One Road- Ariann Mieka

Travelling on the train to Antwerp from Den Haag marked the forth time I was making this trip. Who knew this route would become a familiar one for me. Verse, B and I were headed to the Smile! Reggae Festival , which was the one I was looking forward to since Verse iTal ’s first band practice with the Asham Band . This is the performance they had all been working toward and as we neared Antwerp my excitement mounted. Before heading to the venue, Verse had a quick practice with the back up singers one more time and it was great to hear the ladies add their two part harmonies to Verse’s tunes. Walking to the venue, which was located in a forested area, I tried to pay attention to where I stepped (there were patches of mud due to the rain the day before) while marveling at the beauty of the surroundings. The weather was chilly and a bit overcast but luckily the rain had held up. After settling in backstage, we headed into the main area to see the lay out of the festival. The Ska Regga...

Months ago when I was laying out a schedule of performances for Verse iTal , one in particular had me very curious. This particular performance was going to be at the Pool Party Festival , in Antwerp Belgium. I was told it was a large boat completely decked out with a pool. As always, I assigned a picture to the description and so I thought maybe I was heading to a large multi deck ship, similar to the Trinidad party ship the Treasure Queen . “How would they layout a festival on that kind of vessel?” I wondered. On the morning of the performance, Verse and I left Den Haag early to head to Antwerp as he had a practice with the Asham Band first.   This time we travelled by train and not only was it more comfortable than the bus ride we took last time it was faster and way more interesting. Between reading, napping and gazing at the landscape through the window as it rolled by, the time passed quickly and within an hour and 50 minutes we arrived at the beautiful Antwerp Station...

Verse and I set off early in the morning to go from Den Haag to Antwerp , Belgium for the day. He was going to practice with the Asham band for the first time and I was excited to hop across the border for a day of music and adventure. Many moons ago when I lived in London, I travelled to Belgium and stayed in Brussels for a bit but I had never been to Antwerp and was looking forward to seeing a new section of the country. Due to the short distance, I bent my rule of avoiding travel by bus and agreed to go on Eurolines . This rule was made over a decade ago during my first trip to Europe when bus was primarily my main mode of transport to different countries. Some of the distances were so long and the ride was sometimes complicated (and uncomfortable) that I vowed never to do that again. As we found the Eurolines bus stop memories flooded back. (There was that time a bus station we were supposed to go to to get a transfer bus decided to close early and we had to re route our journey...