Belgium: Land of more than just waffles

17.10.10


Brussels, Belgium


We have entered our sixth country on this trip, and all I was expecting was piles and heaps and Gogols of waffles. Let me tell you, this was a rather narrow and unrealistic thing to gamble all your money on. If you do ever encounter many metric tonnes of waffles in Belgium stacked higher than any mountain, please tell me so I can reclaim my future son's livelihood. Thank you in advance.


Now, back to Belgium. Indeed, there is much more to it than delicious waffles covered in chocolate, toffee, or nothing at all (I'll admit, we've tried - and loved - a number of these delightful wonders of the dessert world). What I love the most is the ubiquitous bike paths that run parallel to nearly every road, making travel by bike a breeze - and a safe breeze, at that. Perhaps this amazingly sound and simplistic infrastructure is why we saw considerably more bikers on the roads than cars the first two hours this morning.


Aside from the ease of travel by bike and the delightful red color of the bike paths, Sean and I were more than surprised by the dozens of towering spires we encountered traveling through Belgium. Even the small towns that we planned on passing through in a few minutes demanded we stop for a long, steady gawk followed by backing up a hundred feet to try to fit the whole tower in the picture. Once inside these massive churches, the architecture is somewhat similar to those found in England and Ireland but done more in an Eastern European style, smacking of Russia for some reason.


Not to be a Debbie Downer or anything (cue the mournful trumpet), but not everything here is roses and plastic, rose-scented rose figurines. No, not at all. When camping last night, where the temperature dropped to a mere 35 degrees, we found, crawling on the outside of our tent, a small but all-too-real tick. That's right. The War Against the Ticks has begun. No prisoners, no cry, as I always say, which drives Sean absolutely mad for some reason.


Oh, and if you pass by a bakery anytime in the near future, do yourself a favor and stop in, at the very least to be engulfed by the delicious aromas and taken to another world, one filled with only gustatory pleasure and buttery goodness. And try marzipan; you won't be disappointed.

Chow!

Hamster, ma'am

15.10.10


Woerden, The Netherlands


The title of the post is the punchline to a joke going something like this:
A woman goes into a pet shop asking for recommendations for a new family pet. She notices the shop owner has something furry in and around his mouth but tries to ignore it, which gets increasingly harder as the conversation progresses. Finally, she can't take it any longer and asks, "Excuse me, sir, but what is that in and around your mouth?" "Oh, it's just my furry-tongue-and-mouth-region illness. It's perfectly normal in this part of the world, " he quickly responds and continues explaining the benefits of King Cobras over anacondas as pets. "Wait a tick, what part of the world would that be?" the curious woman inquires. "It's called the Aristocrats. I mean Hamster, ma'am."

It's something about Freudian slips, that's all I know.

Anyways, Amsterdam is a nice little place that you may know from its regionally famous Van Gogh museum. Or something about sex, drugs, and drug-sex. I was never a good judge of popular opinion, anyway. However, let it be known that Amsterdam offers far more than just "a good time," which can be taken three different ways depending on which part of the city you are in. The network of canals and waterways slices the city into over a hundred different islands that are connected by loads of crisscrossing bridges. Other than the infamous Red Light District, where the lights are vibrant and always beckoning, the most striking and unfamiliar feature of this place is the thousands of bikes that are constantly zipping around the roads, more numerous - and more deadly to a pedestrian - than cars. Not only is everyone riding to and fro, but they are doing it while on the phone or dressed to the nines. It seems that the Amsterdamish view bike riding as a necessary part to life in the city and have adapted their lives to accommodate this mode of transportation. Indeed, I saw more absurd styles of bikes here than I ever have in all my years of watching bikes: people sitting on racks presumably meant to double as seats, babies using the same type of contraption set over the front wheel, foldable bikes, bikes with motors, generator lights, bells everywhere, and everybody's favorite giant wheel-shaped steering bars. This city defied my expectations, as the R.L.D. was ten times more touristy than I expected and felt very tame, despite the scantily-clad ladies signaling to everyone that walked by that they were interested (it feels actually quite awful to not be pointed at when you make eye contact). At the same time, the bars that peppered every street were packed with all types of people who seemed to be having a great but not out of the ordinary time. In short, the city is very much alive and well, though the red lights are gaudy and more of a spectacle than anything. I wonder what they were like ten years ago... anyone have any experience? Grandpa? (haha but I'm serious they visited only I don't know how long ago).

