Variety of Projects

Biking Across Belgium (And Then Some)

I started this summer with a trip to Europe to ride a bike and it was an absolutely incredible time. I’m extremely fortunate to have had this opportunity and I’m very thankful for such a wonderful experience. I know this isn’t a travel blog, but it is my blog, so this is gonna be a rough day-by-day retelling of the journey with a superfluous quantity of pictures of food and drink.

TL;DR: Flew to France, bought a used bike for €165, rode said bike from France across Belgium and part of the Netherlands into Germany, sold the bike for €100, and flew home.

May 27 - Day -1 - ORD to CDG

I left work and got on a plane to Paris. A pilot friend happened to have time to kill at ORD at the same time as my layover so we had a rare opportunity to catch up in person, which was nice. After he had to go drive his bus, I got myself a McDonald’s hamburger for one last taste of Truly American™ food before going to Europe. It was honestly pretty decent.

May 28 - Day 0 - Paris to Lille via Train

I got off the plane at CDG and started a stopwatch to see how long it would take to get through customs. Ended up only being 24 minutes, which wasn’t too bad. However, between passport control and the flight being slightly delayed, I missed the TGV train to Lille that I had purchased a ticket for. Hopped on the next train and set off for Lille, where I met up with AJ and Joel, two friends of mine from school who initially suggested this trip. Once we found each other, we waited for Adeline, AJ’s girlfriend, to arrive, and then we all set off for what would be AJ and I’s first meal in Europe: a sandwich and an espresso from the bakery chain Paul. It was lovely.

After lunch, there was some faffing about with getting checked in to the hostel and walking around the area. I insisted we stop in to a milsurp shop that we passed, and while I didn’t have the space in my bag for any particularly large souvenirs I did purchase a morale patch. I probably won’t be wearing it anytime soon since I imagine French provincial police in Libreville, Gabon, is not exactly the kind of organization that I want to rep, but the patch is pretty neat.

Anyway, after getting diverted by the smell of mothballs and sight of CCE pattern jackets in a window, we got checked in to the hostel, dropped off bags, and went bicycle shopping. You see, Joel (and his girlfriend) and flown out days before and brought Bromptons in their checked bags. AJ and I decided to live a little closer to the edge, sourcing our bikes on-site. At the first used bike shop we stopped in, there was exactly one bike that caught both our eyes, an Italian Benotto road bike from probably the 80s. We both tried it out and AJ ended up claiming it as his own. We moved on to the next bike shop and I found what would be my loyal companion for the next week, a GO SPORT Crossroads (as I understand it, literally a store brand commuter bike). I paid €165 for the bike and another €40 or so for a helmet, rode back to the hostel, and then we walked to dinner.

Dinner was a lovely meal of roast duck served under mashed potatoes, a side salad, and a delicious glass of Kwak, the first of many tasty beers served in their own unique glasses of the trip.

May 29 - Day 1 - Lille to Dunkirk via Train, Dunkirk to Bruges, 54.8 Miles

AJ, Adeline, and I boarded a train for Dunkirk with our bikes to start the ride at the English Channel. Joel’s girlfriend Mel had fallen ill so he stayed behind to help her out. She would end up taking a train to Bruges and Joel would take a later train to Dunkirk, catching up with us halfway through the day. Anyway, day 1 got off to a lovely start with pastries and coffee overlooking a bunch of cool ships, before setting off up the coast. We quickly crossed into Belgium and stopped in the coastal town of De Panne for lunch. Given that this was my first meal in Belgium, I felt that I had to order something stereotypically Belgian, so I found myself digging into a generous portion of mussels and fries, washing it down with a local Tripel.

Thank you to Belgium, by the way, for validating my long-held belief that mayo should just be a default condiment served with fries. After sitting around a while to digest lunch and wait for Joel to catch up with us, the four of us got back on our bikes and hit a very nice bike trail that continued along the coast. While on the bike trail, we found this fascinating Apple statue that served as a water fountain. The park around the bike trail also had some short sections of singletrack trail, so you best believe I did my best to shake some fillings out riding my commuter bike down the short stretch of singletrack for no reason other than “it was there”.

