The Largesse Recommends Belgium

Today I learned that Belgium is awesome.  For quite some time I have been taken with the finer points of this fair country: waffles, beer, and chocolate come to mind.  Throw in the legalization of euthanasia and gay marriage, the massive amounts of ecstasy consumed on the streets, and the highest proportion of households with cable television in the world (97%) and we are really on to something here (say nothing of the fact that In Bruges is maybe the most underrated movie of the past ten years.)  And yes, this will be the topic of my next post – Grosse Pointe Blank anyone?  For now though, I want to reflect for all of us how awesome it is that Belgium has decided to start bitch-slapping the Catholic Church.

My bad, Belgium.

The Still-Hungry Largesse Denounces Tapas

I don’t know when it happened, precisely.  At some point, a group of people must have gotten together and decided that while they enjoyed eating great food, they would probably enjoy it even more if they could have no more than five bites of that particular dish.  Or even three, if the “friend” sitting next to you decided that you would share your choices with each other.  We at The Largesse have considered this matter carefully and extensively, and we have decided to say, “Fuck you, tapas.”

The Backpacking Largesse Denounces England

[Ed. Note: This is Part Two in the L’s ongoing endorsement of backpacking through Europe.  Just not all of Europe.]

If you’ve been following along, you should have your Eurail pass by now, so I’ll skip over that part.  If you’ve really been following along, then you know that we got a question last time about whether or not to use an actual backpack to go backpacking.  So I can see we’re pretty much starting from scratch here.

Yes, you bring a backpack.  Do you think I’d use a lazy gerund like “backpacking” if it was also a misnomer?  Please.  Get a backpack.  In fact, get two.  A big one and a normal one.  Sometimes they come together as a set, in which the smaller of the two is irritatingly referred to as a “daypack”.  As words go, “daypack” is a little dainty for my tastes, but just get one.  You lug the big one when you go from city to city, and you use the small one when you go trolling for weed sightseeing.  Now let’s go someplace…

The Wandering Largesse Endorses Backpacking Through Europe (Pt. 1)

[Ed. Note: This is the first feature in what will be an ongoing, albeit irregular, travel series here at The Largesse.  The Largesse’s travel correspondent, Stankonia, is often traveling—he’s way more worldly than you—so be patient.  Some of the places he goes to don’t have the Googles yet.]

If one were to write a travel blog for the likes of you, the typical Largesse reader, it’d be helpful to know more about you, and specifically what kind of traveling you are likely to do.  Unfortunately, the readership of the Largesse defies categorization (unless you count “needy” as a category, in which case it completely fies categorization).  So we’ll start by assuming a few things:  You are an American, you’ve got at least a little discretionary income, and you’re between the ages of 20 and 40.  In other words, you’re old enough that you can plan your own travel and drink (at least in Europe, anyway), but you’re young enough that you can still have a lot of those drinks without worrying about your incontinence flaring up.