Tour De France

The pictures are:

1. Why don't we have these in the US????

2. Beer and a cardboard holder that for some reason fascinated us.

3. Cherie and I are American, so we don't eat snails, but we do take photos.

4. Good thing they weren't throwing out product samples

5. At last, the bikers

The Tour De France started in London this year. Then it made its way across the channel into France and then up into Belgium for a day or two. Yesterday's finish point was Ghent, which is only a 40 minute train ride from where I am living so I went. My friend Cherie (also see her website: http://www.wherescherie.com/ ) is in town for a few days and we went together while Eva went dutifully off to work.

When we got to Ghent Cherie asked me a few questions to see what I knew about the Tour. I told her that unless the answer to the questions was "Lance Armstrong" I didn't know it. I am not much of a biking enthusiast. Cherie new a few things about it though and filled me in. After all when you watch it live, really you stand around for hours and see 30 seconds of biking. But what I didn't know before yesterday was that there were beer and food vendors everywhere. So needless to say it was a good day.

They were selling beers for only 2 Euros which I thought was really cheap. In America they would really gouge you on something like that. In the states I would expect to pay 5-7 USD for a beer at an event. They did gouge us a bit though when it came time to pee. They had lots of porta potties, but they cost 40 euro cents a shot. Ouch, having to pay to be in a porta pottie! The first one we went in Cherie paid for both of us, and I told her the next one was my round. But I don't think I ever paid for her later, so I actually owe her a pee. The food was also quite reasonably priced and we got some fries and Cherie had a burger. I ordered Mayo for my fries on the side, and ordered it in Dutch. But apparently my Dutch sucks and we got a huge plop of mayo on top of the fries.

So Cherie and I decided to walk around for a few hours as opposed to standing at the rail waiting. We hit every (well maybe not quite) beer vendor along the way. Eventually we did settle in along the rail as the advertising caravans came by. They were all throwing things like hats and pens and candy to waving hands at the side line. I caught a pen and a bottle of water. Cherie with camera in hand didn't catch anything. It was fun, except for the part when they drove by and sprayed water at us. Cherie, with expensive camera did not care for that portion of the day.

Eventually the riders arrived, and a couple hundred meters in front of us there was a HUGE accident with a lot of bikes piling up. Instantly there was a massive dash of spectators to a near by Ford dealer that had a giant TV. We couldn't really see the pile up from where we were standing, so people wanted to see it on TV. Then most of the riders came zooming by and it was done. Well not quite, because over the next 5-10 minutes some bloody haggard looking riders came slowly by, not looking happy.

So Cherie and I slowly (stopping at a bar) made our way to the Castle in town as we had plans to meet Eva there at 7. Along the way we asked a cop where the castle was and had what seemed (to Cherie and I, who were drunk) like a very funny conversation.

Me "Excuse me, where is the castle"

Cop "which castle?"

Me "Isn't there only one?"

Cop "Yes?"

Me "Uhh, well... that one then please"

About 15 minutes to 7 (still on our way to the castle) we saw Eva walking towards us, she was on a quest for some fries before meeting us. We went to dinner and waited for over an hour for our food and were not happy with the waiters lack of service during the wait. Eventually we got up and said we weren't staying for the food. We paid for the drinks, and the large bottle of water was 8 Euros. That's one thing that does get a bit frustrating over here; always having to pay to get water and to leave it (the toilets). As we left they said our food was only a minute away, but we were over it at that point and left. We went to a Kebab shop around the corner and had a very nice, quick, cheap meal. Then we drove home getting there after 11, all very tired.