We continued down a series of well-maintained bike trails and local surface streets, passing some more parks and farms on our way Northeast. As we entered the town of Nieuwpoort, it started to rain a bit, so we stopped at a local bar to sit under an awning and have another beer. I just picked the first beer on the menu, a bottle of Tripel Karmeliet, and after sending a picture of it to my certified beer snob uncle I learned that I was casually drinking a beer that has won multiple top awards at the world beer cup and is generally considered amazing stuff. I think I paid €4 for it, and it was delicious. The rain started dying down around the time we finished our drinks, so we got back on the road. On the way out of town, I had to stop to take a picture of this nice graffiti - “Bike Punx Against War”. I’m a fan.

At this point, we were supposed to take a ferry across what I guess was a particularly wide canal, but the ferry was tragically not running, so a short detour to a bridge was in order to get us back on our way. After riding some more trails through idyllic countryside and along some surprisingly scenic canals, we found a clue that we were almost to our destination.

We rode through town to our hostel, checked in, and then set out to find some dinner. We ended up at an Indian joint where we drank several more fantastic Belgian beers and ate some delicious vegetable curry and garlic naan. As often happens at Indian restaurants, we were asked to specify a spice level when ordering, and I as usual asked for the top of the scale. After a bit of talking about my bordering-on-masochistic love of superhot peppers and spicy foods, I was pleasantly surprised when I was served a meal that was genuinely kinda spicy.

Another wonderful meal packed away, we returned to our hostel to get some sleep. While it was quite the party hostel, we were fortunate that the partying was contained to the bar and courtyard, and once the dorm door closed and the earplugs went in there was nothing to disturb a much needed night of sleep.

May 30 - Day 2 - Bruges to Ghent, 27.4 Miles

Since our ride to Ghent was going to be so short, we had time in the morning to check out Bruges. First order of business, pastries and coffee (and a game of cribbage) at a coffee shop near the hostel.

After that, we headed to the old town area to check things out. There were a lot of tour groups there, and for good reason - it’s just a stunning place to walk around and gawk at the architecture.

After some directionless wandering, we headed to Brouwerij De Halve Maan - the Half Moon Brewery, one of the few things that was specifically on my agenda as a must-see months in advance. We didn’t take the tour or anything, but we did get to see the pipes they use to send beer across town to their bottling facilities. We shared a table with a lovely Dutch couple passing through town on their way to a tall ship festival of some kind, and we drank several insanely good beers and had an appropriately wonderful meal. I had what was easily the best beef tartare I’ve ever had (admittedly, I’ve only had it like four times, but still).

After sitting around at De Halve Maan for quite a while, it was finally time to get on the road. We made it a couple hundred yards to a local park where we immediately stopped to lay around in the grass and enjoy the beautiful day for a while. After we’d had enough frolicking and whimsy, we got on the bikes for real, but again stopped almost immediately as we passed an Aldi on the way out of town. We grabbed some crackers, dried sausage, candy, and beer, and stuffed them all into our bags before finally actually getting on the road. While riding a bike trail along a canal, we passed a farm selling fresh strawberries, so we bought a box to bring with us as well. It wasn’t long before we reached a park with a picnic table in the shade, so we decided to stop and crack into the snacks and play another game or two of cribbage.

Back on the trail, we continued following canals for quite a while. Our next stop was something completely unexpected, as we found ourselves riding by the Gekke Fietsen Museum - the Crazy Bikes Museum. We ran into the proprietor, who was kind enough to open the doors for us to check things out and (attempt to) ride some of the insane creations he had. Tandems where you face opposite directions, recumbent bikes where you lay prone instead of supine, all manner of backwards and upside-down bikes.

Once we were back on our distinctly less crazy bikes, we didn’t have much riding left before we found ourselves in Ghent. After riding to the center of town and getting checked in with our accommodations for the next two nights, we stashed our stuff and headed to the square to get dinner. Dinner itself was unremarkable, but the beer menu was… extensive. We spent quite a while there, imbibing in a variety of beers and listening to a busker play a lively rendition of Bella Ciao on an accordion. After a couple hours of fun here, it was time for a bit of wandering around and exploring before heading to bed.

May 31 - Day 3 - Ghent to Ghent, 0 Miles

Believe it or not, we biked zero (0) miles during our full day spent in Ghent, even though it has some of the best bike infrastructure I’ve ever experienced. We just felt like walking, I guess. We spent the day exploring the city, checking out some museums, eating delicious food, playing some rooftop cribbage, walking around a book market, and generally just having a good time. Joel’s girlfriend had been staying with us up to this point, though she hadn’t been riding since she was still not feeling well. She was already scheduled to fly home on the 31st, so Joel escorted her to the train station and sent her on her way, leaving just the four of us to head to dinner.