Alright, we are off to find a B&B, our first since that first fabled day in Dublin. We need to get dry and gather our energy for a solid ride tomorrow. Wish us luck, and ask yourself, who will stop the rain, then bribe whoever it is that you answered to make it happen!

Thank you in advance.

Stay strong, stay young!

Sailin'!

13.10.10


The North Sea (I'm on a boat)



Bill Clinton: A fellow ledge-bomb



Today is one of those rare days when you accomplish every last thing on your to-do list. How exciting! Let's review:

1) Wake up next to Sean, still in Desert Storm
2) Check for life in the both of us
3) Check for bikes
4) Do one of those deep, full-body stretches that feels really good but also causes a muscle cramp when you hold it for too long
5) Ride for milk and eat muesli
6) Get rear pannier run over by a truck at a roundabout
7) Climb a steep embankment at an underpass to the overhead bridge to get off a deathtrap of a road
8) One last English rain

Yup, got it all in! Nothing quite matches that feeling of accomplishment, let me tell you. Nothing, that is, save successfully cleaning out a bag in which an entire package of cookies and three bell peppers exploded and mixed with some leaked fuel. The sight of those cookies was surely one of the most amazing things I've seen on this trip. Trucks must despise intact biscuits, for this collision absolutely obliterated all traces of anything cookieish. A fine powder coated the inside of everything within the bag, so you can imagine the sense of achievement in removing the grime and setting it right. And going the other direction, it's a wonder that the bag was not completely destroyed! These are top-notch panniers, which can take a truck tire and keep on staying intact and whatnot.

Ah, but this trip is about the wonderful juxtaposition of unbelievable highs and devastating lows. I saw the truck run over the bag, and my heart sank. But following the cleanup - once I realized that nothing valuable was lost -, I was overcome with a wave of giddiness and glee at having survived a potentially disastrous situation. Later, when we had to climb to escape certain doom but were utterly defenseless against the steepness of the hill, the lethal reach of the thorn bushes, or the blaring anger of the zooming



Devastating low or unbelievably high?




trucks, reaching the summit and finding not only safety but also the correct road sign nearly brought forth tears of sheer joy. Being saved from darkness elicits much more happiness than it ever has in my life, as happened last night when we were without a place to camp and so had consigned to set up in a small public park on a strangely busy side road. The last house we approached, directly across from the park, housed a lovely woman named Linda who seemed to take a liking to us and offered us her lawn as a safe alternative to the park. Later that night, Sean and I sat by and watched two motorcyclists pull up and begin chatting in front of the park, eventually setting up their own camp there. I'm certain that our night would not have been as enjoyable had Linda not allowed us to camp in her lawn. And it would have been much more boring had she not invited us in for some Earl Gray tea, donuts, and a nice long chat with her and her daughter Heidi, who has done some extensive traveling herself. I absolutely love going over the differences between American and English customs, and so do both women, so we shared a good deal of stories and general chatter (but no cheddar). If you ever travel abroad and the weather is tolerable, always camp before turning to hotels, for these encounters are the true essence of travel and life itself!

Ah, this ferry also has a captain-slash-weatherman. I reckon that maritime meteorology is a hot subject in Europe. He's informed us that we can look forward to another cloudy (rainy?) day, with temperatures around 12 C. What a beautiful day, no? But at least we have Paris!

