Hello everyone over there in the States as well as any of my European readers (the small but wide spread following). I was going to wait till Monday when Cabana Boy had to go to work to start catching you all up on my week in Belgium. I’ve dutifully been jotting down everything we’ve been doing (well everything that a following needs to know about anyway >insert mischievous grin here<). But today I had the wonderful experience of biking the leiestreek between Drongen and Afsnee. And by wonderful, I mean, no absolutely not wonderful at all whatsoever. Now before anyone goes flipping out about anything at all, I am telling you, my tiny following, that I am in repulsively bad shape. I have not been on a bike since I got my car which was over 10 years ago. Until this week. The first time was not that easy. The second time would have been easier but we cycled in traffic, so while physically I was coping a little better, mentally I basically went “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” the whole time, which sort of came out in these little hiccupy gasps that sounded somewhat akin to choking on my own sternum. But today? I was ready today! I had mentally prepared and had two days of no biking to rest my aching legs and allow the bicycle shaped bruise spanning the width of both my cheeks plus other bits you don’t really need to know about to become a mere shadow of bruisiness. I was ready for a fun bike ride by the river. What I failed to realize was our little trip would be six freaking miles long…

Now, you can all laugh or call me a wuss or whatever, but dammit, when the last real excercise you’ve done in about five years is sometimes moving furniture to a different apartment every year or so, six miles on a bike is hard; HARD! And that’s not counting the extra biking to the brewery (yes, I’ve decided this might be a good day to get shit-faced, at least so my hangover tomorrow will be enough to eclipse the aching emanating from the raw hamburger formerly known as my butt).

Yes, Cabana Boy has been told how miserable I find bike riding, and in his typical way, he is being wonderful and fantastic and supportive and sweet, but I have to learn to do this. A bike is the most practical means of transportation and it’s good for me. It’s a great way to get healthier and also get where you need to go. So I will learn to tolerate it and be somewhat capable at it. Maybe I’ll even start to like it. Either way, right now, riding a bike is something I’ll continue to make myself do. I might wait for a day or two though, just enough till I can walk right again.