so more about patrick and anne marie: he said he would really like to visit NY, their daughter went on exchange to the US. i forget where, but i think it was somewhere in like tennessee. she studies psychology although she doesnt want to work with it (dont we all). she is really into music, hence why she went to tennessee and i think she visited new orleans too. she wants to be a producer or something, and patrick told me that she is "in" with like a celebrity crowd and goes to VIP parties or whatever. she went to the birthday party of some jeans designer. yeah i wasnt all that impressed, i could give a crap about that stuff! but he had never been to the US so i said I would show him around. Anne marie wasnt fond of long distance traveling so she said she wouldnt go =( and then i said i was studying in england and patrick took out a map and said he wanted to do some traveling there so he was asking my advice on places to visit. i said manchester and liverpool were nice. and he asked about birmingham and i said he could miss that one! oh and they also know some famous tennis player, named kim K... who was like the best in the world a few years ago, but we checked the rankings this night and she was like 33rd. and anne marie was telling me that kims dad died a few years ago from cancer and her mom has a new boyfriend now but kim doesnt like him and her mom had cancer too, so i think she is on disability so she doesnt work or at least not that often, and kim is a multi billionaire and so she told her mom, if you leave that man i will give you all the money in the world. but until then, you get nothing. and her mom has chosen to stay with him and remain poor. but she is quite broken hearted because she is torn between choosing her daughters respect and staying with the man she loves! i only found that story interesting because you hear about celebrities all the time in the news and see their faces on tv or whatnot, but we forget that they are human beings just like normal everyday people, so some of them can be sweet and kind hearted, and some can be pricks. and clearly kim in the latter. oh and just as we had the news on, there was a story about a pedophile, and i immediately thought, "wow, maybe what joost said about all the pedophiles in belgium was true!!" or maybe just an eerie coincidence lol. then we were talking about my trip so far and stuff. patrick is into cycling but not like long distance. so i asked him if i can take my bike on any ferries leaving belgium and he said zeebrugge possibly. and i also said how i will be riding through 3 countries in 2 days, and how that is unheard of in the US and he said you could ride through 3 countries in 1 day if you go from belgium, over that skinny part of the netherlands and into germany! crazy to think about!! so after some yummy dinner, i dont even know what it was, it had ham in it but i was too hungry to care, and some dessert, i showered and went to their daughters room. she works for some local music festival that is apparently a big thing every year, they have blues and rock bands, some of them internationally famous going there. so she had posters of the festival. she also hung on her wall, post cards and collectibles from all the places she visited in the world, which gave me a nice idea =) so then i went downstairs and patrick let me use the computer to look up directions to maastricht. i was hoping to write in my blog but the keyboard was so different i was typing really slow, so i thought it might be easier for me to use my phone instead! and i was tired anyway, so i pretty much went to bed right after.
tuesday feb 14: valentines day!! so i had plans to stay with mayke for 3 days and then meet her up in cologne for the carnival weekend. so anne marie had already left for work but she left me a good bye note =) so patrick and i had breakfast together. i set off a bit early because mayke got out of class at like 1:30 pm so i didnt want her waiting around for me. the night before annie marie told me to get to maastricht it was easy, i follow the canal that i had taken for a short while that night, the whole way into maastricht. but there were parts that i needed to cross over bridges and continue on the other side so she showed me a cycling map of the region with the flemish cycle network, which looked exactly like the dutch one. so it looked very straight forward. so after breakfast patrick and i got lance out of the shed, and i forgot to mention but my screw where my rack fits into my fork fell out the day before, so for most of the ride the rack was rattling a bit. so patrick saw and he said he had a workshop on his farm, which was just a few meters down the road, so he could find a new screw for me. so we were riding together and he pointed out the houses of his neighbors, and the majority of them were dutch. he said a lot of dutch people move to the flemish part of belgium, esp his area cause its so close to the border, because in the netherlands there are strict rules on building houses, and what it can look like, so those that want to build a house in their own style just move to belgium lol so we went to his farm and within a few minutes he found a screw that fit the hole in the fork so i was really happy about that. and what he actually does for living is runs a poultry farm. i dont know the details but apparently he receives chicks (his exact words were the chicks come from the machines then onto his place.. that made me a bit worried!!) and then he raises the chicks until they are old enough and then sells them off to the butcher or wherever. he didnt actually tell me where he sends them off to, but i can imagine. so he said oh i just received some chicks yesterday, would you like to see? so we went into the coop(???) and wow was it warm in there! and as soon as he opened the door, 1 million 1 day old baby chicks starting chirping away and running towards the other side of the room. they were soo cute!!! but he lets them roam around, so they arent like caged or anything so that was a relief to hear! but then i was off, and he came with for a short while. we rode along the canal and he pointed out more houses (really big and nice ones too!) owned by dutch people, and then he left me and i continued on my way. i had only been going a few minutes when i hear someone calling my name from behind and i turn around and its patrick! and he came back to say that he forgot to tell me that the first bridge i come to i need to cross over cause the bike trail on my side will soon vanish! so that was real nice of him to come back and tell me and i was sure glad he did because i saw from the bridge that the path turned to dirt, and if i hadnt known any better i may have just continued to follow it thinking it was the cycle network!! so going to maastricht was real easy from there, i just followed the canal the whole way. it was nice weather so that made it a pleasant trip. there was one point where the canal split so i had to go on another bridge and cross over to the other side to follow the correct canal. so i was riding along and there were these snow geese alongside the bike path, and as i was about to turn the corner to go up the bridge, one charged at me, with wings flailing and beak open! i lifted my leg as i rode by cause otherwise i was afraid it was going to bite my foot off! so i crossed over to the other side because there was an industrial estate on the side i was on, and then rode down further and came to the fork in the canal and actually i missed the other bridge to take me to the canal on the left, which was what i needed to follow so i thought oh if i follow the one on the right maybe there will be a bridge soon enough to take me over and i can get back to the one on the left and follow that one, but there were a lot of trees in my way so i couldnt see very far, so i decided to turn back around, and go to the last bridge i past under and take that. good thing i did that, cause it wasnt long before i came to a bridge and i crossed it and then made my way following the left handed canal, but this path was through some woodland which was quite nice. i followed that all the way to the border town of smeermaas, which looked a bit pretty cause it was on a hill and the canal cut right through it. I didnt spend any time there cause i was running late with my plan to meet mayke. but i did get a bit confused cause i didnt know whether to continue following the canal or not, cause the canal path turned into like a towpath which was unsuitable for a bike, so i took the streets, saw the netherlands border sign, and continued on the road until i got to the center of maastricht. i arrived at the markt place and was amazed by the town hall so i instantly took a pic. then i asked someone where the tourist info was and this was the first time i came across someone who was not old (aka middle aged) and didnt know english too well. but he figured out what i was saying and managed to give me decent directions. so i got there and bought a little walking tour and then called mayke and she said she was at home so i went to her place which was very central so quite convenient! so it was great to see her again, she looked the same except with longer hair. so we simultaneously caught up on each others lives, while going shopping for my carneval costume, while she gave me the tour of maastricht!
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