Late March, 2000, around 7pm. My mom and I, after some searching, find the narrow door leading to a basement space with a tiny changing room and a small, black-walled dance room with a cassette player and two standing mirrors. The teacher distributes hot tea in plastic cups, and goes on to read a few […]
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The Travel Chronicles, week 5
Águilas Thing is, lots of cycling days are quite uneventful. You get up, get out of zombie mode, fold your tent, get and eat some food, Águilas – Puerto de Mazarrón, 58,7 km, 669m cycle, stop for a drink, a coffee, a bathroom or for lunch, cycle some more, then unfold and pitch your […]
Anniversary
Today marks a full year since I left Brussels to cycle around Europe. To chase my dreams – some of which I’ve held on to for ten, twenty, twenty-five years or more. To turn my life upside down – and while few things have turned out as I planned or imagined, I’ve been undoubtedly successful […]
The Travel Chronicles, weeks 3&4
Granada Walking again, along the riverbed and up to Sacromonte, then back to meet and old friend. He did his Erasmus at my faculty some 15 years ago – I’d just returned from my own Erasmus and made friends with many Spanish exchange students. We kept contact for a short while after they left, then […]
The Travel Chronicles, week 2
La Línea de La Concepción I cycled to the village, and left the bike at the mechanic. Then I realised I’d wanted to do a bunch of things, but left all at the camping. Even my book. So I walked to Gibraltar, and climbed the rock. I even paid the entry fee (18 effing GBP!) […]
Laments from the Road, Part 2 – Carrión de los Condes
The plains are silent as we cycle through them,and it’s almost a desert: the endless, barren fields – harvested or burnt out – are the same pale, yellowish-brown as the old, quiet stones of the occasional (old, quiet) village we cross; the sun’s beating down on us as if it were August instead of October; the […]
Laments from the Road, Part 1 – Biarritz
The Sun has set: now stay,and watch the darkness fall.
The Travel Chronicles – week 1
Cádiz – La Oliva (Vejer), 77,5 km, 393m. Never thought so many of my friends would show up at 10AM on a bank holiday to say goodbye. I had invited all of them to meet up for coffee in the morning, and to join me for a bike ride – as far as they were okay with. […]
Here’s to the beauty of heartbreak
I left Cádiz on Monday, a place where I felt more vibrant, more myself than I’d felt for a long, long time. As I counted the days remaining, things of mine kept breaking every day – my saddle, my phone screen, you name it, up to the point where on the day after I left, the East […]
Give up your darkness
Give your darkness to the Ocean. Your freefall. Your broken glass. You’ll get little pebbles, no longer transparent nor sharp at the edges, but colourful and smooth, to embellish your stories. You’ll get rocked to sleep by the waves so you can dream about falling – or flying, if you so wish. And the darkness? […]
When your armour crumbles
Never noticed how numb I’d gotten until I started to feel again. I’d put on layers upon layers upon layers of caution, compliance and cynicism, thick and drab and shapeless, not quite like clothing nor exactly part of me. It took two months in a port city, two months alone in this place before cracks started […]
Greetings from Cádiz
I wish I could have told you all that happened while on the road, but my voice faded and I never found the right words to share with you. I did write down and photograph and record all of it, yet the memories feel cold and grey and distant, and I can only hope to […]
Let go of the ballast
Do you know that feeling when you plan something amazing for months, even years, do all the planning and all the prep work – and by the time you actually get to do The Thing, you’re so exhausted and overwhelmed that the stuff you used to dream of feels like just another chore that needs […]
In Medias Res
It’s been twelve days since I’m on the road. I left Brussels on Monday last week, with a simple plan: go to Oostende (done), turn right (done), keep the sea to my right (ongoing). After the first five-ish days of heavy headwinds and rain, we’re now riding into summer. I even started getting up earlier […]
Momentos 16-30. 04. 2022
I should know better by now than to try and solve problems when as groggy and sleep-deprived as today. All I achieve is a giant headache and a sense of frustration, while the problems remain unsolved.
I should have gone to the park 5 hours earlier.
Momentos 02-15 04 2022
When I moved to Brussels the coffee truck was my only place to chat with someone – Alfio’s Italian, and I didn’t speak French yet. Over time, I often ran into friends who lived nearby, and even more often made friends (of sorts) with other market-goers over coffee. In the last two years, it was our only social life, Sunday coffee strictly outdoors, in groups (not-so-)strictly limited at 4 people.
Momentos 03.21 – 04.01.2022
I never realised the enormity of a task that, no matter how small in itself, has to be repeated EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
I might have copied the format, but I already see I need to create a better system for myself. Even if I do manage to build the habit.