The Gold-Paved Streets of York

Making my fortune on the gold-paved streets of York might prove to be a little trickier than it was in Belgium.

"You do realise," says Cathy, cautiously. "That to get a busking permit from the council here you have to actually audition for them?"

"Yes, yes I'm aware of that," I say, even though I wasn't. In Ghent I just had to pay up 25 quid and fill in a form; nobody asked me to prove myself.

"It's okay," I reassure her. "I have an audition set that's going to blow them away. It's going to be just like the X-Factor."

A shadow of doubt clouds Cathy's usually optimistic face. I'm not sure if she is dubious about my handful of slightly wobbly guitar-pieces 'blowing' anyone 'away' or if it's just that she can't imagine the offices of York Town Council being anything at all 'like the X-Factor'.

Goodbye Belgium

Voilà!

Spring is in the air in Flanders; in our hearts and in our underwear and in the bar I'm working in, too.

"Voilà!" I like to say, when I bring the customers their drinks. Then I whip the cloth off the tray just like a magician would do: Voilà! Here are your drinks! You gave me money and I turned it into beer — it's like alchemy, non? What a wonderful life!

The Captive Sailor

(Photo by Wies)

Happy St Patrick's Day

A couple of days ago a nice-looking Flemish man with a very large grey beard came into the bar and sat up at the high table in the corner by himself.

"How much for one of those hats?" he asked, pointing to the stupid over-sized Paddy's day top-hats hanging up behind the bar.

"You buy four pints of Guinness," I told him. "And then it's yours."

He nodded his head. He'd have four pints, he said, over the evening, and then he'd take a hat. A long time ago, he told me, he was married to a woman in Derry and they had had a daughter together. She was grown up now, studying law for a year in Paris, and she would be coming to Belgium to visit him. He was going to take her out for dinner at that nice restaurant on the Graslei and then they'd go and drink some pints together to celebrate St Patrick's Day.

"She's a lovely girl," he said. "She'd laugh if I turned up tomorrow in one of those hats!"

I made sure he got his hat at the end of the evening. He didn't even touch the last pint he'd bought.

Last night he came back into the bar, late, around two in the morning when everyone was dancing and pushing and spilling their stupid green beer and falling all over the place.

"How was dinner?" I asked him.

"Ah, I didn't go," he said. "My daughter couldn't make it after all."

Then he sat back up at the high table in the corner by himself with the stupid green hat that he'd forced himself to drink three pints of stupid Guinness for, until everyone went home to bed and we started sweeping the floors.

Having finally cracked the busking thing

I have finally cracked this busking thing and am making my fortune. The trick is to play at night when the streets are quiet. This way I can drop that strummy REM song and play my finger-picky stuff (to use technical terms), so that the sound echoes off the beautiful medieval walls and makes everybody feel romantic and generous. Yee-hah. On Sunday evening I made €30 in two hours and last night I made €9 in just twenty minutes while I was waiting for Wies to get ready for the pub.

"It's because they feel sorry for you sitting on the streets on your own at night," he supposed.

"No it's not!" I said. "It's because of the music."

But that night a concerned-looking couple stopped to make 'eating' gestures with their hands and asked if I was hungry.

"I'm not homeless," I explained, patiently. "I'm making my fortune. And later on I'm going to use these coins to go and drink pink cocktails in the Captive Sailor."

And that's exactly what I did.

Don't see it as being a waitress; see it as being an anthropologist

Busking on the medieval streets of Ghent isn't quite as financially rewarding as I had imagined, and so I've taken a job in a bar to 'top it up' — where they have tricked me into being a waitress against my will. Oh god. Am world's best barmaid but world's worst waitress. It's going to be a nightmare.

"It's going to be a nightmare," says my new boss. "Because the Champions' League football is on."

I sigh. I don't tell him that once upon a time I was an art director for Champions' League football. I don't think he'd give a shit, somehow. He needs someone who can carry vast trays of beer; not someone who can waffle on for half an hour about one font.

"Don't worry," says my friend Cathy, who works for the Samaritans and always says the right thing on the phone. "Think of this job as the perfect role for observing people in. Don't see it as being a waitress; see it as being an anthropologist!"

This is a brilliant idea. I thank Cathy for her encouragement and feel better about things.

On my first day as an anthropologist I drop a fish pie on the restaurant floor. On my second day as an anthropologist I give all my customers the wrong change by mistake. "Sorry," I keep mumbling. "I'm from Ireland so I'm not used to the euro..." (Um, what?). On my third day as an anthropologist I offend a woman by telling her she looks like a potato. "As drunk as a potato! I meant you look as drunk as a potato!" I say in a panic, trying to correct the Flemish phrase I'd just cocked up and not making things any better for either of us.

And yet, somehow, I make more tips in three shifts than I do in an entire week of busking. Sacre bleu! Could it be that these people actually prefer having drinks spilled on them to listening to me play Man on the Moon over and over again on Veldstraat?

I am shaking my head slowly in disbelief.

