kaffe and lots of km

Dank U..thats Flemish for thank you. Thats pretty much the extent of my Flemish so far, much to my discouragement. Ohh one other, Kaffe, which is coffee. I have ordered a lot of kaffe since arriving. The taste is incredibly good over here but their sizes are also incredibly small compared to the uber large american lifestyle. At home, I can easily drink a pot of coffee by myself without flinching and when I go to Angelina's on California/22nd I always go for the 2nd cup. Belgian size is equivalent to an espresso at home. I guess I have to get use to it. The kaffe tastes great though, very dark and rich. Surprisingly, Virgin Atlantic has very good kaffe, I think I had 4 in the last 2 hours of my flight. But I have digressed.

So the plan for today was to get up early, 8am and roll out to Antwerpen before my race in Boorsbeek and do a little touristing. Well, I didn't end up hearing the alarm until 9:15 then I ate some food and went with my housemate and his dad to find a supermarket that was open on this bank holiday, funny how it was holiday in the US also...bizarro. I didn't end up rolling out of the house till 1130 which still gave me plenty of time to get to my race which was about 38k away. I mapped it out the night before and thought it was pretty straightforward but that was until I hit Lier. Each of the major towns have what they call, "The Ring." The Ring is the Belgian equivalent to the US beltway around a major city, for instance the 280 in Atlanta for all my lovely southeast readers. When I arrived at the ring, there was no sign for the next town which I had mapped too, so I ended up riding into the town. Lier was a nice town. Good large, Centre(middle of town) with a large square and what appeared to be a university. Lots of cobbled streets too. I ended up getting lost but found a nice Belgian wearing a Seattle Mariners cap help me. He spoke perfect English but his directions weren't ideal. I did find my way out of town in the right direction only to discover that I had forgotten my wallet, ie racing license and money. And no chance to get money from the little house of money(Cathy and Randy will laugh). So moral dilemma, do I cruise back and go and get my wallet and license then try to race back to the race. It was doable, but I chose not too and forged on with 4,70 euros to my name. This was km 28 approximately.

I had previously wanted to use this day anyways to just chill out and go on a nice easy ride so I wasn't super disappointed more bothered that I only had 4,70 euros. I decided to continue to Antwerpen and check out the historic stuff. Riding into Antwerpen was really sketchy...definitely rolled through the ghetto. Tires held up though and I didn't have to break out my street surviven' skilz. I had the impression from all the touristy books that historical buildings would just jump right out at you. It actually took me about 30min of tooling around to find the city center. With today a holiday, nothing was open except cafes and restaurants. It would definitely be a shoppers paradise with lots of boutique stores. The center plaza was very beautiful with a large fountain in the middle and large gothic buildings. I took a few fotos. Will try to post later. I hunkered down at a cafe in the middle of it all and ordered a kaffe. One more note about kaffe. You always get a chocolate or a cookie with your kaffe along with cream and sugar. I will certainly miss the little treat when I leave. The chocolate probably raises the cost of the kaffe which explains why it was 1,90 euro. I haven't found kaffe for less than 1,50 euro. But its good kaffe and I am living the euro pro lifestyle so its just water under the bridge for me. I sat at the nice kaffe taking it all in.

Trying to get out of Antwerpen was harder than getting in. Its like a medieval fortress. I ended up asking 4 different people for directions before I ran into some belgian guy and he and I talked cycling for a little bit in the crosswalk. His directions weren't totally right on but I managed to use my map skills and found out where I was going. I decided to take a different route home so i can cover as much new ground as possible and see more towns. When I was going from Brouchout to Nijiln, i took the "bicycle route." The bicycle route was a 1/3 km of cobbles. I tried to push a hard gear and power over them and that worked in the beginning then my speed began to decline. Not good b/c the bouncing gets worse. Made it through and my bike held up great. I rolled into Heit-al-berg(sp?). Stopped at tapas bar and had an espresso. It was pretty good. I found this cool snack machine that was basically everything a Walgreen's has but was a snack machine the size of entire storefront. I will have to go back and take a picture. Finally rolled into the campground(lack of better term for my housing) 150k later. Good long day. With everything so flat here you never have to push sick wattage but you are constantly spinning, very different from CA. Legs feel pretty fresh still. Ate a lot of pasta and some muesilli and some bread with kaffe and a coke. Balanced dinner.

Off to sleep, its 1244am here....
chow chow
Matthew