Belglandia

So yeah, here I am again typing away on my phone. You would think that, given the general annoyingness of doing this, that I would actually blog when I'm at home and in front of a computer screen. No, much more important to do things like check the weather in Antarctica... Anyway, yeah, I'm in a super dinky little hotel room facing the market square in De Panne, Belgium. It's a small little town on the North Sea. Lots of money. Very boring on a Weds night. That's ok. I had a lovely dinner of a sandwich, lunchmeat and a banana bought from a corner store. Nothing but the finest! Been watching the Nat Geo channel in Dutch (program is in English w subtitles). Anyway, I was supposed to leave at the crap of dawn today and cycle about 105 miles, but as yesterday was David's bday, that didn't happen. So, I got ul this morning, dorkified my bike by putting a rack on the back, and took the train to Dover. Lots of farting around at the port, where the staff are rude and generally useless. The ferry was about an hour late, but I guess they really paddled, as we were only about 30 mins late to Dunkirk. My first, and accidental port of call on the ferry was the trucker's lounge. I have to say, European truckers make their American counterparts look, well, classy! Nothing says hi, I'm a dork like showing up in a super fluorescent bike jacket amidst a bunch of Romanian truckers! Yeah, so, the ferry actually docks about 10 miles from Dunkirk, in the middle of a flat and dead industrial wasteland. Nice. So, I waited for the mad scramble to get off the ferry finished, then set out, completely alone, across the bleak coastal plain. Not exactly what I had expected... Dunkirk itself was fairly unremarkable, some of it quite ugly, though I have to say this for Tue brief stretch of French road I traversed... Smooth! And then I hit Belgium, and and, there we go, bumpyass roads that would make England proud. Still though, it's kinda cool to cross an international border where the former border post is now a chocolate shop. Tomorrow it's 90 miles across Belgium, to Brussels, and a night on Alex's sofa...