---
title: "Week 7, Sunday: To Bruxelles"
date: 2024-09-15T21:55:00+02:00
---

{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/sezza.png" alt="Credit: Sezza, YouTube" >}}

Yesterday at 04:00 Marina and I both heard some voices on the camping site, we think it was Nando
bringing somebody to their final resting place. Last night, we were these people! Having found our
pillow at around 03:45, the 10am alarm clock was somewhat _persona non grata_ in our _Pipowagen_.
But, the bladder has something to say as well, for Marina even the second time ... but we were up on
our feet and nommed a little bit of breakfast and at around 10:50 we made our way to the car, found
Christel and reported back on the situation at her neighrbor's place, joining the family in the
backyard of Arend and Esther's place just before 11:00.

We enjoyed a coffee together as Job came round on his loaner bike. Job was en route to Utrecht this
morning, for a dinner with friends. Not being able to withstand his puppydog eyes, we drove him to
Heerenveen well in time for his train to Urecht. The train station at Heerenveen was completely
empty with only an idle bus hanging out in the front. Byebye Job! Good to see you again :)

Now our car informs us that the route is over _de Polder_ aka Flevoland, but before we're allowed
onto (or, rather _into_) the polder, the highway has a sudden traffic jam -- cars are stopped
because the bridge is open! We lounge for about ten minutes and as abruptly as the traffic jam came,
it dissolved and we were back underway. Hey, if we're in Flevoland anyway, we may as well take a
look if Michael is home! I call Michael's parents and indeed, the one-year-old is home and accepting
visitors. Marina has never met Michael before, so I invite myself over for lunch, which Paul and
Henrieke are just having as I call.

At 13:00 we rock up to the Coloclue residence where Henrieke is making _Stoofvlees_ (English:
Flemish Beef Stew). Nice work, Henrieke!! Also: nice work, WEiRD! He has sprinted to the store to
get a loaf of bread for us to consume, and he even warmed it up in the oven for us, aww!! We eat
some nice bread with sliced cheese and tuna salad, and slurp on a coffee in the kitchen where the
smell of home is being cooked up. Michael is having an afternoon nap but joins us at 13:45 or so,
and we play with him a little bit. It's fun to put plastic fruit on his head, and we exchange
tomatoes for grapes and a lemon for a good ten minutes. It's hilarious - god I wish I was a
_dreumes_ so that life was so simple and fun and plastic fruit was da bomb!

But, we're on a mission to drive to Brussels today, and we've now broken an e-Car roadtrip rule:
you're supposed to eat while you charge. Not eat, and then still charge .. but it was totally worth
it. We have some juice left in the tank, so we drive to Hilversum where the supercharger is being an
asshole today, we want 150kW and get 34kW at best, even after changing chargers. At this rate, it's
going to take 1h50min to charge, bah.

We forge a new plan B: continue driving to Breda and arrive there on fumes (or in an electron
cloud?) which actually goes quite well. In Breda, we are greated with 110kW of electrons running
into the battery, and this deserves a celebration: we eat a portion of _Van Dobben Bitterballen_
(English: really delicious junk food)! It's so nice to have this enjoyment with an iced tea or coke
zero, to then meet the car in a roughly fully charged state, ready for the last leg.

The last leg was annoying because it contained the Ring of Antwerp. Djeez, stop and go much!? After
the mildly annoying bits, though, the rest of the road to Brussels was super smooth. We arrived
there at 18:45 and parked the car right across the road from Eimear&Andrew! The carpark has an AC
charger so we give Tessa some love, and the battery will be fully charged tomorrow morning when we
want to leave.

Andrew is an old-timer from Cisco that I know from the VPP community, and we have a tonne of fun. It
starts with drinking the gift we brought - a Spanish Rioja (Reserva), quickly followed by a second
bottle. We have fun exchanging stories until the stomach beckons, and then we walk over to [[Fin de
Si&egrave;cle](https://www.findesiecle.be/)] where we have a fabulous meal with a little drop of
wine still. Marina and I are running low on sleep so we keep the nightlife to a
respectable two bars: [[Le
Cercueil](https://www.dubuisson.com/fr/ambushadeurs/lecercueil/)] where we were
the *only* people there at 23:30, maybe everybody was at Church? After that we
visited one more bar called [[Goupil Le Fol](http://www.goupillefol.com/)],
where one last Kriekske is consumed. We end up back at the appartment at 01:30
and I'm honestly ready for a sleep.

## Pictures of the Day
  
{{< gallery-category >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-15/IMG_1329.JPG" caption="We enjoy a few bitterballen at the supercharger in Breda, well deserved" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-15/IMG_1332.JPG" caption="The view from Andrew's pad in smack middle of Brussels" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-15/IMG_1336.JPG" caption="@yourtch is clearly an omnivore, and devours a pork knuckle" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-15/IMG_1339.JPG" caption="At the Cercueil we drink a few beers - it's weird because we're the only ones here (and I don't personally recall that ever happening to me before)" >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-16/IMG_1342.JPG" caption="We walk back through beautiful Gallerie Royale." >}}
  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-16/IMG_1343.JPG" caption="I bump into this very huggable biker bunny. Not drunk." >}}
{{< /gallery-category >}}

{{< gallery-modal >}}
{{< gallery-script >}}

