It’s raining today in Innsbruck…or at least sometimes. Either way, it’s not a very nice day. We are once again protesting the weather, and we’re headed south. To Florence.

Ashley’s good friend, Beatriz Auxiliadora Miranda, is studying in Florence, and a visit has been long overdue. So we’re going.

That is all.

We leave you with jibberish today:

Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a round room with rats in the corner. Rats? I hate rats. They make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once.

That’s straight from the mouth of Ashley.

Say thank you to her.

Trademark Hannelore Gruber (Say thank you to me).

Well, since last I wrote…

I spent almost 30 hours on a train getting home from Belgium. Turns out you need to put the bike in the right train wagon, otherwise you might wake up in Munich and your bike will be in Zurich, and the only thing that does is add 9 hours of travel to an already long day. I digress.

Ashley and I were only home for a little bit (maybe a day?) before we headed south to Napoli to check out Stage 19 of the Giro d’Italia, which finishes atop Mt. Vesuvius. That was quite the little trip. Napoli is definitely not our favorite place in the world. We rode along the Amalfi Coast one of the days. We were appropriately amazed by the views. The climb of Vesuvius was really nice. I have to get to editing the pictures – they’ll tell the story better than I can.

We came back home, thought we might take it easy this week, then found out that the Giro del Trentino was heading straight through the Dolomites…so off we went again to Bolzano. We’ll be in Bolzano for three days following the race, taking pictures, and checking out one of my favorite places ever. I think Ashley likes it a little bit too. She just told me so.

Ok, internet is expensive at this cafe. Gotta go.

So it’s done. It was a looong 11 days, but amazing. I’m not going to bother with superlatives at this point. The pictures on Flickr should speak for themselves.

I got a sweet train for tonight…for once. I’m leaving at 1742 for Amsterdam, get in there 20 minutes before the night train to Munich – 2030 to 715 the next morning. I’ve got a bed. I’m going to sleep. A lot.

I’m trying to get an article done before leaving. I should be able to pull it off. It’s more a question on what to write about this time though… I have a really heart-felt, meaninful article ready to go in my head, just needs typing, or I have a photo essay with the goings on from yesterday. I’m thinking it would be best to do the photo essay first and save the good one for later.

I really did have a special experience yesterday watching Paris-Roubaix. It’s a beautiful race.

Anyhow, enough for now, time for some work.

I’m sitting in my hotel room in Tournai, Belgium finishing up some work before we head out to watch Paris-Roubaix for the days.

I’m not writing about that though. I just got done listening to the most mesmerizing bell tolling that I’ve ever heard. It’s Easter Sunday and they don’t mess around with that here apparently. The bells have been tolling for a solid 20 minutes. It started out loud and triumphant, jubilant. They were happy bells, calling all to the church, but in the last couple of minutes, the other bells faded away until there was just one bell. It was a dark, deep sounding bell. It gradually slowed and slowed until it was no more. 

It gave me goosebumps. I don’t normally write about things of much consequence here, but that was just one of those moments that I had to write about. The final couple of minutes sounded so lonely, so solemn. It was eerie. 

Anyhow, leaving in 20 minutes.

One more day and then Ashley and I will be causing trouble together again. Yahoo.

Things are going nicely here in Belgium. The rides are going great, the weather is holding out just for me, and I’m enjoying what I’m beginning to realize are the prettiest cities that I’ve ever seen in Europe (Brugge and Gent). The riding has been fantastic, but of course I can’t leave fantastic well alone…so I crashed hard yesterday.

I kinda got confused and ended up skating up a gigantic curb. I held it together for far too long and then God body slammed me. It hurt. I tore my tire up pretty bad, but I fell cradling the camera. Good instincts right there! Everyone said that was the craziest thing to see…me falling, but not bracing for the impact, just supporting the camera. Probably the smartest thing I’ve done in a long while…along with talking to Ashley last year. Ha.

Tomorrow is Gent-Wevelgem. We pre-rode the course today. It’s fantastic. I’m working on editing them right now. Check over at Flickr soon for all of em.

Over in America, Ashley is trucking along. She went to Mississippi over the weekend for a cooking class with her family. It sounds like it was pretty fun. She headed down south to Baton Rouge and is now in New Orleans. She’s hanging out with her friends, but is also getting some good work done. She found out today that she will in fact graduate on time! Even better, she can still do a semester in Athens come this Fall. That’s pretty awesome news. I’m really happy for her…I hope she is too.

