🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇧🇪 Asleep at the Wheel

Hello Adventurers, 

Oof…it was both a crash landing and a soft landing. And I knew it would be…but I didn’t think it would hurt this badly (despite me being the one behind the controls, and the one who determined the routing and schedule of everything this week). Basically, I ripped two marathons in Toronto last weekend…before catching a restless red-eye flight to Heathrow where I tube’d into Londontown to immediately bang-out two marathons in less than 36 hours. Then I flew to Belgium to do the same (but in 48 hours, et en français). And my overall thinking was to spank London on sleepless auto-pilot (which is a city I know like the back of my hand), say ‘¡Adios!’ to the English-speaking world (let’s up the ante), and go to Bruxelles where I lived for a hot sec as un p’tit garçon (for a lil home court advantage…but not really…because I’m of the world).

What I didn’t take into account was that I’ve already done like 150 marathons this year / I’m getting too old for my own bullshit…so I just can’t bounce back from this stuff (like I used to). Anyway, I thought I was supposed to be getting wiser with age…whereas I’m mostly just getting humbled by aging!

So yeah, there’s that saying, “Wreck yourself before you check yourself” and I did…so now the ‘check engine’ light is on (especially because I pulled another all-nighter to ‘bus-plane-bus-train’ myself to Czechia yesterday… where I’m writing this issue of the newsletter from). But more on Prague next week (‘cause I’ve lost my marbles as I’m trying to find my bearings). Basically, I’m brain-fried, out of my element, and have bitten off more than I can chew…so everything is going to plan! And that’s not sarcasm!

People sign-up to this newsletter in waves so I just wanted to re-ground everyone on what this hell is going on with this project / where we’re at…at this juncture. Me? I’m trying to do 240+ marathons this year in as many different countries as possible (in order to set a new world record), I’m doing it with a camera and a computer in tow (so I can share my findings with you), I’m doing this solo / have no support crew with me, the project is totally DIY / there’s no paid sponsors, and I’m now on the ‘third leg abroad’ of my Marathon Earth Challenge (where I’m dedicating the next three months to marathoning England, Belgium, Czechia, Hungary, Germany, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, India, Thailand, Vietnam, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, and Mongolia). Well, that’s if everything goes to plan…which basically just means me catching all my flights / me getting visas in time / me not dying…as well as all those places remaining reasonably chill (i.e. no war, no widespread terrorism, no environmental disasters or no societal collapses).

Essentially, if there was a blender and you added scoops of bravery naïveté, endurance sports, photography, travel, and non-fiction writing…then you’d get this smoothie-as-spectacle. So ‘bottoms up’ ‘cause we’re taking a swig of the slime, and getting into it!

- Ben Pobjoy

P.S. Apologies if any typos got past me / sorry for publishing this issue of the newsletter a few hours later than I usually do…I’m adjusting to life on da road.

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 46

• Flights taken: 49

• Kilometres flown: 77,179

• Marathons completed: 155

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 7,400.3

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 70,492

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: In Bruxelles, it felt like I retroactively saw a scene straight outta BAC Nord…when I came across three white dudes abducting a brown guy from the doorway of a shawarma joint, and chucking him into an unmarked car. But in the mêlée I saw the glint of handcuffs — under the plainclothes — and kept to myself (as did all locals around me)😐

• The Biggest Obstacle: I left town in a flurry last Sunday…less prepared than I wanted to be. As such, I have a question for Canadians and/or Brits who have visited Vietnam; did you have luck applying for an online tourist visa before you got there…or is there visa-on-arrival? I started the online tourist visa application process on the government website…but it is janky / not letting me check the status of things. Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated🥵

• The Lesson Learned: Less of a lesson, and more of a reminder…but if you plug the ‘public washrooms near me’ prompt into Google Maps on a smartphone, it’ll route you to free loos. I have a tiny bladder, and this workaround is a constant lifesaver so I wanted to share it wit chu🤓

FIELD NOTES: LONDON, ENGLAND

I’m a sore loser yet innit to win it

Bang! Bonk! Clang! It’s like clockwork…being the sounds of my wife thrashing ‘round the bathroom about an hour before I depart the house for the airport. Basically, the missus is in there freaking-the-fuck-out / anxiously riffling through cupboards making suggestions about (mostly unnecessary) things I should I pack for months of marathons abroad. Yes, it comes from a genuine place of love, but it nevertheless makes me laugh.

“Do you need a roll of toilet paper in your backpack…like, for emergencies?”

That question of hers always confuses me…because I honestly don’t know if lack of bog roll is just a womanly travel concern…or whether my perpetual manchildism gives off the impression that I poo my pants on the reg / seem like someone prone to pant-ly accidents.

I always reply, “No!” aloud…because I travel with my still-valid-but-now-vintage EU x UK passport…which Brexit effectively rendered into a useless document (akin to a bound book of emergency toilet paper ala tearaway shit tickets).

Basically, I remain a sore loser and I’m still bitter ‘bout the 17,410,742 moronic Brits that voted ‘leave’…which — no surprise — proved to be a disastrous flop for a Britain no longer Great. Those assholes didn’t just ruin Schengen for me, they stripped me of the right to reside in any one of the 27 EU member countries (which was the ‘get outta jail’ card I was gonna play one day / an eject-from-North-America option I sorta hinged everything on). So cue Sid Vicious snarling ‘No future!’…and that’s my wrap on my boohoo wah wah crybabyism!

Anyhoo, the ‘Farage mirage fuckery’ makes any return to the Isle of Idiots bittersweet; I do love the place — faults and all — but am nevertheless disappointed in 51.89% of my brethren there.

But moving along…I’ve previously done four marathons ‘round London since 2015 (as well as much shorter treks there with the missus), and I return because it is subjectively familial yet objectively cosmopolitan. There’s a million things to do there — much of which is well-known — so I’m not gonna hit you with the obvs stuff (because those recommendations are well-documented on the interwebz / exist in like every travel guide ever).

The River Thames is flanked by footpaths, and it is my preferred thoroughfare in London for ‘by footing’ everything that exists between Hammersmith and Canary Wharf…which is about as wide a net as I cast on my looping marathons there. I use the paths to efficiently get to places like Shoreditch, Covent Garden, Westminster, and Chelsea, and the path offers awesome views of everything from the London Bridge to the London Eye to Big Ben to the Houses of Parliament…and whatever else you want to add to that list. Strolling it at sunset or sunrise — or at night when lights reflect off of the waters — is simply the best.

The path is generally free of tourists…so you can blast (which I did on cruise control on this visit…because I felt like absolute dog shit ripping a marathon after a red-eye). And I’m recommending a stroll along the shores ‘cause the waters are historically low, and mudlarkers are making lots of headlines these days for their historically significant finds. So why not go hunt for some treasure?

Anecdotally, I got Covid after a marathon in London a few years back…when it was a record-setting, global hot zone ‘cause I irresponsibly threw caution to the wind — and bowed to peer pressure — and went to a New Year’s Eve party-cum-enclosed-rooftop-disco…where people yelled the NYE countdown in my face as some dickhead spilled a pint of beer down my neck and back (at which point I knew it was game-over, LOL). I’m not kidding…you can ‘Where’s Waldo?’ me in this picture…like, if you care to. As such, I hit the National Covid Memorial Wall along the River Thames…not because of my ‘London Covid’, but more so because I’m continually fascinated by how earthlings memorialize memory (which rarely feels human-y when executed in sculpture form).

This memorial wall spans 500 metres and is covered with approximately 150,000 hand-painted hearts that have hand-written messages from loved ones to deceased ones…and it is pretty powerful in terms of scale, loss, and emotions conveyed.

The Regent’s Canal is the shit, and I absolutely love strolling the northern path alongside it from Maida Hill to Camden Town (where I once bumped into Harold Styles on a marathon). It’s so quiet and peaceful, and I fancy myself a Dickensian doofus when I do it…especially when it’s rainy and drizzly out…because it feels so old time-y (and I make no apologies for this type of flâneurie). Me? I like to catch it near Regent’s Park…which you should do after swinging by Abbey Road to see fans of the Beatles recreating the iconic album cover (as they almost get hit by cars). I’m more of a Stones guy — Mick and Kief forever — but watching Beatles boneheads nearly die for a ‘Gram photo is entertaining AF.

The Regent’s Canal has the house boats and leads to Camden…which I dig for the yummy food stalls in the market there, and I usually take the path to King’s Cross ‘cause there’s a reliable washroom for a quick piss inside the station…which is beside all the nerds queuing for Platform 9¾.

