Happy Halloween to everyone! I saw people carrying pumpkins in Belgium, staffing homes in France and today I met several British kids on their trick-or-treat-mission …
Some of you might have already guessed it: MPB (aka me, the print and the bicycle) moved on. After a lovely Saturday night at the hostel in Brussel and some nice chats about our youth work it was time to go to France. But to finish you have to start first – and that became quite difficult: Brussel turned out to be a tricky town and I took me some more time to find my way.
On the last stage we learned to deal with hills along the way. Therefore the Belgians were great hosts and challenged me on the next level: Head wind.
They just forgot it's Sunday – cyclists grab their bikes and take a ride to get out of the house. That's a worldwide ritual. By that the first part in the surroundings of Brussel was a question of group dynamics. Once I met some other cyclists I was happy to stick to their rear wheels and enjoy some minutes without wind blowing into my face. Unfortunately that nice tradition stopped Southwest of Brussels and MPB was fighting its own way …
Slowed down by the head wind I entered France in the late afternoon and had to hurry up in order to pass the city limit of Lille before dusk. And have a question to the experts: Why are so many donkeys in the area of Roubaix and Lille? I never saw that many … but they seemed to recognize me as one of them. Grouping up again. Probably the topic of that day.
Next morning I was disappointed for the second time: most of the breakfast was served in those little plastic packages. At least they avoided to use paper dishes and plastic knifes like last time. That's crap! Most of us are trying to reduce consumption and pollution and by things like that the whole effort is destroyed instantly. I left some comments and shared some experiences at the front desk and just hope that might change their minds. Keeping my fingers crossed.
But crossed fingers are quite uncomfortabla while cycling – so I stopped for a while. Because there was not that much time. to reenter Belgium and do a loop to Dunkerque. Headlining the stage by „I neeeeeeeed to get the ferry!“ Some more than 120km and less than 6h. Tough job.
Therefore I was rushing down the way to the coast and had to pass too many battlefields, cemetries and memorials before entering the happy world of seaside vacation. I'm still wondering how many guests find their way south and have a look at this historical places. At Ijzentoor I found a nice plate placed on a wall built up with old grenades and planted with beautiful flowers: WIJ WERKEN AAN VREDE, VRIJHEID, VERDRAAGZAAMHEID. I'd rather translate that by „We work on peace, freedom and tolerance“. The lady at the ticket office told me it had been a project of the local community. Maybe they can be supported in the future.
My future was to catch the ferry and I did. They tuned …
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