Flip Flop Flying

I miss it. I miss it so much. It feels like a broken heart. I wish I was back in the Americas, in a town I’ve never been to before, checking out the bus times to go to another town I’ve never been to before, to a place where I have no idea where I will be sleeping. Every day, it’s there in my head, and I can’t stop comparing what I’m doing now to what I did then. There are plenty more fish in the sea, but she was the fish I wanted. And no matter what, to continue the analogy, a day trip to Ostend is just a snog in an alley with some girl I have no lasting interest in.

But, for the last three weeks, my three post-season, nocturnal-life weeks, I’ve seen very little daylight, and with no game on Friday night, I managed to get to bed relatively early, and wake up around 11am, so after a quick shower, I went to the train station, intent on visiting Bruges. Looking at the timetable, Ostend was only about 20 minutes further, so I changed my plan, because coast trumps old buildings every time.

And Ostend seems quite nice, in a seaside-y way. Plenty of people taking advantage of what may well be the last chance at a sunny day. I saw very little of the town itself, sticking solely to the beach and the pier where lots of men were fishing and smoking cigars.

Dogs ran around, children flew kites, and despite it being better than sitting indoors all day, this place isn’t Brazil. And a sad song shuffles up on my iPod and, well, y’know. Here’s some photos of Ostend (the Dutch spelling is Oostende, which I find myself saying like, Oooh!-sten-der).