Oxford ,

9.10.10

Oxford, Oxfordshire, England

At long last, Sean and I have finally made it to Oxford following a full day of sweaty, sticky, headwindy riding. Any notable things happen yesterday? Sure: We didn't die (at least not in the Biblical sense), we liberated a few debtors prisons (completely in the Biblical sense), and - you're not going to believe this - we ran into a bit of bike trouble. Well, pedaled into, actually. You see, the bike that I bought must have come out of the factory without its bottom bracket crank cartridge fully tightened, so over the course of these last 600 miles, it has slowly worked its way out and finally became noticeable yesterday. With the proper tool, this is a very simple and quick fix, but - without tools and without luck - I was in need of a mechanic to fix this small but potentially devsatating problem (that is how every bike problem is described: can cause serious injury or death. Is death, then, not a "serious" matter? Who would ever make light of death?!). The true kick in the teeth was that the bike shop was closed from 1-2 for lunch, so we were forced to wait an extra hour to get back on the road. I'm not at all used to places closing down for lunch, but it makes sense that the shop owner needs to eat sometime and that we customers should never see the bikesmiths without grease all over their hands and faces. Snacking, too, is out of the question. But what's an extra hour in the day of two guys with no concrete plans, any obligations, or real responsibilities? More than you would think, it turns out. (But still far, far less than any normal person with, say, a job or other perceived duty or any of these socially forged shackles that only serve to blind us and keep us from the things we would truly love to do, if only we had the time or the opportunity, which, we all know in this economy, is never there!)
Yes, very good, but I believe we were in the middle of a story of sorts. Perhaps we can finish our ranting some other time, hmmm?
Following the liberation of our third debtors prison, we were able to unload our miniguns and RPGs, which allowed for much quicker cruising speeds on the busy English roads. Nevertheless, the two hour break that the mechanics required and my hitting the glycogen-depleted wall prevented us from reaching Oxford before dusk, so we were forced to camp just outside of Burford for the night. Interestingly, we ran into our first emphatically rude and unfriendly person when asking for advice on camping. She made it perfectly clear that we were "certainly not camping in the garden" nor "certainly anywhere on [her] lawn." It is fine for someone to refuse the strange and burdensome request of pitching a tent on their lawn, but her coldness rubbed me quite the wrong way. As this was our first attempt to camp anywhere in England, and as this runs so severely contrary to our experiences in Ireland, I wonder if the Emerald Isle is just a priveleged place where only the nicest and most wonderful people live, while everywhere else in this awful, terrible world is populated by he-devils and she-witches and they-dragon-eating-goblinites-from-Mars. I would actually like to meet one of those last characters. Maybe in Amsterdam.
Ah, but before I could curse and condemn all of mankind, we discovered that the sour encounter was just a fluke and that even the English are kind. We pulled into a farmhouse down from the main road and were approached by an older woman who owned the place. When I filled her in with our journey and our intentions for the night, she immediately offered an entire lush field to use as camping grounds and asked if there was anything else we required for our stay. Ah, but this night we were fine just cooking by ourselves and did not want to lay too much on this woman, so we ate our rice and beans in peace with the wind howling through the barn and the night sky absolutely dominating the surroundings by 7:15. It was a very picturesque location, with extremely thick, forest-green grasses and a little river at the bottom of the property. However, the woman never told us she was an ally of the Machines, as she had in her employment a number of blinking, flashing droids that cut the grass by night. At first, we mistook the Machine for a lightning bug, which we were nearly positive did not inhabit this area of the world, but, upon noticing green and red flashes in addition to the familiar yellow ones, we were confused and downright worried. I was ready to blame the nearby nuclear power plants or global warming, such is my training as an American, when we discovered it was nothing more than a lawncare automaton.
But here we are in lovely, old Oxford! I adore this ancient city, packed to the brim with spires, many-hundred-year-old stones, and faces... faces everywhere! I am not certain when this happened, but over the last few centuries, we must have overcome an all-consuming obsession with stone faces, which is probably what has allowed us to devote more time to the development of wind energy and netbooks.
Tomorrow, we ride for Cambridge, but in the meantime, I will seek unfairly and with steep bias evidence to support the claim that Oxford is no match for Harvard. That's a cool thing to be doing, right?

