warsaw, but that is another story…

It’s cold, sure, but it’s not that bad. On the flip side, aside from the obvious perks of having plentiful amounts of accommodation available, and not having to stand wall to wall with other tourists to see the good spots, between the start of December and the end of February every year, two large ice-rinks are created in the middle of Paris.

One rink is in Montparnasse, while the other is at Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Since we are staying down in the 12th arrondisement (near the Bastille), we headed to Hôtel de Ville which was only about 10 minutes walk.

The skating itself is free. If you have a pair of skates, head down and do some laps. For Jess and I, it cost 5EUR each for the rental of skates – pretty cheap really.

Even if you aren’t game enough to skate, it’s worthwhile heading down for a watch. Some of the local kids are very impressive. There seems to be two very distinct styles of skating – more traditional figure skating, and the now much more popular “street” style.

It’s a great place – it brings happiness to kids and adults, experts and amateurs. Everyone there had a smile on their face!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is a map for anyone thinking of taking a look: