Day 39: Shoplifting In Belgium
Today we left the wonderful country that is Holland and entered Belgium. No offense to anyone from the country but our best experiences have not been here.
To make it to Antwerp in a reasonable distance (or unreasonable if you're Nate) we had to follow a large shipping cannel (whose name we could not figure out). It was an extremely flat ride but filled with shipping yard after shipping yard. Not very scenic (Also, may have skewed our view of the country).
The most scenic part was leaving Maastricht when we biked through a tunnel of trees in a park.
The highlight of the trip came when we had to bike around an excavator which was loading a ship with gravel. We just waited for the guy to notice us and he waived us through after stopping the arm from moving.
We stopped at a mall to catch our breath (the wind was, once again, coming out of the west against us). Matt really had to pee and so ran into the WC to use the facilities. As he was leaving a women started talking to him in Dutch to which he said "Ik spreekt geen Nederlands" or "I don't speak Dutch" and quickly ran out of the WC. It was only after this point that he realized she was asking for him to pay for using the bathroom. Oh well...
Our campsite is on the other side of the river that cuts through Antwerp but they seem to be against bridges here so instead we took a tunnel. It was quite an experience. A large elevator takes as many bicyclists (fiesters) down 30 meters. The doors open and everyone races to the other side.
We met a nice Canadian couple at the campsite. The guy had the same bike as us which was an instant talking point. He was also carrying a guitar, full bike pump, plastic mallet for stakes, and chairs. This guy has obviously bike toured a lot.
He was really chatty and told us about how great Amsterdam was (and how pretty the girls were) as well as tips for our bikes and where to get gas for our stove.
After chatting with the Canadian, Matt had to use the bathroom again, but toilet paper was not provided in the stall. We thought it might be another paperless situation but they had signs that said we could ask for some at reception.
Matt did, was given a roll, carried out his business and then went to return the roll (assuming they would reuse it with someone else, there was no way every camper got there own roll). The lady working at the reception area was taken aback saying she didn't want our dirty toilet paper. Matt was thoroughly confused about the economic decisions in this campsite.
Tomorrow we head to Ghent, who is currently having a city festival. We are going to try a new methodology of navigation called the Knooppunt system. Basically we will be playing connect the dots through out Belgium (we start at 44 then head to 57 and so on). It seems like a great idea but we'll see when we get lost.