Andrew and Eimear in Bruxelles

content/blog/wk7day7.md

@@ -1,7 +1,81 @@
 ---
-title: "Week 7, Sunday:"
+title: "Week 7, Sunday: To Bruxelles"
 date: 2024-09-15T21:55:00+02:00
-draft: true
 ---
 
-{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}}
+{{< 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 >}}
+