Pictured below: the halloumi and baba ganoush plate I had at a Syrian place for lunch and the lamb tajine I had at a Moroccan place for dinner.

With dinner, I had a bottle of Gulden Draak, and for dessert we got some Moroccan coffee and cookies. After dinner, more wandering around the city, checking out some cool street art, and eventually sitting down in a park for yet another game of cribbage before finally heading to bed.

June 1 - Day 4 - Ghent to Brussels, 42.8 Miles

This was a busy day. Like most, it started with pastries from a nearby bakery before hopping on the bike trail and setting off for Brussels. Side note, the “node network” style bike routing is a wonderful thing. After an hour or so of riding, we found ourselves at our first stop of the day, the Huyghe Brewery, the home of Delerium Tremens. I’ve been able to tour a decent number of industrial facilities both professionally and personally over the years, and I can pretty confidently state that the tour of this brewery was the best factory tour I’ve ever been on. The tour group was just AJ, Joel, Adeline, and myself, escorted around by Jose, a gentleman who has been leading tours of the brewery for many years. The tour shows everything behind the scenes, letting you get extremely close to the production lines and walk around the floor of the warehouse. The tour starts, though, with a quick video explaining the history of the brewery and the donning of pink elephant-adorned safety vests (and the first of several beers). After putting on your safety vest and drinking your safety beer, you take a quick peek at some historic brewing equipment before heading directly into the brewery to see the magic happen.

There was a lot of cool stuff on the tour, but one of the most interesting parts to our group of nerds was all of the absolutely beautiful custom stainless steel fabrication that held the brewery together. I mean, just look at this. Literally all this was custom made in house by their team of six full-time stainless steel welding experts. The whole place is full of gorgeous sights like this.

Other cool stuff on the tour includes the bottling line, the warehouses, and watching a large robotic arm move kegs around like it’s nothing.

Unsurprisingly, the tour ends with more beer. Three more, to be specific.

After our three full-size samples (which were free with the cost of the tour, which was only like €20 per person. Seriously, at that price it was more like buying four drinks and then getting a bit over an hour of super engrossing guided tour for free. Can’t recommend it enough) we had a quick stop at the gift shop where I decided I would find room in my backpack to bring home a pink elephant Christmas sweater. At this point we (slightly tipsily) made our way back to the bikes and rode about a block to a sandwich shop for a much-needed lunch. After my sandwich I decided to crack into my extra pastry I bought at breakfast and shoved into my bag for just such an occasion.

Getting back on the road, our next brief stop was some kind of plane graveyard? Not entirely sure what the deal was if I’m being honest but it was pretty neat to see.

We got back to rolling down the road, stopping next in the city of Aalst. Really, this one stop was four back-to-back stops. First, the patio of a local pub where we had a great conversation with some locals (after they laughed at us for all ordering Liefman’s On The Rocks, a fruity beer served on ice that I guess is a stereotypical sorority girl kind of drink? Whatever, it was delicious and perfectly refreshing in the middle of a hot bike ride). Next, a bike shop to buy new inner tubes for Adeline (whose bike was just steadily losing air all day) and me (who decided having a spare tube and not just a patch kit was probably a good idea). After that, a park to sit in the shade and do some quick bike maintenance. Finally, an O’Tacos, a terrifying French chain that sells “tacos”. I got a “taco” which was made up of the constituent parts of a chicken cordon bleu and fries all stuffed into a folded tortilla and griddled with cheese and served with “samurai sauce”. Shamefully, I must admit it was pretty decent. Not good, mind, but decent. After we ate, it was back to the bike trails for a fairly peaceful ride to Brussels. Hilariously, this was around dinner time, and we were about halfway through the day’s ride. Some might argue we had been taking things too slowly but I’d say our pace (and willingness to get sidetracked to see the sights) was perfect.

Finally back on our bikes for the main push through to Brussels. Most of the ride was on some lovely bike trails through the woods and between farms. Gotta say, this part of the trip had me feeling right at home. Bike path that divides the woods from the cattle pasture? I ride one of those like every week. It was a lovely 25-ish miles to Brussels.

