Look at me, I am evolving!

They said "don't do it", "you can't", "you are not prepared".

But as always, I listened to no-one. I know myself, I know what I want to do and I am no longer blabbering. When I say "I want to do THAT" it means I am doing it and it 's only a matter of short time. 

Life is way too short to be wasted away to promises of "when X, then I will Z". Fuck it. Do it now.

What am I talking about? Oh, well, I took a stroll and I rode an old, rusty bike from Tilburg to Turnhout. Huh? Let me explain.

Tilburg (where I reside) = Netherlands

Turnhout (the destination) = Belgium

Yes, I crossed the borders on a bike. Why? Because I wanted to. Total ride: 40 klm one way. Stayed overnight (I m not an avid bike rider of course). 

Don't ask how long it took me, because honestly I was enjoying the nature. Let me walk you through and share my experience in this little private space of mine.

 You still don't believe that I did it? Oh well...

Anyway, let's start from the beginning:

In the edge of the city 

The weather forecast said it would be windy and rainy. They were mostly right. But I was also lucky to encounter sun and animals (that was not part of the weather forecast obviously, lol).

Moooooooooo

Oops

Did I say rusty bike? Yes, I did.

Mud everywhere, yay! (not)

I had my first stop at Alphen and it was the first uphill situation I encountered. Valid enough, there was a bridge to cross a busy street. 

I had some rest and lunch and avoided a good chunk of rain. Onwards to the borders. 

Eventually the next day I did some reading and it turns out that Baarle- Nassau is a very special place where the borders are kind of everywhere. Wikipedia says something about "exclaves", which in simple words, are bubbles of foreign territory in a country. In that particular town there are many of them (30). So yes, I was going in an out of two countries for some distance and therefore I saw the borders many times. Seriously, there was no way of me getting lost, because there was kind of no many ways of getting lost in a straight line (that was an accidental pick). 

Well, later I had a stop in the town of Turnhout to get a coffee and something for dinner (yes, I got chips, don't you dare judge me, Belgium is hella expensive) and I (not so) gracefully arrived finally at my destination, which was outside of the town (so, even further). Here is the room:

The next morning I had an amazing breakfast which was so worth it, even took a thing or two for the way:

And then I took off!

Singing Paola down the road:

Somewhere on the way I am signaling that I am ok, amidst storm and cold:

So, some of my readers come from places where a bike lane is a dream or even never heard of. Well, this is a quite crucial part in order to understand that my trip was safe. It was mostly nature and partially civilization:

look at the horsie! 

Enjoy some Belguim:

The only problem I have now is that my thirst is not quenched. I know that this was the first of many more trips to follow, with a bike, because this experience was only a test. 

I enjoyed my solitude, listened to many different books and encountered a bunch of different people and animals (deer, cows, sheep, alpacas!, horses etc). 

I also feel I leveled up because I was riding under rain for 40-45 minutes straight (no stop, but to wear an extra raincoat, which was not so much of help).  However, now I know which items I was missing and I may need in the future, as I passed by other countryside riders who were much better prepared for the storm. 

What do you think?