Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The Chocolateers

As the days go by, life gets a little boring in Belgium, which is why we were all excited when Christmas eve came. Our house mom Els cooked up a big dinner with hors d'oeuvres around the fire outside and champagne for all. In Belgium, the real meat of the Christmas holiday takes place on the 24th instead of on the 25th like it does back home. Other than the dinner, not much went on during the day except for Steve, Eric, Jeremy, Gavin and I's daily training ride. Then I got a great massage from my man Herman to help loosen up those muscles. Here is a shot of my hair waving in the wind during our ride.

The next day was Christmas day and nothing too special went down. In the morning Els took Eric and I to the local Chocolate shop and being the chocolateers we are, it was very exciting. They had all kinds of sculptures and figures made of chocolate and we both bought a gift box that they filled with fresh chocolates from their finest stash. However, Els made us get it gift wrapped so we wouldn't eat any before we got home. After we returned to the house, we got kitted up and went for a ride along the canal, through a few towns, and finally to our favorite destination of Kortrijk. It's cool to ride here because no matter what tiny road or sidewalk or whatever your on, you will always spot some pro out on a training ride. Here's a shot of me riding the ice which we later dubbed the "Belgian Trainer".
Here's a shot of a little chapel area we found down a small cobbled road in Kortrijk.

After our ride we showered, had lunch, and then headed to the bakery for a nice recovery pastry. The rest of our day consisted of doing laundry, and the usual 3-4 hours of random youtube viewing/internet game playing. My new favorite game these days is "gangsta bean" and it has provided us all a lot of entertainment.

I'll finish this up with a shot from our ride. It's me riding over an awesome cobbled bridge near Kortrijk. Tomorrow is the big world cup so wish Steve, Eric, and the rest of the guys good luck. Clayton Omer and I will be attending but not racing since there are 8 juniors here at the camp and only 6 people from each country are allowed in world cups. Merry Christmas, I'll get another post up soon.

-Ian

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i think i just gained 4 pounds reading about the chocolate. keep up the good work, i like the "belgian trainer idea", we could save money by not buying trainers and using ice instead.