Actually getting into Brussels was a little less pleasant. Long story short, that town is not built for biking around. Probably decent to walk through, and I understand the transit is amazing, but getting from the edge of the city to our hostel involved a lot of riding through muddy, trash-filled alleys and then in the middle of dense vehicle traffic. Definitely not a ton of fun, but once we got checked in to the hostel we were able to walk down the block to a kebab shop and get some dinner before heading to bed. Aside from the interesting biking through the city, a very lovely evening indeed.

June 2 - Day 4 - Brussels to Maastricht, 79.1 Miles

Due to a combination of prior plans and logistical problems, Adeline left Brussels on a train instead of biking with Joel, AJ, and myself. The three of us set off across Brussels to go see The Atomium, and were immediately caught in a rainstorm. Also, what I said earlier about Brussels not being fun to bike around? Yeah, it sucked even worse during this journey. Lotta other cyclists, to be fair, but we spent a lot of time riding very close to cars who did not have a lot of patience for us. Honestly, still better than some US cities I’ve ridden around, but still not a great time. We got a bit lost, eventually found our way to the Atomium, took some pictures, and then continued riding through a (impressively large) city park on our way out of town.

Riding out of town was about as interesting as riding through town. We had to ride through a pretty large industrial park, next to some highways, past the freight terminal and employee parking for the airport, and over some surface roads, all through the rain. A sudden particularly intense cloudburst had us sheltering under an overpass for around fifteen minutes, where we had a snack and squeezed against the wall as trucks from the industrial park passed close by.

We finally escaped the city sprawl and found ourselves in the village of Relst, where we stopped for a sandwich and a “fruity energizer” energy drink before continuing on, finding ourselves on another genuinely lovely bike trail weaving between forest and farmland.

After quite a few lovely trails through forests, next to farms, and along canals, we rolled into the town of Diest. While debating which way to go, we saw a sign pointing up a very steep hill that said “citadel”. I like riding hills and I like citadels, and since we were making good time we agreed to go check it out. The citadel itself is now home to some cool museums and art studios and other fun stuff, most of which was closed when we came through. We just hung out and enjoyed the view overlooking the town before rolling back down the hill and searching for our next meal, which we found in the form of Bel Chicken, a shockingly good fried chicken fast food chain.

Once again, back on the bike trail. Another cloudburst had us under another overpass for a bit, but this time the overpass was specifically for bike traffic so no trucks whizzing by. We made it into Hasselt, where we stopped at an Italian restaurant for a quick cup of espresso and an Aperol spriz before hopping back on the trail and rolling through some more small towns, eventually reaching the large bridge over the massive canal that sits on the Belgium/Netherlands border. One final push brought us into Maastricht, where we checked into the hostel, locked up the bikes, and wandered over to the Kebab shop by the train station to pick up some dinner. Of course, we took the kebab back to the hostel where it was consumed along with some local beers over some more cribbage. Overall, a very nice day of riding, and a wonderfully relaxing evening.

June 3 - Day 5 - Maastricht to Cologne, 66.1 Miles

Dawn of the final day (of riding). AJ’s knee was starting to give him some trouble, so having completed the main goal of riding across Belgium, he elected to skip ahead to Cologne with Adeline, leaving Joel and I to take on the last leg of the bike ride. However, before setting off, the four of us went in search of some breakfast. Would you believe me if I told you that yet again, we started our day with pastries and espresso? We sat down at a coffee shop on a street with a series of very cool signs explaining in multiple languages that after 18.00 and on Saturdays, cars weren’t allowed to drive or park there. Pedestrians and cyclists only. God, I spent less than 24 hours in the Netherlands but I’m already in love and must return someday.

After breakfast, we walked next door to the cheesemonger where we purchased some snacks for the road - they had a deli counter that made sandwiches to order, so we picked a few at random and supplemented them with some Époisses cheese (on Adeline’s recommendation, one of her favorites) and crackers, plus a few bottles of Fritz-Kola to drink.

Joel and I hopped on our bikes and started heading for the German border. We stopped twice on the way to sit on benches near the trail and crack into our provisions, which were all quite good. The meatball sandwich was phenomenal, and I remember the pate sandwich also being quite good. The third clearly didn’t make much of an impression on me, though I remember it being decent. The Époisses was quite good - it’s certainly a funkier cheese, I described it as tasting the way a sheep farm smells (complementary). Certainly not for everyone, but we had a great time spreading it on crackers as we sat in a light misting between a bike trail and farm field.

