Much like Mcdonalds in America and England Belgium is mostly populated by one fast food chain, Quick. The golden Q lights the way for weary travelers who wish to satisfy their mighty hungers. Sadly, much like Mcdonalds 95% of Quick’s burgers and meals taste like they just floated out of a nearby sewer, do you want fresh with that? Oh well it was a choice between that or a baguette coated with cheese that smelt of a lumberjacks nutsack. Chicken Supreme it is. Fuelled up we marched on to our nights adventure. I’m not entirely sure what it was, but it had ships, planes and tanks. Well that’s good enough for me.
Scaffolding is a real mans climbing frame, everyone loves it. But when the temperature is below freezing, snow and ice all around and you have to tear your gloves from the frozen rungs every time you move all while trying to keep quiet, its not very fun. Who am i kidding, it was absolutely hilarious. We slowly made our way up the side of the main hanger, crawling along the foot wide ledges to the front. With every step the ice cracked and roof buckled underfoot. With no safety rail one misplaced step meant a graceful plummet to the floor beneath, a bloody man-pancake your only reward.
Luckily for us there was an event in progress in the building opposite, so for the most part we remained unnoticed amidst our banging and crashing. We continued cautiously along the roofs towards the inner courts, snapping the occasional picture along the way.
An hour later we sat atop the main courtyard, two ships lay silently in the dark depths beneath us. I drew the short straw and headed down first to test the water. We had all agreed we would hide instead of running if we set of alarm, to flee across those roofs would be certain suicide. I cautiously descended, lights flickered within the buildings, but no one was home. Ten minutes later we were all aboard the P903, Aka the Baguette, a cheese smuggling vessel once owned by the legendary Capitan Marc ”Infra” Red.
With our respects paid we headed up and onwards along the adjacent rooftops and then to our main target. Ok so its just a window, but still its size and the detail in the sculptures and design was fantastic. At this point i only had one thing on my mind, i wanted to climb the thing.
Myself and Witek chose a side and climbed ever vigilant, higher and further up the rusty framework, trying to keep our balance with what little there was to grab. We bumped fists as we met in the center, posing for a photo. If security happened to look up at this point we were finished, my ‘act like a statue’ skills were unfortunately not up to scratch to fool them. A quick nod and we headed back to the ground, ”See you at the bottom”.
With the pictures taken, our mission a success and our escape route planned we made a hasty retreat, blending perfectly into the tourists beneath as we left. With that we now had a fun night of sleeping in the car to look forward to, get in!
