The day before yesterday I posted my first motivation on this blog, which was to get all my belongings in a backpack. Result of writing this down:
Yesterday I managed to empty 3 entire shelves in my closet:
Today I did another shelf and went through all my clothes and took the ones out that I don't wear anymore. Result: One closet is entirely empty and the other one isn't even that full:
All of this brings me a couple of steps closer to fitting it all in my backpack and it's a very good example of the power of writing things down.
Whenever we write something down we have the tendency to finish it, so we can cross it of our list.
Tip: If there's something on your to do list that's been there for weeks, try to break it down into smaller, more precise tasks. Most of the time the reason why we don't start a certain task is because it's too big or too vague. Be specific and make every task small enough so it becomes manageable.
I just checked the day I began this blog and it's exactly one month ago, the 29th of may! ^^
I really didn't expect to write more than 50 posts and pages in such a short time. I love doing this and hope to continue this for a while.
Thanks to everyone who's reading my blog! I'm already at a 1000+ views from more than 10 countries, which I surely didn't expect and is certainly an incentive to continue writing. :)
One of my dreams is to fit all my belongings in a backpack. It's a quite simple dream, yet it takes some time to realize it. I'm getting closer, though. Every time I'm in Leuven, I'm trying to get rid of stuff I don't really need. Travelling for 6 months and living out of a backpack surely was a good lesson for this.
Here's the way I'm trying to accomplish this:
I'm throwing away the junk that no one can use, recycling as much as I can.
Everything that can be digitized, I digitize. CD's, books, documents, drawings, etc.
Some belongings that can be of use to others I sell.
Other possessions that I could possibly be of use in the future I lend to people who would probably use it in the mean time.
Other belongings I try to put in a place so it can be shared by the community.
In my opinion, it would be wonderful if humanity would ever come to the point where almost everything is shared, except some bare essentials. It would reduce our ecological footprint drastically if we could build a community based on this principle. If most of the stuff would be put in a communal place where it can be loaned to people when needed, that would be way more efficient, instead of the dozens of objects that are gathering dust in every household no. See it as the concept of a public library but for almost every object imaginable. CD's, books, instruments, hardware, household appliances, etc.
Living out of a backpack also makes you think thoroughly about the things you want to buy. You really have to think about every little thing you buy, because it becomes an extra weight that you'll have to carry. Your footprint literally becomes deeper with every item you buy. Great way to curb consumerism.
These are some of the questions I ask myself whenever I get the urge of buying something:
Do I really need this?
Isn't their anything else that can serve for this purpose?
Is it multifunctional?
Can I share it?
Is it ecological?
Is it the lightest and the most portable of its kind?
Another advantage with this style of living: You spend very little time on the upkeep of your stuff, so you can spend that time on other things.
So yeah, that's one of my many dreams. :)
I'm also really interested in hearing other peoples dreams. It's a question I asked a lot during my travels: "What is your dream? If you could choose, what would you do in life?" It's very interesting to hear how unique people are and how diverse the answers are. Some even inspire me so much I adapt my dreams to theirs, so we can help each other in making them real.
So tell me, what are your dreams? Would be lovely to hear them. :)
"Here's an excerpt from the 4-hour body book: "Chlorine dioxide, one of the chemicals used to bleach flour, combines with residual protein in most of these foods to form alloxan. Researchers use alloxan in lab rats to INDUCE diabetes."
So essentially, we are eating something on a daily basis that induces diabetes...Wonderful."
I have to correct this. A friend of mine (thanks, Sophie :)) noted that there is another study that showed that human beta-cells are pretty resistant to alloxan compared to beta-cells of lab rats.
Also I have to emphasize that all the things I'm writing here are things I'm experimenting with, so don't take them for the truth! Be critical! I am doing this diet because of that reason. I don't take it for granted that this diet is claiming the truth and therefore I'm trying it out. If it fails, you'll be the first one to know. Same goes when it succeeds. Again: Be critical. Question everything, including the things I write here!
In this post I'm going further into the first rule of the slow-carb diet I'm testing.
The rule says to avoid all 'white carbohydrates', so things like bread, rice (including brown), cereals, potatoes, pasta, tortillas and fried foods with breading.