Alright, just wanted to check in. I’ve got more pictures to edit. I swear…I need to take fewer pictures. Ha.

That was actually Ashley! And this is actually me…writing from a few thousand miles away in the gorgeous city of Brugge, Belgium. I wasn’t able to ride today, so I guess that means Ashley rode more than I did today. Sigh.

The Tour of Flanders, er, Ronde van Vlaanderen, was amazing. I don’t even know where to start. I should probably start trying to make sense of the nearly 1000 pictures I took today. I’m not looking forward to that one bit. I mean, I am, but that’s going to take a little while. I wouldn’t mind going touristing in Brugge. It is almost 70 degrees here after all. 

I guess I should get back to work.

Back to you Ashley. Write something else!

At the moment I am in Greenwood, MS, and have just finished a Viking cooking school with my parents and sister. We cooked an Asparagus Bisque, Steak, and a salad with homemade croutons and vinaigrette. Yum!

I’m planning to do a group ride tomorrow with the chef from the cooking class, and my Dad. We’re riding to Money, MS. I wonder what Money will look like. Must be pretty spectacular to warrant such a name. I think we’ll be riding 20 or so miles. Kinda funny to think about riding a bike in miles. I think I like kilometers because riding 30k or so feels like a lot more than so 20 miles. Ya know?

Only 9 more days until Jered and I are back together, and I can resume my spot as pest. It’s my favorite job. 

So I just found out a couple of days ago that I was not selected to be a Udall scholar. Sure it’s disappointing, but mostly because the application was such a pain. That means that I’ll be taking 9 hours this summer in Innsbruck. It was really a win-win situation. After this summer I should have a little over 20 hours until i graduate. That can be a little scary. 

It’s about time to take advantage of the bath tub…. my first since Christmas! I’m bringing Owen Meany and his Prayers with me. 

Whenever I have to wake up early, I swear, I find reasons to stay up as late as possible.

It’s 130 right now. I have to wake up in about 5 hours. Ugh. I keep finding more and more stuff to do with PEZ, and I realize that I won’t be able to do anything tomorrow for a very long time…so I figured it was best to do it now. I guess that’s the responsible thing to do. Repsonsibility. Bah.

I’m having an amazing time in Belgium. Tomorrow, er, today, is the Tour of Flanders Cyclosportif. Thousands of fans/riders/anybody come out and ride the same route as the pro’s will in Sunday’s Ronde Van Vlaanderen. It should be pretty fun. 

I finally got around to posting some pictures on Flickr from the first little bit. I’m already falling way behind though. My apologies. I’ll go back and label the pictures soon enough. Anyhow, go to Flickr if you want to see em.

I’m churning out some articles for PEZ on Flanders right now. That’s great fun. Check em out over at PEZ. They’re both titled PEZ Does Flanders…if you happen to be looking for them. If not, good for you, there’s much better stuff to read than my drivel. Ha.

As for me? I think I’ll go to bed now. 

More soon! I’m missing Ashley.

Ashley is not. That’s not quite my favorite arrangement, but it’s ok. Only 13 days till my favorite nuisance and pest is, well, nuisancing me again.

So, back to the story: I’m in Oudenaarde. It’s right smack dab in the middle of everything Tour of Flanders related. They call this the Vlaamse Ardennen. It’s pretty much the only hilly area in Flanders. 

I did my first ride yesterday and wrote about it on PEZ. That pretty much says most of it. I’ll have more to add here later, but Peter Easton just called, and he’ll be here in half an hour, so I better get ready to go. We’re going bikin today and he’s showing me around. I can handle that!

In more important news, Jacob posted some great pictures to his blog the other day. One in particular stood out to me though: it’s the 8th picture down…Jered’s chair. That creek stands between all of our bike rides that go from Athens to Maxeys via the dirt roads. It’s also the creek that I fell down in trying to ride my bike across a few years back…January of 2006 I think it was. Jacob and I also took our shoes off and walked through that creek once. We were certain that we were going to fall in that day. That is also the same creek that I have now mastered. I’m not afraid of it anymore. I’m not. If I say it some more, I might actually believe it. Seriously though, I figured out the secret to a safe crossing…at least I think I have. Haven’t fallen in in a long while. Then again, I haven’t been there in a long while…probably not since May. 

Anyhow, I’ve got to get going. More soon.