After a bit more riding, we reached the border, marked only by the “Friendship Bridge” with some nice plaques about international friendship and cooperation, guarded on either side only by some little bronze turtles.

Once in Germany, the bike infrastructure got noticeably worse pretty quickly - admittedly, we had gotten used to some very nice infrastructure in Belgium and the Netherlands, so infrastructure better than most American cities still felt bad by comparison. We spent a while riding down a mix of trails and farm roads, eventually stopping in a field for a snack.

Following this, lots more riding. Sometimes on trails, sometimes on surface roads, and at one point on a really sketchy basically single lane road with traffic moving both ways and cars having to just about ride the shoulder to barely miss each other. Being on a bike here was not super pleasant, but credit where it’s due, German drivers really seem to know what they’re doing. At one point on a bike trail, I got one of my few physical souvenirs from the trip: a beat-to-hell Abus chain bike lock. We just found it on the trail and assumed (correctly) that the current combination dialed in was the correct one to open the lock. I guess someone had it attached to their bike and it popped open and fell off? It wasn’t an expensive enough lock for me to feel compelled to lock it to a sign for its owner to hopefully find and retrieve, and given how beat up it was they were probably due for an upgrade anyway. I threw it in my bag and used it as my bike lock for what was left of the trip, and despite it’s ratty appearance have been continuing to use it to this day.

We stopped for the occasional brief rest and map check in a few smaller towns and villages, eventually stopping in the town of Elsdorf for a meal. Our first course was ice cream (insanely good) and our second was a cursed kebab garbage plate of sorts (kinda tasty for a few bites and then just too much). This kebab would later cause a bit of an upset stomach but nothing too terrible. Lesson learned, just get the regular kebab sandwich and don’t get the weird platter of everything. At least I finally got a bottle of Mezzo mix. Man, I love that stuff. Damn shame that the Coca-Cola company won’t sell it in North America, or seemingly outside Germany at all.

Once properly refueled, we were ready to just give one last effort and push all the way to Cologne. We hopped back on the trail and eventually reached the edge of the city. We entered town by riding a couple miles through a massive park in the woods - some of the trails were completely empty, some were fairly populated. It was all super cool, and gave me a good opportunity to get this glamour shot of my bike.

We finished riding into town, but about three miles from the hostel the aforementioned kebab garbage plate really started doing a number on my stomach, so we sat in an alley for a bit. Once I was confident I could ride without being sick, we rolled the last little bit downtown and to our hostel, coincidentally arriving at about the same time as AJ and Adeline.

Mission accomplished. We rode 272.6 miles from the English Channel to Cologne, crossing Belgium and bits of France, The Netherlands, and Germany. Genuinely an amazing ride full of great experiences. All that’s left to do is sell the bike and then spend two more days hanging out in Germany before flying home.

June 4 - Day 6 - Cologne to Wuppertal (via car)

The plan for the day was simple - ride across town to a used bike shop I found online, sell my bike for whatever lowball offer they gave me, and then spend two days just hanging out. However, upon arriving, we found that the bike shop was closed. After some googling, we learned that it was 60 days after Easter Sunday, making it Corpus Christi, which is apparently a bigger deal in Germany (and especially in Cologne) than it is back home. Huh, good to know. We decided to lock the bike to a rack near the bike shop, go across the street to one of the coffee shops that was still open for breakfast, and then take the local light rail across town to the parking lot where Adeline had stashed her car earlier. Breakfast was a bagel with lox and a cappuccino. Nothing special, but screw it, I’ve included a picture of damn near everything else I ate on this trip so here you go:

After breakfast, we took the train to the edge of town and hopped in Adeline’s car to head to Wuppertal. She and AJ would only stay in town through lunch before having to start driving back to France to see her parents, but Joel and I were planning to stay in Wuppertal overnight before returning to Cologne the next day. Because Adeline apparently knows me pretty well, when we got to her car she dug an old French MRE out of the trunk for me to examine during the ride down the highway. That was pretty fun.

Why was Wuppertal the next destination? Of course, it was so we could go geek out over the Schwebebahn, the kickass hanging railway running along the river Wupper. We absolutely rode this thing from the middle of the line down to one end of the line, and then all the way back up to the other end of the line. It’s genuinely incredible, it’s like a theme park attraction that regular people are just using for their everyday commutes and social visits and errands. I love it. Here’s a few pictures both of and from the Schwebebahn:

Seriously, do yourself a favor and go read the Wikipedia article about this thing. It’s just so damn neat.