Makes sense if you consider the following:
They once did a research conducted on 3 women which where all given a diet that consisted of only a 1000 calories a day. The only difference was that the first woman was given a diet that consisted of 90% carbohydrates, the second women had a diet consisting of 90% protein, the third one had a diet that consisted of 90% fat. The results were very surprising. I mean we are told that calories are calories no matter what the source is, right? Well, apparently it matters a lot! These were the results:
Woman on fat diet: weight loss of 0.4 kg per day
Woman on protein diet: weight loss of 0.3 kg per day
Woman on carbohydrate diet: weight gain of 0.1 kg per day
This proves that calories aren't just calories and the sources do matter! The woman on carbohydrates gained weight on a diet of only a 1000 kcal! Just to let you know, the daily recommendations for caloric intake for a woman is 2000 kcal and for a man 2500 kcal. And then we all wonder why the number of obese people is increasing. That's bound to happen when most of the products sold in stores have a high carbohydrate percentage. I'm pretty sure it's also one of the primary causes for many other diseases in our Western world. One of them being diabetes.
Here's an excerpt from the 4-hour body book: "Chlorine dioxide, one of the chemicals used to bleach flour, combines with residual protein in most of these foods to form alloxan. Researchers use alloxan in lab rats to INDUCE diabetes."
So essentially, we are eating something on a daily basis that induces diabetes...Wonderful.
"But we need carbohydrates for energy!" I hear you say. Well, actually we don't. Carbohydrates aren't essentiel nutrients. Carbohydrates are just one of the sources we can use for energy. Protein, fat and ethanol are other sources that can be converted into energy when needed, although less efficient and I really don't recommend the latter for this purpose.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with eating carbohydrates. It just has to be in the right proportion and preferably from a source that isn't damaging to your health.
For me it almost looks like a case of bad parenting with Protein as the quiet, forgotten kid, Fat, the kid who always gets blamed and Carbohydrate, the spoiled kid.
Mom: "Honey, did we bring Protein with us this time?"
Dad: "...Damn, not again...No, we didn't. I guess we'll have to turn the car around. Fat, stop kicking the back of the seat!"
Fat: "It's not me, dad, it's Carbohydrate!"
Mom: "Stop blaming your brother, he's such a good boy!"
Carbohydrate: "Yeah, stop blaming me. I'm a good boy..." *grin*
So why on earth would they give us these recommendations and keep making these products if it is so unhealthy? My opinion: For profit.
The thing about non-essentiel nutrients is that you don't feed your body the proper nutrients, so you'll be hungry again pretty soon after you had your meal. Of course this is something big companies want, because they can sell more of their products and thus earn more profit. As long as we keep eating the wrong things we'll be hungry for more and this is exactly what these companies want. They don't care about our health, only about their profit.
Recently a new article appeared on the blog of Timothy Ferriss, author of "The four-hour body".
It's called "How to lose 100 pounds on the slow-carb diet". If you aren't convinced of the effectiveness of this diet, maybe read this article.
My first observations on this diet:
First of all, I'm losing fat and I know this because I can see my abs better. I'm gaining weight though, which can only mean one thing: I'm gaining muscle mass, although I don't really exercise. Nice side-effect :)
Secondly, my healing factor is way higher than before. Normally, when I get a scratch on my arm or something it would take a couple of weeks to heal. I just assumed I was a slow healer. Now it's just a matter of days to heal. I presume this has to do with the higher protein intake.
Thirdly, I'm eating less. Most people who know me better know I'm as a big eater. I could easily eat a couple of pizzas without any trouble. Now, probably also due to a higher protein intake, I feel more satisfied after eating something and thus consume less. It even comes to the point that my expenses on food are noticeably lower than they before.
Lately I developed this new sleeping pattern which I'm getting used to, but it's still a bit weird. Normally I go to sleep, sleep about 8 hours per night and wake up refreshed to start a new day. Now I somehow manage to sleep only 6 hours per night, wake up refreshed, but take a siesta in the afternoon (around 15h) for about half an hour. I don't know how this came to be but it works like a charm and I suddenly gain 1,5 hours per day. This sparked my interest in how sleep actually works. Well, I'm in luck because the book I'm using for the diet I'm trying out also has a short chapter on sleep full of useful information. Following is a short summary of what I found really interesting in this chapter.
Apparently there are 3 types of insomnia: When it takes you too long to get to sleep you have onset insomnia, when you wake too often throughout the night you have middle insomnia and when you wake too early and are unable to get back to sleep you have terminal insomnia.