Soon and very soon

6.10.10

Paul & Deb's, Weston-Super-Mare, England

The last week has truly been a vacation within a vacation, one of the rarest phenomena known to man. The last census reported that only a few hundred families across the US had enjoyed a v.w.v. in the past ten years. While they act to immediately amplify the fun and enjoyment of every day trip, meal, and good night's sleep, you run a risk of lowering the utility of the original vacation. To explain: Sean and I are cycling quite a bit, working very hard at times to see the countryside and inch our way across the land. Paul and Deb have taken us in and treated us like sons - sons that will later become the kings of two allied countries and, even later, the leaders of the Resistance against the Machines. We have all the food we could ever ask for (and then loads more "to fatten you up," says Deb). Our clothes seem to magically clean themselves, like a bunch of polyester cats. And we have The Simpsons every night at 7pm. With all this pampering, why would we ever want to hop back on the bikes and get all sore, sweaty, and tired again? Why crawl across the map at a rate of 80 miles a day when we could be carted around by Deb's little engine that usually could, or a bus, or a 5 pound flight? Therein lies the danger, that we wouldn't want to return to our regularly scheduled "vacation" (more and more I feel this is the wrong word).

On the contrary, this respite has only made me more eager to keep on truckin' across England on young Midnight. I am yearning for the bit to be thrust back in my mouth so I can chomp, chomp, chomp away. I find myself shaking in anticipation of the adventures that await over yonder hill! Or maybe the pudding we just had is causing these tremors... Either way, this v.w.v. has allowed us to recharge our vigor and spirits far beyond full to the point of dripping at every turn. I feel happier than I've ever felt, ready to take on any challenge, and I'm supremely overjoyed to be doing everything I am doing with the special people I am with.

Our time with Paul and Deb has been nothing short of everything we could have hoped for. But our time has come, and we plan to leave Friday morning for Oxford. In the meantime, we'll try to get in some final sightseeing and stay rested for the upcoming treks: to Oxford is 90-odd miles, while Cambridge lies 85 miles hence. Today, we accomplished both goals, taking a light ride out to Sand Point on the Weston beach and gaining a very nice view of Cardiff and Newport over the bay. A la vez, we managed to put Weston's famous sinking mud to the test; apparently, it has claimed dozens of lives over the years from headstrong youths challenging the limits of Nature. We survived, though not without a few scares and some souveneir sand. Our ride, mud stroll, and rock climb today was quite the relaxing yet adventurous way to spend the waning hours of a vaction within a vacation. The next time you get the chance to explore the giddy elation and tricky conundrums of a v.w.v., seize the opportunity, keeping in mind that you only die once.

Day trippers

5.10.10

Bristol, England

Ahoy again from afar, though it's really the same distance away as the last post. No displacement, no cry; that's what I always say, constantly, much to the chagrin of my partner in crime. He says I have a problem, but I just say, "No displacement, no cry."

What do I mean by that bit of physics terminology? What is displacement, anyway? Does anyone really know? Yes. Millions understand the concept, and billions have lived it, which is quite unfortunate. But occasionally, these NDNC days, as they are known, involve loads of distance, taking you there and back again, as it were (mountains, Gandalf!). These last few days have seen a great deal of traveling to and fro, zipping to all the local sights of southeastern England

So on with it already! Where have we been? The first two days of our stay with Paul and Deb were meant for complete rest and relaxation, allowing us to recover from the monumental effort of reaching their house in two days. We scarcely did a thing other than eat, drink, and sit, recline, or lay. I, personally, enjoy a good sit, but there are those who prefer to recline, cool drink in hand and sunglasses on. Friday night, we checked out a new fish & chips place, indulging in an Olde English standby, fried cod and chips (smothered in salt and vinegar, no less). Saturday, Seaney D and I took a stroll down to the rugby field to witness the slaughter of the opposition by Paul's team for which he acts as the physio. Before the game started, we were treated to complimentary massages, Sean getting worked by Paul and I being tended to by a young woman with terribly knifelike elbows. Between the massage and the match, we wandered into town, securing for lunch 5 scones with clotted cream and 2 cold pasties, all for less than 6 quid. Pasties are meat-and-potato-filled turnovers with a deliciously flaky and doughy crust, meant always to be served piping hot or at least warm, but never with ice chunks in the middle. But a few minutes in the armpit or groin region can really "heat a pasty up," as they say, and we were soon enjoying cool meatpies on a beach bench.

