what is a blog?

Merriam Webster: a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer

Thank goodness it doesn't say anything about the frequency of updates necessary to make it a blog.

But since I am already typing stories all day I'd have to type about typing stories and that just doesn't seem right.

So I'll be not updating this anymore until Africa trip, although I will try to upload some of the Gent pix sometime in the next week or two. The Tour takes every bit of energy out of the riders, but it doesn't fare much better on us "journalists" (I'll have to put this into quotes as merely thinking in these terms seems rather silly for me -I think right now I see myself as not really employed. Just having fun.)

Anyway, here is what I have been doing last week, to get together a story on the Tour coming to my new hometown:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007/tour07/?id=/features/2007/tour_gent_07

Belgian Refreshments

and with that I do not mean the rain that has been coming down the last couple of days, along with some hail.

After spending a couple of weeks here I realize a refreshing part is that nobody cares that I am riding a bike. I don't get constantly asked about riding my bike everywhere because everybody else is, too. It's just a normal part of life and that's cool.

I really don't have much to say right now anyway, as I was mostly just working a lot, interrupted only by a brief trip to Germany to get some stuff from my parents' house.

I have done a couple of live reports from races now, which was fun. All I need now is a secretary who can type faster than I.

The town is getting ready for the Tour de France (stage 2 will have a stage finish here). It's fun to see all the decorations.

Well, I didn't update the blog in two weeks and I don't have that much right now. Oh, I did a buy a bike. I hope that by next week I can add some more pictures.

no more time

The new job has been overwhelming so far, but also fun. As a consequence of typing all day, though, the blog will suffer a bit. Of course, right now there isn't much going on that is worth reporting. Due to the nature of bike races (they finish around 4-5:30pm local time) work tends to run into the evening, especially on a busy day like yesterday, with multiple races going on simultaneously. Best preparation for what is to come soon. 30 more days (actually 29 as of today) until the Tour hits Gent.






The bicycle there is not a piece of junk that somebody just left. It's really a piece of junk that I inherited with the apartment. Maybe at some point I can get better bike. I actually have my folder with me, but the safest place is upstairs in the apartment, and taking it down through that narrow staircase is nearly impossible. I could fold it and use the elevator, but honestly: Who would use an elevator for two flights of stairs? Maybe I can throw it down the window and try to be quick enough to catch it. But coming home wouldn't be fun - however, it is somehow what people did when they moved in. Not that they threw their furniture up, but they did bring them through the window.

For those who didn't know, Gent is a city. A city that pretends to be rural:




And of course Gent is the city of bicycles. I don't have time to go into details
right now, but will post some thoughts on it later. In the mean time, check out the Gent train station - the secondary parking lot...

The other neat part about the train station is that it's very international, with direct street car service to Russia :)

Ok, that's it for now. Back to work.

Troubled Waters

What looks like "troubled apple" is actually apple juice.
My day yesterday was a bit crazy and I am afraid I won't have much time to write. Since pix say more than a thousand words, I will save myself some time. Today I will at least save 3,000 words. Yesterday, I was doing about one fourth of what I am supposed to do in more than 8 hours. I am sure it'll be a fun job! I did get to have dinner at a nice Italian restaurant ("La Dolce Vita") and also go to the grocery store. After all, when I arrived, all that was in the fridge was that:



Also, here is my new work place. The poster on the left is for the Tour de France. The one on the right is the course of the Tour of Flanders, one of the main races in Belgium:

The gent arrives in Gent...

After some delay due to illness I made it to Gent today. The train ride started early (6:30am). My brother managed to get home in time from his night out to see me off. With 4 train changes I had to make darn sure that I wouldn’t sleep on any leg or I’d probably wake up somewhere completely removed from my desired destination. The ride to Frankfurt had no surprises - I had done this leg many times when getting to the Frankfurt Airport for my flights out to the States. They offer a new service: The “we make sure you don’t think this is a plane” service. So after we left the airport station staff came through asking if anybody was a Lufthansa passenger…Well, either they wanted to make sure that people really didn’t think Lufthansa is flying low these days or they wanted to remind people that the airport *was* their stop - in which case I would think the service is somewhat useless…

Anyway, after some more changes, always carrying my backpack with most of my belongings, a daypack with two laptops and a not particularly cooperating box with my bicycle I finally arrived In Bruxelles-Midi. That was a confusing station, because the Flemish and German announcement called it Brussel-South, the French called it Bruxelles-Midi and the English just plain Brussels. So I made sure that it was really Midi, before setting foot on the platform. Midi means noon and all I can figure is that there is some kind of connection between the sun in the south at noon…But I don’t think they should have overtired train passengers make those kinda decisions after traveling for 6 hours…

I then had to master the final leg, from Brussels to Gent. Easy enough, train leaves at 1:06pm and gets to Gent at 1:33pm. As I get to the platform I notice there is another train to Gent at 1pm. So why not take it? After all it’s an Interregional train - surely doesn’t stop more often than an Intercity, right? Yeah, right….So instead of 1:33 I get to Gent at 1:50. Oh well.