Good sleep is mostly dependent on the percentage of REM to total sleep. Not total REM duration. The higher the REM percentage to sleep, the more restful the sleep and the better the recall of skills or data acquired in the previous 24 hours. An REM increase can be accomplished by extending the sleep to more than 9 hours or by waking up 4,5 hours after going to sleep. One intentional waking isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The higher the percentage of deep-wave sleep, the better your subsequent physical performance. More than 2 glasses of wine within 4 hours of sleep decreases deep-wave sleep 20-50%!
Tips for better sleeping:
Room temperature is very important. It's very individual so experiment with this to see what your ideal temperature is. If you can't control the temperature try using socks of different thickness.
Eat a meal that consists largely of fat and protein within 3 hours of sleeping to get to sleep faster.
Include iso-lateral (one-arm or one-leg) resistance training in your exercises when you work out. The more complex the stabilization requires, the faster you get to sleep.
Take a cold bath one hour before going to bed.
Lie in the half military crawl position when sleeping to immobilize yourself. Less fidgeting is faster sleep. Lie on your chest with your head on a pillow and turned to the right. Both arms are straight by your sides, palms up. Now bring your right arm up until the elbow is at 90 degrees and your hand is close to your head or under the pillow. Next, bring your right knee out to that side until it's bent at 90 degrees.
If all this fails I suggest resorting to more high-tech solutions:
F.lux: Application that dims your computer screen.
Zeo Personal sleep coach: To reduce grogginess
Philips goLITE: Go to sleep faster
Air-O-Swiss Travel Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier: Improve time and depth of sleep
Clocky Moving Alarm Clock: Alarm clock that runs away! :D
And then there's also something called "polyphasic sleep". Something really interesting that explains my sleeping behavior of the last few weeks. The idea behind it is to spread your hours asleep throughout the day by taking naps instead of the regular monophasic sleep of 8 hours. There are huge advantages to this. For every nap of 20 minutes you take during the day, you have to sleep approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes less during the night. The siesta I'm taking every day now, actually does that, so I'm living proof this works. The most extreme version of this consist of taking just 6 naps of 20 minutes evenly spread throughout the day. People doing this only have 2 hours of sleep in total and it has been proven numerous times that is actually works! There is one big drawback however. The more naps you take, the more important it is to take those naps on time. If you miss one, you'll feel tired for days.
I just noticed that all the pages couldn't be seen anymore when I put them on the top of the homepage, so I moved them to the right side because there are soon more pages to come and of course I want them to be visible. ;)
A new playlist! This time it's the 'epic' genre. It's the music you hear when watching a big movie like for example Lord of the Rings.
Artists you can find in this playlist are: X-ray dog, Two steps from hell, Brand X music, Globus, Epic score, Senmuth, Zack Hemsey, Clint Mansell, Craig Armstrong, Future world music, City of the fallen, etc.
I told you in my previous post that I was going to start with the 4-hour body diet, in the book referred to as the slow-carb diet.
More over the eating habits I have at the moment are mostly towards veganism (I have to be honest: I still eat eggs on occasions), so I'll have to adapt the diet, so it fits to my current lifestyle.
The diet itself is based on 5 simple basic rules:
Avoid 'white' carbohydrates Forbidden: All bread, rice (including) brown, cereals, potatoes, pasta, tortillas and fried food with breading.
Eat the same few meals over and over again Recommended: Legumes: Lentils, black beans, pinto beans, red beans, soy beans Vegetables: Spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, sauerkraut, kimchi, asparagus, peas, green beans.
Don't drink calories
Forbidden:
milk, soft drinks, fruit juice, beer and white wine.
Recommended:
Water and unsweetened tea.
Red wine is allowed, but maximum 2 glasses.
Don't eat fruit
Say no to fructose!
Take one day off per week
You can eat all you want on this day.
Doesn't seem too hard in my opinion. :) I'll add more information on this diet later.
Timothy Ferriss. When you're interested in productivity and already familiar with Lifehacker, a productivity website, you'll encounter his name sooner or later. I already encountered it a couple of times, but didn't pay much attention to it. This time his name kept popping up again, so I decided to give it a go and do a thorough research on him. I'm really glad I did. Apparently he and I are much the same. We both want to get to the truth of things. Only difference: He's been doing this longer than me and he has a lot more tools than I do to accomplish things. In other words, I'm as happy as can be, because he has done a couple years of work that I don't have to do anymore! :D
I went for "the 4-hour body" to start with. As soon as I got my hands on this book I started reading it. I just HAD to. It looked so interesting! The last couple of days I've been doing almost nothing else than reading and summarizing the first chapter, which is about losing fat in the most effective way possible. As soon as I am done with this I am going to apply it, as I'm always skeptical about things like these and I want to see results. I'm already pretty lean, so I'm pretty sure I won't see a huge loss. I can't see my six-pack though which lies firmly hidden under some body fat. If I can manage to make that visible and don't lose any muscle mass while on this diet I'll call it a success. We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.
