Winterreise

That's the theme of the day, as I watch the rain fall outside my window. Schubert is most appropriate. Der Leiermann always cracks me.

I hope it's not like this on Saturday, but I'm committed now. Got my entry, number, map of the course. 260 km + 10 km to Jo's place. Gunna be interesting. I've invested in some new equipment this week, i.e. a chain, cassette, chainrings, etc. But I've got a Time bike coming sometime soon, so that's going to be fun to ride.

On the property front, I've almost found somewhere to move to, and it'll probably be round the corner in the Rooseveltlaan or somewhere like that. Can get a 2 br place for about €600/month, including costs. But it's a three year lease.

Still no West Vleteren, but that will come. Last night at about 10pm, I dragged out Reinhard (who was still at work in his shop!) for a couple of beers and increased our cafe count to 15. We almost literally bumped into a couple of his friends as we were hunting for a watering hole, and they suggested the Limonada Bar, which is down a back alley near Sint Baafs, so we joined them. Different again, and very relaxed, lounge, studenty sort of place. Beer was cheap too, and that's always good.

Apparently there's now 290 cafes in Gent though. The guy who does the bar guide is one of R's customers, and he visits up to 15 a night, typcially drinking in all of them! It must be hard updating that guide every month. Very hard.

Went out langs de Schelde this morning with no brekky and suffered a bit coming back (been going fairly hard for the last two days). It was wet and there wasn't much of a tailwind coming back. Tomas Vaitkus decided to do some training and it hurt.