as many of you know i spent 2 whirlwind years studying philosophy in leuven Belgium. Those years were somewhat magical, and well a lot of fucking fun. Many times, after lecture, before homework, and boozing, my housemate, minister of ontology and in many a belgian?s mind twin, Richard (known in these parts as richy the quebe) would visit the mcdonalds on the edge of leuven?s old market (oude markt) get some ?menu meals? and shoot the shit. I can?t remember if it was during one of those sessions, or after we both left the promised land, but at some point we decided that our end goal in life (this was a long time ago mind you) was to somehow, someway create a company that would be headquartered in leuven, in an office above said oude markt.
Some background on the old market. ok picture a small city square. the center is cobble stoned and has a slight pitch to it. the buildings that make up the boarders are 98% bars. yes, 98%, oh there are a few restaurants, but you can get booze (well beer) at them, so in my mind they are bars. some one once told me that the oudemarkt is considered the longest bar in europe, as basically it’s just a huge ass drinking place. I believe when we were attending leuven, there were 57 of them in operation. and i’m talking in a 1 square block area, most were prolly about 15 feet wide but long. Actually not unlike our house…
at it was a very special place, during the summer the middle of the square is filled with tables and chairs for patio style seating… it’s not a very good place to go to get drunk, because it’s so busy you can’t really depend on prompt service, plus the waiters don’t really work for tips so they’re not all that motivated to get you your drink in any sort of timely fashion. this however, is not to say i/we/people don’t get loaded there. with some good forethought, one can order several drinks in advance and get the job done.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole ordeal is the mixture of people in the area. with 57+ watering holes, each is forced to carve out its own niche, and it’s incredible that any of them survive. When we were there, i’d say i frequented only about 4 or 5, they all had their special time and purpose. Cafe 33, for example (it’s gone now) was a great sit down, get loaded, then talk to some radom belgian, then get the bartender to play some great 80’s tunes, then start dancing, then buy a round for everyone in the bar to keep them from getting pissed kinda place. Cafe allee however was an after hours freakshow. this place served the fellow bartender and people that are up waaaay too late type of crowd. something weird always happened when i ended up there, for example the time that one guy kept buying me whiskey’s because he was convinced i was from scotland because of my accent. that night did not end in a pretty fashion. Thunderdome: the bar was not named thunderdome, but my ex room mate kurt had visited leuven once and ended up at this place, and was convinced it was like thunderdome from the movie… er thunderdome. in reality it was a dance club with a circular dance floor which was surronded by a balcony…nevertheless it was a good place to dance an almost get beat up by “johnny’s”. club gecko catered to the international student crowd, mostly economic students..Ambiorixthere was some bar i ended up in way too much, which was for all the students from the limburg section of belgium…strange place, never once would let a song go to its full conclusion.
ok, so you get the idea. the best/worst part of the area is that there are at least half a dozen bars that never close. i mean never. well maybe for an hour between 10 and 11 am, but they are always open. it’s too much, apparently there are apartments above some of these places. this always struck us as odd.
richard and i started talking about how cool it would be to have a company based out of leuven, better yet, out of the oude markt. we’d have a tap running from the bar down stairs in to the office. we’d keep very civilized hours (10 am -8 pm) and generally live what ended up being the dot com lifestyle. Problem is, we had no business plan, no company and no way to make it happen.
over the years, we have floated several ideas…it’s been much more a fantasy than anything else. i fear it’s not meant to be, as we are both married now, he with child and such. nevertheless, now and again an email thread starts up with a potential “oude markt company” idea. who knows, maybe it’ll happen someday.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Natty // Feb 28, 2004 at 10:31 pm
Either the Oude Markt page is out of date or you are out of date, because 33 is still there, according to that plan. Which cafe were we in with Dave, the Irish guy? I remember that very late night with him, and I think Brendan was there, too. Dave was wearing my sweater from Spain that was much too small and we all ended up singing along with these Doors songs. That was a fun and very strange night and it was very light out as we headed home, back to Ridderstraat. Was that the same night that that Belgian guy shot back the pinche (sp?) in a nanosecond? Feels like just yesterday and a thousand years ago all at the same time.
2 Natty // Feb 28, 2004 at 10:32 pm
Just an observation…those kinds of things don’t seem to happen here. Perhaps it will be time to move soon, but not to Belgium. Perhaps the west coast. I guess I like a change of scenery every few years. Is that unnatural?
3 rcg // Feb 28, 2004 at 10:47 pm
Natty’s post makes me think of the bar directly across from the mother of all students… not on the very end but I think the lenultimate bar. It seemed to be the place I wound up in whenever I noticed that the sun was rising.
This of course was the signal to go get my fill at cheese-tits prior to staggering home.
I leave that last line as is, without trying to explain what that means.
4 J Sargent // Feb 29, 2004 at 9:56 am
West Coast….if I remember properly Jeff always would have made a prototypical Seattle-ite. Maybe it was just in the days of grunge, maybe it was the long hair, maybe even it was the simple fact that Jeffrey was a brooding, Heideigger-reading, semi-depressed, deep thinking kind of a guy who always seemed like he would fit in over there in the rainy, depressing northwest. It seems like a place which you would be indoors most of the time, so I can see that kind of a move (at least for Jeff).
Nothing personal, but I just don’t see you two living in California with all the “beautiful people”. Not that you couldn’t fit in…I just see it as being a source of frustration. Maybe that is just me projecting my thoughts onto you.
As far as a business plan….geez…now you’re getting in too deep. Maybe you can open a deli. That serves beer. With music. Just a thought,
JS
5 Co-Worker Don // Feb 29, 2004 at 11:40 am
I think any business you open that caters to the public will do well. Everybody loves Americans!