Week 1... France

After getting La Zino, we cruised back to Opwijk/Merchtem to get all our gear. I packed hurriedly (in about 30 minutes), amazingly not forgetting anything of importance, and we loaded up the van. With all of our gear loaded up and excited to kick the trip off, we decided it best to spend our first night of the trip in Merchtem and sleep out at the field.

It was the end of the first half of the season, the beginning of our trip and the 4th of July. With all the reasons needed to have a party, we did just that. We met up with Jan Cassiman, Zino, and some of the other guys to 'cue and have some drinks at the field before catching some shut eye on the floor of the cantina. Before passing out, Bart, Troy, Rachel, and I wrote a song for Anj so we could woo her by playing it at the station when we picked her up the next morning. After a few hours of z's, we woke up ready to roll.

The official day 1...

Wearing our crazy hats (me- candy cane striped wizard looking hat, Rachel-Gator face hat, Troy-Pirate hat, Bart- Cowboy hat), we greeted Anj at the train station with a beautiful rendition of our Anj song from the night before. With 5/6 of the crew assembled, we headed to Brussels to pick up the missing piece... Joris.

After picking up Joris and with the trip officially started, we headed for La Rochelle. After 8ish hours of driving and a pit stop in Chateauleraux (or something close to that) to grab lunch and groceries for dinner, we finally made it to our first destinqtion (please forgive my typos... i'm using a dutch key board and typing is like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time), La Rochelle. We pulled into a campsite after a wild goose chase trying to find it and I was quite puzzled. For me, camping was always synonymous with nature and rural areas, but as I would soon find out campping in Europe would be nothing like the camping i had experienced before. Instead, camping in southern europe (most of the time) means being smack dab in the middle of an urban area in a walled off or fenced off area where peoples tents are really close to each other, you have very little privacy and access to electricity and nicely kept bathroom facilities. Many campsites even have swimming pools and game areas and the really nice ones (they use stqr systems like hotels), like the 4 star cqmping we did in Anyways, after setting up the tents and our kitchen area, we cooked the first of many delicious meals:::this time it was beans, rice, and stir fry. After cleaning up and washing up, we enjoyed a concert of loud sex noises coming from a few cites over, chatted it up with some recent French kids who had just graduated high school and were in tozn celebrating, partying, and going to a film festival that was taking place there. Exhausted from the long day, we hit the hay and day 1 was officially in the books. It should also be noted that I drove us through Paris and other parts of France and at this point was happy with my driving skills (you will get why I say this later)

I have to go to bed now and get ready to beat Mortsel tomorrow so stay tunned for the rest of the trip coming soon in installments;;; until then, peace!