After riding the hanging railway and loving every second of it, we walked (further than expected and through the rain, with AJ repeating an insistence that “it’s just around this next corner”) to a quiet little townie restaurant. It felt kinda like an Elk’s lodge, or a VFW, or even a church basement. We were stopped on the way in by a customer leaving who seemed surprised that anyone from out of town was going there, and he was even more surprised to find that a group of Americans (and a French woman) were there. After a brief but pleasant chat about our journey up to that point, he recommended we get the schnitzel and bid us Auf Wiedersehen. We walked in and were greeted by a single patron at the bar, a single bartender pulling double duty as the waiter, and what seemed to be a single cook occasionally walking out of the kitchen to keep an eye on things. Nobody here spoke more than a couple words of English, but Adeline and I both had enough German to manage some semblance of a rough conversation, and the others were able to get decently far by copying some basic German words and pointing at menu items. We all ordered a beer (Joel got a good laugh out of all present by accidentally ordering “vier liter bier” instead of “null vier liter bier” (four liters instead of 0.4 liters of beer, if it wasn’t obvious)), and then we all got a good laugh out of the bartender/waiter and other patron when we, one after another, placed an identical order for the Jägerschnitzel. After we finished eating (and drinking a couple of beers each), the very nice gentleman behind the bar walked over and set down a small snifter of clear liquor in front of each of us. As he set them down, he said, “ah, medicine!” and walked away. We hadn’t ordered a digestif, but we weren’t going to turn one down. Before toasting to our health, friendship, and journey, we all sniffed the liquor in question: it had distinct notes of plum and rocket fuel. We locked eyes with each other as we all instantly had the same realization: this guy had just served us Slivovitz without a warning as to what it was. If you aren’t familiar, it’s an eastern European plum brandy, usually fairly high proof (I don’t think I’ve ever seen it less than 50% ABV). If you like it, you love it. If you aren’t familiar, you might have an interesting time your first time drinking it. It’s directly responsible for one of the more regrettable evenings of my life during RAGBRAI 2024, but that’s a story for another time. Anyway, it’s great stuff, and not at all what any of us were expecting from this nice German man. I caught his eye, which wasn’t hard - he and the patron at the bar were both looking fairly intently at our table. “Slivovitz?” I asked, raising my glass. “Ja!” was his startled response, and his look of shock only increased when the four of us gave our own little cheer of “Ja!” before draining our glasses. As far as we can tell, this was most likely either a little joke or some kind of vibe check, and either way that wasn’t the reaction they were expecting. To be fair, Slivovitz isn’t too popular in America, so I can’t blame them for being surprised that we not only recognized but loved it. Pictured below: one of many beers I ordered, and the glass of Balkan rocket fuel I didn’t.

Our gleeful acceptance of his “medicine” shifted his demeanor from hospitable to downright friendly. For the next hour or so, we sat around playing cribbage while he searched for interesting things behind the bar to bring us free samples of. Ultimately, I’m pretty sure he brought a total of eight drinks to our table that we didn’t order. We’d pass the glass around and each take a sample, and he’d pull out the liquor bottle in question to show us what we were drinking. He was clearly having a great time with it, and we certainly were as well.

Once we were done playing cribbage and playing “guess the liquor” with the proprietor of the establishment, we ordered a round of coffee, paid our bills (which were mysteriously missing all of the liquor and I think one of the rounds of beer), and headed back to the hanging railway to go back to the center of town.

We made it back to Adeline’s car where our tearful goodbyes were shared as she and AJ departed for France. Joel and I went to find the hotel we had booked for the evening. It was a quiet, tiny place, kind of a blend of hotel and hostel. After checking in, we debated going and exploring the town before promptly falling asleep for a much-needed nap. It was surprisingly restful, given that the Schebebahn literally passed directly in front of our window, which was honestly super cool. When we woke up, we decided to walk a good ways across town (away from the direction of the train or we surely would have taken it) to a local beer garden. Tragically, they ended up being closed unexpectedly due to the earlier rains, so we walked back to a train station and went downtown to find some food. After a bit of exploring the city and looking at some cool architechture, we ended up (finally) getting what might be my favorite street food meal, certainly the one I’m the most excited for whenever I get to visit Germany: currywurst and a bottle of Mezzo Mix.

After that, a bit more walking around, then back to the hotel for some sleep. All in all, a very good day of doing tourist stuff in a town I would genuinely love to visit again.