Look, I’ll admit it…I can’t help but visit Buckingham Palace aka Fuckin ‘Em Palace every time I go to London. However, the notion of the monarchy is utterly mental in this day and age — and such grift and graft — but I’m mesmerized…by how mesmerized visitors are by all-things-royal in England. So, I basically go to people watch, and it never disappoints. And fair play to the Royals — and their racket — ‘cause there’s always crowds milling about.

However, I mostly hit that area because Hyde Park is close (and stunning / has toilets), Notting Hill is nearby (and just so pretty), Harrods is just down the street (and is the best department store ever), and ‘cause there are great shops in the general vicinity like Smythson (where I get stupid custom things made) and Taylor of Old Bond Street (which IMO makes the best shaving cream around).

And I just gotta quickly dunk on England before we move on; historically, it just rudely and violently wandered into the homes — and homelands of others — to ransack everything (and it built itself up through exploitation)…and I just love love love how multicultural London is today. Like, it is just full of Asians and Africans and Indians and Caribbean peeps…and y’all know this was never in the grand design of empire or the colonizers, and it just pleases the hell outta me!

To anyone there that isn’t sickly pale and badly teeth’d (and from these parts where pub washrooms smell like medieval dungeons)…I honestly welcome you, and wish you nothing but a life of party fun! Please dig in, and take what’s rightfully yours, bb!

FIELD NOTES: BRUXELLES, BELGIUM

Darkness on the edge of town

When it comes to Europe, I totally ‘get’ why people are kinda ‘meh’ about Belgium; it isn’t as flashy, bold or iconic as other countries on da continent. However, I’m hoping to inspire some reappraisal — in you readers — because it is my belief that Bruxelles is worth your while.

Admittedly, I am a tad biased because I lived there as a boy — and I don’t remember that much other than how it felt / what it taught me / what it inspired in me — but this was my second time back to the city within the last two-ish years, and I think it slaps (something I know I’ve validated for myself on three marathons there).

Basically, Bruxelles is a very compelling survey / summary of all things European-y. Firstly, there’s Flemish Flanders in the north and Frenchie Wallonia in the south…so the city is this bizarre linguistic melting pot (where one street can have two different names in each language). Secondly, the city is real hybrid-y and mutt-y; it architecturally feels Dutch here and French there…so it’s like two-birds-one-stone…offering lots of variety without the expense of country hoping. Thirdly, it’s just a grab bag of good; killer beer scene, top-notch frites, lovely little neighbourhoods, sightly, much to do, small and easy to navigate, and has a super unique comic culture.

The aforementioned are the highlights in the city centre, and the lowlights on the periphery speak to some pressing Europe problems; an economic crisis that’s exasperating homelessness atop a refugee reception crisis (or vice versa). Bruxelles is legit rough around the edges, and sketchy in parts (especially late at night)…and not picture postcard perfect, but very accurate of the times we’re in.

When I travel, I aspire to see the full picture of a place — being the good and the bad — and Bruxelles very much feels like a snapshot of today’s hits and misses in Europe. Yes, there’s lots of beauty there…but there’s also tent encampments and misery, degenerates pissing in the streets in broad daylight, and just the occasional person with a chip on their shoulder lobbing an empty beer bottle at a wall. Bruxelles is real AF, and if you’re a real one…well, I promise you’ll dig it.

In this newsletter, I try and walk a fine line. Basically, I attempt to share things of interest (so as to inspire you)…without ruining said things (because I’d hate to dissuade you from visiting something ‘cause I revealed too much about it, and therefore spoiled it). As such, I’m not going to share images of the Atomium or the Grand-Place in Bruxelles. Both are low-hanging fruit (that would’ve been too cheap for me to poach), and both need to be experienced IRL. That said, I do think the Grand-Place is one of the most gorgeous public squares in Europe. Like, just fucking stunning…and at all hours.

To give you a taste of how majestic the general area is, I will share the Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries with you, which is a 19th century glass canopied shopping arcade. This kind of thing is / was a stomping ground for flâneurs, which is a European tradition (of which I am the modern expression of). It’s been a great place for idling and strolling and leisure and people watching for a long-ass time, and that’s my straight-up jam.

I got cemetery’d out in South America on the Marathon Earth Challenge in Q1…but I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to visit the Laeken Cemetery Crypt while in Bruxelles. Basically, it was recently restored ‘cause it had fallen into disrepair, and coffins were liquifying, and caskets were exploding.

