Ghent to Brussels - Day 59

Date: October 16th, 2009
Distance: 67km
Country: Belgium
Song of the Day: Stop Me if You Think You Have Heard This One Before - The Smiths

So, I have not been having the world's best day today. The first big disaster of the day was that the GPS unit that I had was stolen this morning. I had gone into a grocery store to pick up some supplies and forgot that I left it on the bike. I was only inside about 5 minutes when I realized that I had left it out there. So I rushed outside to make sure it was still there. Nope, it was gone. Damn.

I feel like an idiot for leaving it there. I should explain that I believe there are two types of dumb. There is stupid, which is doing something that is dangerous or unproductive, but for some reason are great fun. I think fireworks fall into that category. Stupid, but fun. Then there is idiocy, which is doing something because you just aren't thinking. Leaving the GPS unit was idiocy.

That is the worst part about it, I kept thinking about all the ways that I could have prevented it. If I had noticed it, then it wouldn't have taken any time to grab it. I didn't even have to stop. I was thinking about just getting food later. But no, I was there, at the wrong time, forgetting my GPS. Argh.

After thinking about this (all day) I have come up with the idea that if you are going to carry an expensive piece of equipment on your bike and you are, like me, forgetful then attach the equipment too you. A piece of string would work. One of those retracktable things you put key cards on would be better. Just anything that keeps you from walking away without thinking about it. After a while it might become second nature and you wouldn't really have to use it. Just a word to the wise.

So yeah, I went to the police and reported it stolen. They were very nice but everyone I talked to couldn't help telling me I shouldn't leave anything on my bike. Thanks, that is great advice before something gets stolen. Afterwards, it is just annoying. It is in the system, and they have my phone number in case it turns up. I just don't think the chances for that happening are good. (Which is odd in a way. It is a GPS unit. You would think that someone could figure out exactly where it is...)

After that I headed towards Brussels. It would have been much better if I had the GPS, but no I was back to more dead reckoning. Actually the N9 highway went right there, so all I had to do was follow that as it wandered around.

Oh, and it started raining about now. Still more headwind. Rain and wind together are lame. I never rained that hard, but enough to make you cold and wet and wish it would stop. So even the biking wasn't fun.

I did get to Brussels, but the hostels I had mapped out were all on my GPS. So now I had to wander around the city until I found something. This was about the time I got hit by the truck. They hit me with a truck. Actually, it was more like a nudge. Some guy was turning left and didn't notice me coming. So he wasn't going very fast. I tried to get by, but he hit one of my panniers. I didn't crash which was good. Just ran up onto the curb and stopped. Nothing broken on either me or the bike. So we can all be thankful for that. But like I said, Belgians just don't seem to like or notice cyclists.

From there I decided to go to a train station. I was going to cheat and head to Amsterdam the next day by train. (I know, lame, but I wanted to move this along.) So I did get some directions to the train station and bought a ticket. They even had a map to the local hostels, so that was nice.

I found a place, got a bed and took a shower. From there it was off to see if there was anyting fun to do in Brussels on a Friday night. First stop was the bar in the hostel. I just wanted to see if anyone was up to go out. Sadly, it was pretty dead. There were some people who worked at the hostel there. But they were having a going away party for some of their coworkers. (Co-volunteers, I should say.)

From there I just ended up wandering around the city for a while. I stopped at a couple of places but it didn't seem like anyting was really "happening". I came to realize that I wasn't having the experience of all my friends who had a really good time in Brussels. I then had a second epiphony that this might be due to the fact that I don't like beer. So the people who liked Brussels a lot probably had a good time because of drinking beer with people. Well, that is just not my thing. (It also made me think about all the people who had great times in Amsterdam and what they were doing while there...)

So I headed back to the hostel. The bar had actually become a hopping place. Except it was hopping with about 30 highschool girls. I ended up talking with their teachers/chaperones for a bit. I guess they were all from Antwerp. They were performing an opera next spring and had come to Brussels to see it.

Oh, and there was also an annoying drunken guy from Basque country who wouldn't leave me alone. He also wanted us to go over and hit on the highschool girls. Ich. I just prefered to leave them to dance to cheesy pop music in peace. So I decided to just go to bed.

-Dravis