At this beach, there are dozens of signs warning of the sinking mud. Apparently, people would drive their cars up to the water and summarily lose them to the rising tide and, you guessed it, the sinking mud. Today's query: Who drives their car over hundreds of feet of sand to idle at the edge of the low tide, especially when there await teams of donkeys ready to carry you across the beachfront? That's true, actually, but Sean and I had to get back to the rugby match before we had a chance to take a spin on a donkey. And anyway, no donkey, no cry!

Though this day was very relaxed and involved almost no voluntary movement on our part, we managed to have some fun at night. Following the match, the teams and their supporters joined in the club for some drinks and to witness Europe facing off against the US in the Ryder Cup, which came to a thrilling end yesterday (Jimenez is a man-beast). After two hours, Weston's team held a ceremony known as Kangaroo Court, which involves a mock court punishing the team for silly, petty, or, occasionally, very, very serious offenses (this year there were only three murders punished, with two going unsolved). The penalty was almost always alcohol, which the accused gladly accepted. Later that night, we went out to a local pub and met Paul's brother and his family. Jodi, their daughter of 17 years, had just passed her driving exam and was celebrating in fine form (the drinking age is actually 18 here, but I guess driving is fine cause for drinking!). As soon as she heard our accents, she nearly went comatose from sheer excitement. Apparently, Man vs. Food is her favorite show, and she began grilling us (punintended) on whether the food in America is just like what she sees on TV. She kept asking us to "just speak" so she could bask in the glory of a Midwestern accent, the purest of accents. All the while she kept repeating, "This is the best day evaaaah! Best day evaaaaaaah!!!" then she'd whisper, looking far off in the distance, "Best evaaaaa..." and just leave it sort of hanging. I didn't know that a person could get so excited over Man vs. Food, the fact that we eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and the way we say "water bottle," but, then again, she was absolutely hammered. Still, I'll chalk this up as a victory for the bikers.

Sunday morning, Deb drove us to Bristol for the first of our daytrips. We started the adventure by visiting the strangest art museum I've ever seen. Let me put it this way: The first exhibit was a large room with a telephone machine in it that made clicking noises every minute, representing something about Sudan. Next, we made our way to a more traditional museum, which had a fine collection of European art and some local modern paintings, in addition to a massive display of silver items and glassware from ancient China. To top it all off, they had a great exhibit on dinosaurs!!! The best part of Bristol came next: its massive cathedral. The oldest burials there took place in the 1300s. That's much older than I am!!! Finally, we took in the rest of the wonderful city, making our way to the very top and getting a massive view of the infamous suicide suspension bridge I mentioned in an earlier post. It seems much less deadly from up there, but I guess it's the fall more than the bridge that does the trick.

Ah, on to yesterday, one hell of a glorious day. The sun was out in force, and the gentlest of breezes kept us cool. We took full advantage of the weather, seeing Glastonbury (final resting place of King Arthur), Wells (there are no whales in Wells but plenty of wells in Wales), Cheddar (or Cheddah), and Axbridge (very small). The most impressive sights were the Tor of Glastonbury and its Abbey and the cathedral of Wells, shown here. Massive and simply stunning, with some of the most intricate carving I have seen. There were heads perched everywhere, inside and out, jutting out of walls and peering down as if to warn you of what is to come. Ah, but the most supremely tubular thing we witnessed was the Immesurable Chasm of Time, symbolized by some 237 steps through a forested hill on the way to Cheddar Gorge. Hows that for immesurable?