June 5 - Day 7 - Wuppertal to Düsseldorf (via bus), Düsseldorf to Cologne (via Train), Cologne to Frankfurt (via Train)

Lotta travel on this day. Woke up in Wuppertal and walked next door for, you guessed it, coffee and pastries (and sandwiches, we woke up hungry). We then took the Schwebebahn downtown to go to the main train station to catch a ride to Düsseldorf, but we stopped at the Schwebebahn gift shop. Very important intel: the Schwebebahn has a name, and it’s Schwuppi. I love you, Schwuppi.

We knew that most of the regional rail in the region wasn’t running due to widespread maintenance, but there was some honestly pretty decent bus service replacing it. We did get a little lost finding our bus platform, and a kindly old lady who spoke literally zero English took pity on us and walked us several blocks to where our bus would actually be found. She did her best to speak slowly and use small words, but I still only got maybe 10% of what she was saying. Once we got where we needed to be, she went back to catch her bus, and we hopped on board to ride to Düsseldorf.

Once we reached the Düsseldorf main train station, we decided to go for a walk while we were in the area. We ended up walking across town to see the Rhine, and then walking back to catch a train, stopping in the middle to get lunch. We learned that Düsseldorf has a Little Tokyo district, so we decided bowls of ramen and a vegetarian takoyaki sounded like a good meal.

After lunch, we hopped on a train to Cologne, where we then took the light rail back to the bike shop. They were, thankfully, open. I spent the entire light rail ride reviewing some basic German vocabulary, hoping to not relive the 30 Rock bit where a misremembering of “to buy” (kaufen) vs “to sell” (verkaufen) led to some hijinx. We arrived at the bike shop, I unlocked my bike from the rack where it had spent the previous day, and walked up to the front door. A shop employee happened to be walking out at the same time, and I told him that I would like to sell him my bike. This man looked me dead in the eyes and, while standing in front of a sign that said (roughly) “we would like to buy your used bike!”, said “we can not buy your used bike.” This was a somewhat unwelcome turn of events. He didn’t say why, but looking around I got the sense that they were currently flooded with start-of-summer trade-ins as the good people of Cologne decided it was time to upgrade to a better bike for the nice bike-riding season.

In a very fortuitous turn of events, however, a customer in the store overheard our exchange and came over to talk to me. He was there with his wife and daughter and, in thankfully excellent English (I was ready to try and negotiate prices in German but I wasn’t looking forward to it), he explained that while they had just purchased a bike for his wife, he was interested in having an extra bike in the garage. I mean, who isn’t? Lord knows I’ve got… more than one bicycle. After a quick once-over of the bike, he asked what price I was hoping for. In a spectacular example of negotiating against myself, I replied “One hundred fifty Euros. Honestly, one hundred Euros.” While I was still mentally facepalming at that blunder, he handed me his cell phone for collateral and hopped on the bike to take it around the block. Two minutes later, he pulled back up and said he would like to buy it. He, Joel, and myself then spent twenty or thirty minutes standing around talking about all kinds of things: our journey up to that point, the price I had initially paid for the bike vs the price he was paying me now (we all agreed getting a little over a week of use for €65 was a great deal), soccer hooliganism (he was never a hooligan but had been in some rowdy sections of international soccer matches), German beverages not available in the US (I commiserated the lack of Mezzo Mix, he told us we needed to try Vita-Malz before leaving), geopolitics (the rise of the far right around the world is… not great), the time he and his wife were stuck in Atlanta due to that volcano in Iceland shutting down flights to Europe (apparently they had a great time enjoying the club scene down there), and whatever else came to mind.
Eventually, his wife and daughter got tired of looking around the shop and waiting for him to conduct his business, so his wife came over and sent me my €100 via PayPal. Joel and I got back on the light rail to go check out more of the city, and he and his wife started trying to figure out how to get a second bicycle into their compact car. All in all, a super pleasant interaction, and a very positive ending for the saga of my temporary European bicycle. I had resigned myself to being okay with just leaving the bike somewhere and letting nature take its course, but I was really glad to be able to sell it for a decent price and move it along to its next home.