The walk to the apartment is easy and nice. Partially through a park. I come to a cave like entrance that is overgrown and looks like a jungle. And noises that suggest the same. As I walk through, I notice that yes, the noises came from some wild tropical animals: a few roosters are chasing each other, while htree ducklings cross the path with mama right behind.

One of my new teammates greets me in the apartment. The staircase is so narrow that I actually need to fold my folding bike in order to get up. The box and the backpacks I send with the elevator. One bad step and you certainly can’t fall down here: The stairs are so narrow that you surely will get your shoulders stuck, even if your first name isn’t Arnold…

The apartment is nice, and really bright: The living room front side is nothing but window. There is a major street, so the window will have to be closed most of the time, but at least there is a balcony at the back.

Yes, I think I will like it here :)

Five Countries in Four Days

Ok, so technically speaking Bavaria isn’t a country even though they call themselves a Freistaat (free state) and never did sign the Grundgesetz (founding law) of Germany. Still, Sunday I went from Germany through Austria to Slovenia and Tuesday I headed via Austria to Switzerland. I am in the process of reentering Germany. What a whirlwind tour it had been. I definitely would like to take my hosts of the past couple of days by their word and come back for an extended vacation visit. I initially thought that their manager had invited me for two weeks because he really thought there was that much work. But now I think he really just was nice and wanted me to see their beautiful area and go up to some of the peaks.

“Gruezi!” As I was lying down last night in my 4 star train room, a Swiss came in. We had a good chat for 10 minutes, then we both retired to our beds and quickly fell asleep. I woke up a few times at night and more often then not the train was stopped (for an extended period of time). I have a feeling a regular moving train could have done the 10 hour journey in half the time, but then nobody would get the sleeping cars…

When I woke up in the morning and opened the blinds I could see snow covered mountain ranges atop meadows that went up on the mountain side with its farms. There really isn’t a better way of getting up, though I am not sure if I’d like to have a rolling bed every day.

So far the weather has been treating me extremely well. In Munich it was outstanding, in Slovenia I only got wet a little bit once and now it is a perfect day again.

Because the Night...

…belongs to sleepers. I am sitting in the night train to Zurich. When I realized I could only buy a regular seat online I called in to add a reservation for a sleeper car. The person warned me that the cheaper “bed is a massage table” kinda compartments had been sold out and it would be very expensive to get a “real” bed. But 32 Euros? Anybody who has traveled Amtrak where you pay hundreds of dollars for the same comfort will agree that it is a bargain, especially considering I will wake up a lot fresher tomorrow morning instead of uncomfortably slouched into a regular seat.

This morning started out nice again with the same good breakfast. I had to hurry a bit as I was running late. But our session yesterday had gone well, and there weren’t too many questions left over to discuss. The manager of the team arrived at 11 from Ljubljana and we went out for a nice two hour lunch. The restaurant was good, but I was confused a bit why they asked us what we wanted. Even though we had ordered different items we all got the same food, until I realized that that was just the appetizer – a huge plate, easily to be confused with a main dish.

Since cherry was in season, everything was served with it, including the fish I had ordered. They brought it out – the whole fish. It is not so comfortable eating when dead eyes look at you saying “what the hell are you doing”… I was too full for dessert, but most of the others went for it. Anything they ordered was served with…cherries.

The afternoon I spent some more time explaining things, but we really had dragged it out and by 4pm we were done. I had to wait until 5:30 so we could all attend the weekly conference call with my old team (that sounds funny) in California. I left shortly before 7 to walk over to the train station. I didn’t make it to the store anymore (they closed at 7), so had to rely on a bakery for some travel snacks (rolls).

The way to the train station was easy from the office: just head down the main street and make a sharp right just before you’d accidentally enter Italy. This was easy – a right at the rail road crossing and I even remembered the short cut I had seen other passengers take when I arrived. So I got there 5 minutes early. Hmm. Shouldn’t have taken the short cut – I don’t like waiting more time than necessary…

The train ride was expectedly just as pretty as on the way out, but despite my urge to not fall asleep so I could sleep in the train I nodded off, even through the noise of a British senior travel group that entered after a few stops.

As we got to the final destination, the border town Jesenice, it had just gotten dark enough that you couldn’t tell colors anymore, but the sky was still bright enough that you could see the dark silhouettes of the trees and mountains. It was 9:45pm…

I entered the train, heading straight to my room. The conductor ran after me. “Reservazione?” Aha, I had forgotten to check in first…I was the first one in my room, brushed my teeth, then sat down to write. This is the result. Gute Nacht.