I visited it on a marathon — on a very rainy day — and it was drippy…and sorta dank and dark ‘cause the lighting is whatever light comes in through the skylights. The doors to some tombs were ajar and some of the façades had fallen off of crypts…so it is collectively strange…but it isn’t a full horror show either. Dunno, I guess if you’re a weirdo like me…you may want to check it out? I prolly watched too much Indiana Jones growing up…

Most cities have loads of murals and some can be cool…but they’re mostly just a hodgepodge of themes and aesthetics and techniques, and ultimately lack harmony and/or a greater dialogue with one another. As such, it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity to tell a larger story…

But Bruxelles fucking nailed it with a series of murals that were curated to celebrate the city’s rich comic history; specifically the ligne claire style that Hergé pioneered which didn’t just define Belgian comics, but inspired everyone from Roy Lichtenstein to Andy Warhol.

I love to stroll, and love when strolls feed the soul…and the fact that there’s a ‘comic strip trail’ in Bruxelles that’s free, artsy, culturally contextual, outdoors, and encourages people to move their bodies…yep, y’know it gives me a boner.

Anecdotally, my parents got me into Tintin and The Smurfs — both Belgian originals — when I was a boy in Bruxelles, and they remained fixtures in my reading repertoire after we departed (and remain dear to me to this day).

Anyhoo, I saw a little girl shyly walk under the Smurfs Passage in the city centre…and light up when she saw the mural / get so amped up she started running around like a maniac. And man, I almost burst into tears / it made my week…just to see something that resonated with me so deeply as a kid…resonate with another kid nearly forties year later. Art is so beautiful and transcendent! It really is the best of us.

And comics may not be your thing — and that’s fine — but if 17th century sculptural baby dick is…well, Bruxelles has that too, LOL.

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

English food is absolutely disgusting. And before you get your knickers in a knot*, I must add that English food is also delicious; it is reliably brown, greasy, savoury, fried and/or flakey.

It always looks terrible yet always tastes amazing, and has to be treated like a treat…because when you take note of who’s regularly eating it, they almost always look like they need some kind of lifestyle intervention.

Anyway, I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but I have eaten at some of the nicest / finest / fanciest restaurants in London over the years — and I won’t name names ‘cause that’s gauche — and they’ve generally been good…but the crappy Greggs chain is my absolute fave; in London, and across all of the UK. And I’m totally not kidding.

They got a vegan sausage roll that is disgustingly delicious — and all the food there is discounted if you get it for take-out (who the fuck eats-in there?) — and they’ll sell you four rolls for the price of three…with a 500 millilitre bottle of soda for $8 USD all-in…and good luck trying to find something so calorie-rich AND so inexpensive anywhere else in da UK.

I can’t even begin to describe the roll; it’s warm, salty, soggy…just a marvellous mess of a creation TBH. I basically eat this shit daily while in the UK, and I’m so glad it isn’t available in North America (and that an ocean buffers me from it…because I can’t resist it).

Anyhoo, I ate four rolls in one go (all slathered in HP sauce) as I sat on an embankment…as some sack of shit — who probably voted ‘leave’— told me a sob story / wanted loose change in order to go place a bet at the bookies…it was just such an annoyingly English moment. And yes, I felt like total shit from eating all the rolls…and I do not regret it! Not one bit, and not one bite!

*I would not advise anyone to eat Greggs with one’s knickers in a knot ‘cause there’s a good chance their fare will make you shit yourself…so I’d advise Greggs eaters to wear loose-fitting knickers and/or have my wife pack you some emergency TP should you be voyaging there.

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in London and Bruxelles (all prices converted to USD):

• Cost to use the Marlborough Gate toilet in Hyde Park: 25¢

• A 500 gram bag of carrots, a 315 gram tub of hummus, two bananas, a box of three protein flapjack bars, and a 500 millilitre bottle of Pepsi Max from a grocery store in Acton : $8.54

• A 300 gram tub of hummus, a 200 gram bag of chopped broccoli, two packs of 100 gram veggie deli meets, a box of six granola bars, and two 330 millilitre cans of Coke Zero from a grocery store in Uccle: $13.62

MARATHON MUSINGS

A Belgian boyhood…for marathon manhood?