So, off we went to see more of the city. We saw the Cathedral (pictures cannot do it justice. It’s just so goddamn massive) and I stopped in a snack shop to buy a Lion bar (something else I wish I could buy around here) and a bottle of Vita-Malz. I’m glad we got that recommendation, it’s really tasty stuff. Can’t get it around here, but the Puerto Rican soft drink Malta India is very comparable. A sweet soft drink that tastes the way a brewery smells. Great stuff.

After walking around and admiring the cathedral for a bit, it was dinner time. We ended up walking down some back streets, trying to get away from the main tourist zone, and found ourselves in an old beer hall. Now, when I say old, I need you to understand that I mean old. As I understand, it isn’t in its original building (World Wars tend to cause a bit of a shuffle of what’s where) but they’ve been brewing under the name Schreckenskammer in that area since 1442. I mean, god damn. Anyway, this was my first experience in a proper beer hall. They have one beer, and it’s served in 0.2 liter glasses. Every time your glass is empty, somebody with a tray of like 60 of these glasses will swoop by, replacing your empty glass with a full one, and mark a tally on your coaster to keep track of your tab. That was a lot of fun. In addition to the beer, the food was amazing. Honestly, very possibly the best meal I had the entire trip. I got the Himmel und Erde (heaven and earth, referring to the mix of apples and potatoes in the dish) served with fried onions and blood sausage. My god, was this sausage good. At the time of writing this months later, I literally just ate dinner less than an hour ago and I’m getting hungry thinking about this meal. I went out of my way to find a shop down in Missouri that makes an allegedly similar blood sausage that I’m going to get my hands on and try to recreate this dish, it was that good. Anyway, one delicious plate of food (and lovely appetizer soup) and many little glasses of beer later, we paid up and left to catch a train to Frankfurt.

The train to Frankfurt was largely uneventful, though Deutsche Bahn did DB things and stopped the train for like three minutes in the middle of nowhere for seemingly no reason. Who knows, maybe the engineers saw a cool bug they needed to stop and examine. The train ride was otherwise quite pleasant with scenic views, cheap beer in the bar car, and a rousing game of cribbage.

Once we reached Frankfurt, we wandered around (getting only slightly lost) until we found, in order, a kebab shop and our hotel. We ate the final kebab of the trip surrounded by various elements of the Frankfurt club scene, which was a good bit of fun. After some quality street food and people watching, it was time to go crash for the evening. All in all, a wonderful, if busy, way to end the trip.

June 6 - Day 8 - FRA to ORD

I mean, obviously we started the day with coffee and a pastry. Found a lovely little coffee roaster in between the hotel and train station, so we hung out there for a while, making friends with a slightly lost-looking American who was in town for business and looking for someone to share a table with. This morning also marked the monumental moment when I finally threw away the water bottle that I got at an Aldi in Lille over a week prior and had been using as my main water bottle all week. I almost felt like it deserved a 21 gun salute or something for its loyal service over the past eight days, hundreds of miles, and four countries, but it just got somewhat unceremoniously tossed in the recycling on my way towards the airport. Such is life.

Joel was going to hang out in Europe for another couple days, so we said goodbye outside the Frankfurt train station and I climbed aboard a local train heading for the airport. I made it through security with a bottle of bike lube (definitely more than 3.5 oz) and a bike lock (which is just, like, a literal metal chain) with no issues, but they did stop me and pull my mini set of allen keys out of my bag, walking around and asking several other security officers if I was allowed to have them. And here I thought seemingly arbitrary airport security nonsense was a uniquely American phenomenon. As an aside, I still think that if we want some kind of federal make-work program, we should basically scrap the TSA and bring back the CCC and WPA, but that’s an argument for another time. Anyway, I made it to my plane, put on my headphones, and started working through the week’s episodes of Knowledge Fight that I had been otherwise occupied and unable to listen to sooner.

And that’s about all she wrote. I made it home with a couple hundred photos, a new bike lock/helmet/morale patch/Christmas sweater, and a bunch of memories that will last a lifetime. Seriously, if it wasn’t already obvious from the… christ, eight thousand words? I guess vim is counting all of the inline markdown and HTML stuff as words, but still. If it wasn’t obvious from how much I’ve written here, this trip was absolutely incredible, and I’m going to remember it fondly forever. Maybe I/we take inspiration from this for a future trip. Bike across The Netherlands on a locally sourced bike? Go back to Ghent to spend (at least) another week there? Finally take on the Trans-America bike trail? Okay, that last one might be a bit much, but still. This trip has me absolutely psyched for the next adventure, whatever it may be.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you down the trail.