It might be called the Land Down Under, but it turns out there are more things Americans and Aussies share than you think!
Since the documentary What the Health came out on Netflix, many people in my life have become terrified of the animal products they have been consuming. After watching the film myself, I could see why all these people would feel this way. The film aptly goes over some very important and disturbing parts of the food industry in the United States, like how unhealthy processed meats really are for you (no surprise there, considering the preservatives and chemicals we inject into hot dogs would help them survive the apocalypse), the true effects of dairy on the human body, and the fact that corporations take corrupted measures to make money, as is the American way, after all. However, some features of the “documentary” could be said to have been taken a little too far. Now, I say documentary in quotes because the definition of the word calls for a documentation of factual evidence, while, in fact, that’s not always the case in this particular film. For one, the movie claims that eating eggs is equivalent to smoking several cigarettes. Huh? First of all, this information is outdated. Which means, in diet science, that it was proven incorrect. And speaking of diet science, it is constantly changing. In the past, people were terrified of eating eggs because of the fear of high cholesterol, while in fact other analyses showed that those who took part in these studies most likely had high cholesterol anyway because of the lack of exercise combined with eating a lot of greasy food, and the studies’ inability to account for those factors (here’s an article that talks about that realization if you want to know more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/16/is-eating-eggs-really-as-bad-for-your-heart-as-smoking/). Essentially, just like Bret Stetka says in his NPR article Unscrambling the Nutrition Science on Eggs (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/06/518152471/unscrambling-the-nutrition-science-on-eggs, which talks about the ambiguous health history on eggs, as well as diabetes), diet science is perceived in black in white. In other words, understanding how food is processed in our bodies is complicated, and there’s no surprise, therefore, that doctors, nutritionists, even our personal trainers tell us different accounts of what we should eat or not eat. What we do know, at the least, is that every single person is different, and there is no one-size-fits all diet for everyone. Our genetical compounds means that some people can completely remove meat from their lives, and feel even better than they had when they ate it, and there are others who just feel fatigued all the time and not their usual selves without it (like I did). And let’s not forget that no one should make you feel bad for choosing to eat meat, because humans would not have thrived and cultivated civilizations without–lo and behold–hunting! But if you are interested in seeing whether veganism is for you, make sure you do enough research before going straight into it. Here is a very helpful and detailed blog post by Brownble, who gives you all the pros and cons you should expect when first going vegan: https://www.brownble.com/blog/2016/3/1/vegan-101-vegan-side-effects-what-to-expect-when-you-go-vegan. In the end, the best way to eat, as probably any dietician or doctor would recommend, is to have everything in moderation. A diet rich in leafy greens, veggies, fruit, and a little bit of nuts, beans, seeds, eggs and meat is the way to go. And while I’m no expert, this TIME magazine article says that our ancestors didn’t eat dairy or grains, and we should try to refrain from eating them as well: http://time.com/4346551/vegan-diet-vegetarian/. So, before you let this film scare the living daylights out of you, just remember to think twice and do some research on your own, and don’t forget that you know yourself better than anyone else does, so maybe just listen to what your body is trying to tell you and accommodate your diet based on your personal needs.
Now, I’m no expert in blogging, nor am I a certified festival professional, but I do know this-- I have A LOT of extremely beneficial information when it comes to some of the most well known festivals around the world. What do you need to know about Tomorrowland, Belgium? A heck of a lot. For one, the city this festival takes place in is not so easy to get to. Like with most festivals, the cities or towns these events take place in are chosen based on location of where the actual festival takes place. Hundreds of factors play into the choosing of the location. First and foremost, it needs to be a town where the townspeople won’t be gathering in protests at the gates of the festival demanding that the festival shuts down because they can’t sleep from all the noise. Second, the location needs to be able to withstand thousands of people trekking over worn out paths of dirt and grass, with enough space for soccer field-sized stages to be built on top of. Boom, Belgium is one of those locations. With only a little over 16,000 people residing in this city, plus Belgium’s 100% public drinking alcohol tolerance, this small city makes a great place for the largest festival in the world to take place. (Maybe not actually the biggest in size, but the most well-known--you get the point.) But, as I said before, it’s not easy getting there unless you already live in Europe, have a car, or have friends who live in Belgium. Being a university student coming from Poland, I didn’t have the time for considerate preparation for my trip to Boom, especially since this trip came right after my graduation. So working on finishing my last semester of uni, plus the defense of my thesis, I had no time to make a detailed plan to get there. For future reference, it is an extremely important factor of the trip to find a way to travel to Boom efficiently. Since I tried to take the cheapest route, what I did was fly into Charleroi-Sud (actually the cheapest airport in all of Europe to travel to and from!), which in actuality is only one hour and 20 minutes from Boom. However, unless you buy the bus ticket for a Tomorrowland shuttle, then the trip is not going to be direct. My sister was kind enough to figure out the complicated trip for the both of us (I found us the Tomorrowland tickets through a seller on Facebook for an amazing deal, so she basically handled the rest after calling me the best sister ever--for those of you who also couldn’t get on the Waiting List, you know the struggle), so we took a taxi bus for 5 euro to the Charleroi-Sud train station, waited about half an hour for our train to Mechelen, ran around using broken French after discvoering that Mechelen wasn’t on any of the listed destinations, only to discover that Mechelen is the Dutch name for the destination which is actually in French on all the train schedules, Malines, so also remember to learn a bit of the background of the Dutch-French history of Belgium before you visit. For those of you who don’t know, Boom, Belgium is located in the Flemish region of Belgium. While it’s considered to be Dutch, you can make your way in this region easily speaking French. After the train ride, which takes about one hour and 20 minutes, you end up in Malines, a small town with one main street. We actually made our groceries in this town for the camping, because one thing I don’t like to do at festivals is spend a lot of money on food. In fact, the prices steep so high that I don’t even want to buy the food. Tomorrowland is a cashless festival. That means that either you pay with a credit card, or you go to little box offices that can be found all over the festival to exchange your cash for the currency of Tomorrowland, which is called pearls. And it ain’t cheap. For every 100 euro you exchange, you are given 65 pearls in return. That’s almost 1.5 euro per every pearl. So while 5 pearls at a smoothie bar sounds like a pretty good deal, you’re actually spending about 7.5 euro on that smoothie. And if you exchange that to US dollars, it’s over 8 dollars for a damn smoothie. So yeah, I’m more inclined for saving my money, thank you. So if you would prefer to save yourself well over one hundred dollars on an already expensive festival, then I suggest you go to the nearest Carrefour and buy yourself food that can last a few days. From the train station in Malines, you can walk directly to the public buses outside of the station and take the bus 500. The tickets are 3 euro per person, and if you’re camping in Tomorrowland, make sure to tell the bus driver, because this festival is huge and has a lot of different entrances based on if you’re a camper or simply staying in Boom and entering on a daily basis. If you haven’t already received your tickets in the mail, then you’ll just have to walk up to the Will-Call offices right outside the venue. And if you want to save trees like me, then you just have to have an e-ticket to show, and you’re good to go! Once you walk through that giant inflated familiar rainbow we all love so much, you are on the other side of the world, in your own little party land called Tomorrowland! There’s so so much information to share on the how-to’s and what-not’s of the festival, but once you’re through those doors the people surrounding you will prove extremely helpful, especially because over half of the people you run into are Belgium, in case you still have questions about the country itself and how things run. I hope I can help at least one future Tomorrowland goer, and for those of you who already have been and plan to go next year, see you then! xx Anna
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