One of the cool things about our trip was while shooting “Car Dance Party Belgium” we were lucky to see so many different places in Belgium. From Ypres to the northern coast, Brugge, Brussels and the south. All of it had its own personality and its own unique look. Here is a small sample of some of the pictures I took along the way. Sadly both Dave and I had to look like Boris and Juri for the trip and we were looked at a little strange, but you get the idea!
Brugge was definitely one of my favorite cities. Erik’s too. It was old, very old and had an amazing personality. It was in the city’s center that we sat out on patio drinking Westmalle trappist beer, which has a 9.5% alcohol content by the way…hahaha.
(The song accompanying the picture show is called “Lotuk” by Arsenal, the same people we saw live at the private concert!)
It was amazing some of the places we visited…The next installment of the Belgium blog is about shooting! Stay tuned!
The first thing I will say in this first post about our journey to Belgium is that for myself it was life changing. It was life changing in the sense of the wonderful and amazing people we met, the beautiful sites across that nation we saw and the experience we’ll take home with us. We were welcomed, like family, into an atmosphere that was creative, loving, happy and focused. I wasn’t sure if I believed anyone when they said that a trip to some far off land repositioned their outlook on life, but now I take all that back and hope that everyone out there has experienced what we did.
I must begin by mentioning the people at Happiness-Brussels. Greg, Mo, Tom, Ramin, Karen…the team their does their business like a good company should. Thinking out of the box, avoiding the mainstream and thinking different. When 99 companies go left, Happiness goes right and if it wasn’t for that way of life we would not have been a part of something magical. We were brought in, unsure of what would happen, who we’d meet or how it would go down. The people I mention above and everyone else there made us feel welcome, treated us amazingly and shared something with us that you can only come across once in a lifetime. For that Dave, Erik and I are forever thankful and in awe. Happiness: We thank you from the bottom of our hearts….
THE BEGINNING:
Our flight there was long…for myself it was the longest flight I’d ever been on. I was nervous and anxious. I hate flying, and a 9 hour jaunt to Frankfurt, then an hour to Brussels was something I wasn’t looking forward to. But like everything on the trip it was absolutely flawless. We arrived in Brussels on the 29th of April, weary, but excited. Tom met us at the arrival area with the FuddyTV logo as our “welcome” sign. We laughed and hopped into the car where we went straight to the Happiness office. We brainstormed and met so many of the people there it was a little overwhelming, but amazing.
We settled for a moment into the apartment after a while and caught our bearings. That night we went to a private concert put on by a band called Arsenal. Let me put it this way…it set the tone for the trip. Their music is heartfelt and unique and while we were a little out of it from the long flight, it was a really cool moment. Amazingly I found a part of the show on YouTube!!! So for just one second, put yourselves in our shoes, three tired canucks about to embark on a journey none of us would have ever dreamed of…here it is:
It was such a good show and I am now addicted to Arsenal…which is extremely hard to find here in Canada by the way.After the show we went to the L’Archiduc, a great little jazz bar right close to the show site. It was a little dark, small, and as I found out later has been there since 1937. Sadly the original owner of the bar passed away, but gave it to a friend as a gift on one condition…that she change the flowers everyday. Cool huh? We had genuine Belgian beer, connected with the people we’d be working with and took in the atmosphere of not only the bar, but the city.It was a monumental start to our first day….
Tomorrow, the brainstorming and shooting!
It’s nice to be home, but we miss the guys at Happiness-Brussels our new friends for life.