Lions in the street, that is what we are

(Photo by Dirk)

I will never be taken for a foreigner in a supermarket again

The trouble with being in a foreign country is that sooner or later you just can't put it off any longer and you have to go to the supermarket. I know, I know, 'going to the supermarket in a foreign country': a fun experience if you're on holiday with your friends when you can wander up the aisles together giggling at chocolate bars called 'Boobies' or whatever. But when you're on your own and are trying very, very hard to not look like a foreigner, well, then it is just a nightmare. I have to concentrate so hard on appearing 'local' and 'nonplussed'* that I inevitably end up coming away with a trolley full of things I don't need or even like by mistake. Like sardines.

I have some kind of phobia, I think, after a particularly upsetting foreigner-in-a-supermarket experience I had in Reykjavik. I was minding my own business comparing two kinds of sardines when a nice-looking woman tapped me on the shoulder. I was rather pleased about this because hardly anyone ever tapped me on the shoulder in Iceland. I got a little over-excited, I suppose, and thought that perhaps she was about to ask me to be her new best friend – or at least invite me round for dinner.

'Hallo,' I said, warmly – which is the Icelandic for 'hello'.

'Where can I find the toilet paper?' she said.

'Uh, I don't know, because uh, I don't work here...' I stammered back.

'Oh my god,' she cried, aghast. 'Are you... are you a foreigner?'

And then she dropped her basket, gathered up her skirts, and ran screaming from the canned-food aisle while I stood there blinking after her, a tin of sardines in each hand and a lump forming in the back of my throat.

It is for this reason that my first sentences in Flemish include things like: 'two bags please', 'do you take Visa', 'where can I find the tinned fish', and 'very sorry but I don't work here'. No, I will never be taken for a foreigner in a supermarket again.

*I don't mean 'nonplussed'. I don't know what i mean, actually, but you know what I mean, right?

Last Week

Monday
On my first day in Belgium, Wies asks a guy playing an oboe on his street corner for busking advice. Oboe Guy has no teeth and doesn't speak any Flemish, French, or English but somehow manages to tell us how I can get a permit, where the best places to play are, and that he wishes me the very best of luck. Yes, I have found a friend in Crazy Oboe Guy.

Tuesday
On my second day in Belgium I go to the festivities office for a permit. 'What kind of music do you play?' asks the nice man filling out the forms. 'Er, I just play one REM song over and over again on the guitar,' I explain. 'Well, I'll put down folk music for now,' he says, kindly, and then wishes me the very best of luck. Yes, I have found a friend in the Festivities Office Guy.

Wednesday
On my third day in Belgium I decide I don't want to be a busker after all. I'll spend my month in Ghent annoying Wies in his lovely office instead. He prods me out of the door with a stick. 'Go!' he says. I stand in a small market square and start nervously playing the same REM song over and over again. After five minutes a woman drops a euro in my guitar case and I nearly swallow my tongue in shock. I stop playing immediately so I can text Wies the good news: Oh my god I am going to be rich! I make €7 before having to stop because my hand is cramping up. Turns out it is not possible to play one REM song over and over again for more than one hour. Come on — it's not possible to listen to one REM song over and over for more than an hour, is it.

Thursday
On my fourth day in Belgium I get busted by the cops. 'Do you have a license?' they ask. 'Yes,' I say, smugly producing my permit. 'This is from last year,' says the cop. I look at the date. He is right: the Festivities Office Guy has put down 2008 by mistake. Hmmph. I pack up my guitar and go off my friend the Festivities Office Guy a bit.

Friday
On my fifth day in Belgium I go back to the square only to find that Crazy Oboe Guy is in my spot. Hmmph. I play on a picturesque cobbled street all afternoon, make 70 sodding cent, and go off my friend the Crazy Oboe Guy a bit.

Saturday
On my sixth day in Belgium, Wies tells me what I need is a gimmick – like a parrot or a dog or some shit like that. Or couldn't I at least do a little dance or something? I shake my head sadly as tears drop into my small, frothy Belgian beer. 'Come on Annie,' he says, giving me an affectionate arm-touch. 'At least strap some kind of plastic lion to your shoulder.' 'Okay then,' I sniff. Wies attaches a plastic lion to my shoulder with sticky-tape and I make about 14 euro almost as soon as I've stepped out of the door.

Belgium

Clockwise from top left: view from Wies's house; Ghent centre; Wies's father's chickens; hmm, another view; the view from my house.

The Butterfly Zoo

On my last weekend in Wales, Cathy comes back to visit. We've been friends since we were 11 when she saved me from an adolescence of loneliness and misery by inviting me back to her house in the next valley after school. I could help her pick caterpillars out of the garden, she'd said, to keep in the box under her bed that she was turning into a butterfly zoo.

Eighteen years later, Cathy drives too fast and doesn't always watch where she's going. Usually this makes me nervous but today I don't care. I'm feeling light-headed after lunch and I'm happy to ride shotgun through Ffestiniog as the sunlight hits the slate-heaps and turns them purple.

Listen to this, she says, turning up the music. I always think this song is about us.

The woman on the stereo sings about being sixteen; two girls drunk on a bathroom floor together.

Yes, it's about us, I agree, feeling emotional all of a sudden.

Who else could that song possibly have been written about except me and Cathy? I'm glad we're spending my last day here together, in Wales on the first day of March, driving too fast through Snowdonia where we have grown caterpillars and killed butterflies and swung from every lamppost and pissed on every tree.