Today, Sean and I took a day trip on our own power, unloading our bikes and swiftly flying to Bath. The roundtrip was just shy of 70 miles, but without any extra weight the trip passes quickly. Bath boasts a superbly intact ancient city, with cobblestone streets and stone columns everywhere. The main attraction is the Roman baths, which we were content with seeing from the outside and saving some 23 pound. The abbey is fairly impressive, as we have been finding with any old, intact religious structure. It seems they really knew the secret to keeping church attendance up, enticing the populace with ENORMOUS PALACES OF GOD. One of the coolest architectural displays I have seen so far came in the form of an arc of huge houses, known as the Royal Crescent. True, this is the precursor to our subdivisions and apartment complexes, but it does so just as The Simpsons acts as a precursor to all future American comedy. Do you dare deny The Simpsons? I didn't think so.

In short, our time here has been both restful and action-packed. Perhaps my favorite aspect is Deb's wonderful culinary creations, both for tea (dinner) and pudding (dessert). We're planning on staying for a few more days, but soon we will be off toward Oxford and Cambridge, two of the finest universities in the land (second to one, of course). A word of advice for achieving any aspirations: don't find time, make time, for you only die once.

For England James?

1.10.10 (Happy 'Tober!)

Weston-Super-Mare, England

Alright, it is official: Sean and I are the Bringers of Rain and All Things Precipitation. Within a day of arriving in a new country, it has drizzled, rained, stormed, or absolutely lions-and-wolves poured. In Ireland, everywhere we went the first two weeks people we'd meet would tell us, "You came at the wrong time! Last week was excellent weather! I got a rash from being out in the sun even." But we were too busy tying umbrellas to our helmets to pay it any notice. Our brief foray into Northern Ireland was cold, gray, and wet, with people acting like the Wicked Witch and avoiding the weather at all costs. Again, we were too absorbed with our tea and scones to catch any of these signs. Upon arrival into Wales, the captain announced dreary skies and damp, falling rain (Is there any other kind? Yes: It's purple.). For the final time, we were too caught up in the two-quid cocktails to take any notice of the pattern developing. But after we've had our proper rest following two days of brutal riding, we have at last realized our powers. We bring the rain, and we bring it hard. Even Bob Dylan knew (and I'm paraphrasing here): A hard rain's a-gonna fall means Bob and Sean are around.

I say this because the final piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. Some forty minutes after we pedaled across the Old Severns Bridge from Wales into England, the skies darkened and a light drizzle began to fall. Thankfully, as we were leaving Bristol down the final stretch to our destination, it all started to clear up. But all rays of sunshine have their deadly UV rays, as Pep-Pep always said, and the Sun's mighty brightness nearly blinded us, reflecting off the wet pavement-turned-glass as we climbed west out of the city. More, last night and into the early evening of today, the rain hammered the roof of Paul and Deb's and the forest next to the city, turning the silence into a soothing drone of pitter-patters and the dust into mud. But as I sit here writing next to an English window (pretty similar to American ones, except for the bricks), the sky has begun to clear yet again, still following the inevitable cycle of dark and light, wet and dry, that we have grown up with but seriously questioned during our stay in Ireland.

Where is here? And what did I have to do to get here? Yesterday was our most difficult and impressive day of riding so far, piggy backing on our second best effort of the trip. The climbs yesterday were much less severe than that first day in Wales, but the cities were terribly congested and the road seemed to stretch on forever, bringing us closer but never bringing us there.

Although we were mainly intent on reaching Paul and Deb's as quickly as possible, we were able to see a few sights that piqued our interest. The road took us into Cardiff Bay, which is quite lovely and showcases a number of places and scenes from Doctor Who, one of Sean's absolutely favorite shows (or at least an honorable mention).

The next city, Newport, is hosting the Ryder Cup this weekend, though it has been postponed for the moment due to (gasp!) rain.

Separating England and Wales is the mighty Severn River, which we crossed on a two-mile bridge that shook as the trucks passed by.

Speaking of bridges, we rode beneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, which is known for its massive suicide rate. Naturally, we kept our umbrellas mounted on the helmets for this portion. (Is this too morbid? Not for this web blog.)

But at long last, we made it, happy and salty. So, so salty. To prove how salty, and to fulfill a request from a longtime friend, first-time reader, I've included a lovely snapshot. Cheers!