I feel very fortunate to have lived in different cities and countries — many having had different languages and cultures — in both boyhood and adulthood. And I don’t know what I can disclose, so all I can say is that in the early 1980s my Dad’s line of investigative work took us to Bruxelles. And the latter is the only place I’ve ever lived where I cannot recall / visualize memories at all (likely because I was sooo young). However, I distinctly remember how Bruxelles made me feel.

My parents put me in a preschool there — and I have absolutely no recollection of the exterior of the building nor the interior of the classroom — but I remember one thing; being unable to communicate (with teachers or classmates) because I was just grasping English, and did not know any French or Flemish (like, I cannot even remember the school’s language…short of it being non-English). Mum or Dad, you’ll have to fact check this.

Looking back, we can inflate things, intellectualize things, and assign deeper meanings to things that weren’t there in the moment…and I won’t do that. Rather, I just remember this very real sense of discomfort and confusion from not understanding the language, and not being able to speak…and it sorta got me thinking about immigration — and imagination — as I marathoned through London and Bruxelles this week…as my exploration of free will / determinism / compatibilism remains on my mind from last week.

And yeah, then we moved some more and eventually found our way back to Canada. And I have no lofty pronouncement; just this acknowledgment that all the bouncing around expedited me learning that I wasn’t the centre of the universe, the world didn’t orbit around my town / city / country, and that my family’s way wasn't the global standard for how to be.

Said another way, I learnt early on that the world is a very big place full of lots of variety, and I feel lucky to have learnt that lesson young because it stoked an insatiable appetite to travel and learn; and be genuinely interested about what ‘else’ — and what ‘more’ — is out there. And so I do big marathons that make our big world feel / seem smaller (for me at least). And I mostly do it without fear…’cause being afraid / scared of difference(s)…that’s for populists.

I don’t know if you are — or have been — an immigrant (especially in a place with a different culture or a different language)…but that shit is sooo humbling. I learnt it first — and mildly — in Bruxelles and again in adulthood when I lived in Montreal…where I could speak French but maybe only at like 60% of my English capacity, and it is wild how the inability to communicate affects / limits your ability to be you (i.e. your whole personality changes).

In French — which is my second language — I still struggle with / for words…and I’m less witty because I speak it slower, and I just don’t have the ability to make jokes…so I’m like a monochromatic version of my technicolour English self. And hearing all the languages in wonderfully multicultural London this week…immigrants…IMO, they’re some of the most courageous people on the planet; unplugging from what they know then attempting to plug into something unknown…which I can only presume is uncomfortable and confusing (like I remember it being).

Anyhoo, populism is on the rise in many parts of the world and the ‘me me mine’ nature of it sorta drives me insane. Firstly, because we have no say in where we’re born. Secondly, because many espousing populist views — whether male or female — never had the cojones to try and cut it elsewhere…like where the language and the culture is different. And shame on them for being a gatekeeper when they never had the nuts to venture out into the world beyond their gates. These numb-nuts need non-stop home court advantage with a guest-list auditorium of supporters, and lack the character to take the show on the road…like, into the void of the unknown. The ruse of it all…

But I digress…back to Bruxelles. My time there is / was hazy at best, but in boyhood I did adopt (export?) some of its cultural trimmings ‘cause my parents got me into Tintin and The Smurfs…things anyone can understand in simple pictures without needing to understand the complexities of language, be it written or said. And they remained in my reading repertoire back in Canada for some time until my childhood interests North Americanized with sports and video games and whatever else.

Ha ha, but being back in Bruxelles this week — and seeing / being surrounded by all the BDs in murals and in bookstores — I guess in childhood you sow what you read…which may function like determinism because in adulthood I’m reaping what was sowed:

I love to explore like Tintin.

I love to adventure like Smurfs.

I don’t know if it is the ligne claire / clear line from Belgium to now, but it’s a good line of reasoning that best explains how I turned out a marathon man.

And, just…a sincere thanks to my parents for cracking my world wide open from the jump; for them being worldly, and being brave immigrants, and for thrusting me into discomfort / not Nerfing shit, and for buying me bandes dessinées in Belgium and France as a youngin’ (and Mum reading to me every evening until I could read for myself), and for them putting me in French Immersion public school as a kid, and for them understanding the calling of my Marathon Earth Challenge like few others do…like on a deep and cellular level.

"My comfort zone is uncomfortable, and it has been my entire life."

- Marc Maron

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