Week 7 - Wevelgem Adventure

by Tim Perrin

Yes, I know we've missed week 6. Terre is working on it. Meanwhile, we're finally out of Holland and in Belgium.

We're in another tiny place called Tiegam in Belgium, East Flanders to be more precise. Our current host, Jan Glorieux, teaches English, German, Dutch and religion at a catholic school in a nearby town. He is a 48-year-old bachelor who lives alone in the old family home. He inherited his one-third and bought out his two brothers' interests when his parents died. Basically, he's lived in this house his entire life. He's brilliant, eccentric, and a lot of fun. He'll probably never marry at this point, which is too bad, because I think he'd be a great dad. But I doubt he could adjust to living with someone else, and he is quite conservative religiously so I don't think shacking up is an option. He is a great guy.

Tomorrow, we are going with him to a bunch of abbeys in the area, seven in total.

We are here until Sunday. After that, it's up in the air. We have some emails out to people around Brussells but no takers yet. We do have a spot at the beach for October 3-6 and an offer for the 10th for two nights, but we may have moved on to Paris by then.

Terre wants to get to Giverney and Monet's garden before they close at the end of October. We will spend a week or two around Paris, probably staying on the outskirts and training in, or perhaps leaving the van with a host on the outskirts and then taking just a few things into a host or two in the city. Then we want to head out to the Calais region to visit Dieppe where the Canadians were involved in a disastrous raid early in WWII, then to Normandy, Brittany and south toward Spain, shooting to get there around the beginning of December. We plan on Dec-Jan in Iberia, Feb-Mar across the Riviera to Italy, then Apr-Jun in the UK and Eire. We used to think that was plenty of time, but I don't know anymore. We are now in week eight of 48. It is going real fast.

Before this, we stayed three nights with a couple of PE teachers who just came back from a year of cycling in Cuba, Baja, Australia and a few other places, a total of 20,000 km (12,000 mi). He is 18 months older than I am and retired. She has another 18 months to go to retirement. Then they will ride, ride, ride. They are biking nuts. We loved being with them. Great folks named Dirk and Magda.

They saved us from a bad night. We didn't have a place on Sunday night so we were going to camp. We drove by Antwerp and spotted the gothic cathedral spire but weren't going to stop. We were going to head out to the beach and find a campground, about a 40 minute drive. This was about 5:45.

But Terre seemed to want to see Antwerp, or at least the cathedral. But it took a bit longer than anticipated to enjoy our first genuine Belgian French fries (why aren't they Belgian fries? They were invented here.), see all the guild halls on the city square and get lost in a two block area.

We ended up back at the van in the dark looking first for a campsite, then for a bank machine because we didn't have any cash to pay for the campsite, and doing this in the dark. Our GSP navigator kept sending me to bank machines which would not give me any money but kept wanting me to go to a bigger city.

Finally, I was driving to said, bigger city, when Dirk and Magda called offering us a place.

This however, was just the beginning of the adventure. It was an hour's drive to their place and it was already about 9:00. We programmed in the address, Wagenmakersstraat 2, Wevelegem, and off we went.

Fifty minutes later, we arrived at this rather dodgy looking street right off the main drag where there were a few seedy-looking clubs. There were no apparent homes, just a KIA dealership. Not the kind of place we wanted to leave the van. In fact, Terre at one point didn't want to get out of the van.

And there was no number 2. There was a 2A and a 2B, but not 2. We rang 2A. A gentleman with muttonchops and a handlebar mustache in a uniform answered. Terre, with her suitcase in hand and pillows under her arm asked, "Were you expecting us?" He looked at her puzzled. This definitely isn't Holland where everyone speaks English. In Flanders, the first language is Dutch, but in Belgium, the other language is French so she switched to French and we were able to ascertain that this was definitely not the place.

We called Dirk and Magda. It turned out that there were two Wagenmakersstraats in the region.

Dirk gave me directions. Take the A17. First exit. Past the traffic lights. Church. Cemetary. Left. First right. Second left. Third right. Second left. Piece of cake.

Nope. We ended up on the A19. Shit! Shit! Shit! I was tired. I was grumpy. I wanted to go to bed. It was after 10. I just wanted it to be OVER.

Our navigation system was going to be no help in this case. Our maps were of such a large scale, they didn't even show the tiny town we were looking for. We were on our own.

I decided to take the next off ramp and consult the map to see how to get back to the A17. As we neared the top of the off ramp, Terre spotted the sign for "Wevelgem," our destination. Horseshoes up the ass, or what? So, we turned left and away we went.

Now, we could have been coming in from a completely different direction, but, no, there was the traffice light, church, and cemetary (hard to spot behind a fence and a hedge at night, but hey, we did it), so we start counting lefts and rights.

But then it goes to crap again. We are coming up to where we should be finding that last "second left" and it's not going to happen. Corn field. No left.

I turn on Ken. (That's our navigation system. Ken is its voice. He from Australia. "Turn roit. Take the motorway." You know.) Anyway, Ken has the streets maked on his map so we can see there is no left turn up ahead.

At the risk of repeating myself, shit! Shit! Shit!

But Terre says, "Turn right here. I think we miscounted right turns."

So I do. What the hell, I've got nothing to lose. And lo and behold, there on Ken's lovely face, two blocks up, is Wagenmakerstraat, a tiny cul-de-sac with one entrance.

Double horseshoes up the ass.

How we got there, I'll never know. Someone was guiding us, and for once it wasn't Ken.

That is the first seriously bad steer he's given us. Up to now, it's been a completely reliable system. But, for today, Ken is in the dog house.

That's it for today.

Tim