This time I'm not going to write anything about ecological travelling, although that certainly is a good idea for the near future. This is a referral to an article on a website called Lowtech Magazine. It's my favorite website when it comes to ecology. The articles are well-written, innovative and in depth. Love that website!
Here's the link to the latest article he wrote about how he traveled on his vacation through Europe: link
(My apologies for the English speaking crowd, this particular article is written in Dutch, but there are English articles on there as well! ;)
"Modern man doesn't know how to walk or run anymore."
That's a pretty bold statement, right? Well, sadly it's the truth! People who know me know that I'm an avid walker. I can walk for several hours without taking a break. It's pretty handy when you live in a town like Leuven, because it's small enough to reach everything on foot. Surely saves some money on transport. Yet, sometimes when I walked for long distances for weeks I started to have problems with my knees, ankles and tendons. I didn't know why. I mean, my legs should have gotten used to my walking regime by now? What was I doing wrong?
I didn't know the answer for a long time and just took those pains for granted until I ran into an article about barefoot running a couple of years ago. It was an eye opener. According to the article I was a 'heel striker', just as most other people who are used to walking with regular shoes. Apparently heel striking isn't the way we are supposed to walk and can cause much discomfort to the feet, ankles, knees and lower back, even all the way up to the neck! I was riddled. If a heel strike was wrong, then what was the right way to walk? Why did I even heel strike in the first place?
From that day on I began my research on this topic and soon came across this video:
That video made it quite obvious what was wrong with heel striking. I had to change to a forefoot strike which would absorb the impact of my steps and wouldn't stress my ankles, knees or any other part of my body. In the next few months I practiced this at home and I saw all my aches and pains go away!
This still didn't answer my question why I was heel striking in the first place, so I also did some research on that. Apparently we learn to heel strike from a very early age. Actually as soon as we start wearing shoes! Yes, shoes are the bad guys in this scenario. Go to tribes where they don't wear shoes and you'll see a natural forefoot strike. Go to the western society and you'll see a heel strike. The reason why we learn to heel strike is because of the weight and the cushioning of regular shoes. It's very difficult not to heel strike when wearing shoes. Even after several years of getting used to a forefoot strike I still find it very difficult to do in hiking boots, mainly because of the weight. The cushioning makes us think that our feet are safe from the impact, but this just isn't true.
After months of getting used to a forefoot strike inside the house I began to wonder how I could do this all the time. I mean, I couldn't go barefoot outside on the streets, could I? What if I stepped in a piece of glass or something else sharp? With this question I started to look for shoes from manufacturers that had barefoot running in mind. With this search I came across the Tarahumara, a Native American tribe, who are famous for their long-distance running ability. They can do 200 miles (320 km) of running in one session! They use huaraches as footwear, which is some sort of sandal. Very interesting I thought, so I did some more research to see if there existed a modern variant of this shoe.
It was then that I discovered the Vibram fivefingers. I bought a pair and tried them out. Good introduction to barefoot running. It was great to feel almost everything through the soles. You really get more into contact with your environment. Watch out for gravel, though! Still, there where a couple of disadvantages and because of those I don't wear them anymore. One disadvantage: They stink after while. Apparently this is a common problem with these shoes. Another disadvantage: People start staring at your feet when you're walking down the street. There was this one time when I was about to pass this black guy, when he noticed my shoes, which were also black. He started to look at my feet and my face repeatedly with wide eyes, like I was some kind of demon. I then decided to wear them only inside the house.
After the Vibrams it took a while before I became interested again in barefoot running, but it always lingered in the back of my mind. I became interested again during my travels. Because I had to pack light I only had one pair of shoes with me, the ones I would always wear: my hiking boots. They are good quality and I'm really happy that I bought these before I started my big walk to the border of Belgium. Now that the weather's getting warmer I really need some lighter footwear, though. My thoughts went straight to buying huaraches, although I still wasn't sure which ones. This question was answered by Raam Dev. I'v been following his blog for quite some time now. He's an inspiration to me. Coincidentally, just when I was wondering which huaraches to buy he mentioned the brand he uses, on his blog. I asked him for more information and his reply convinced me to buy huaraches from this brand: Invisible Shoes.
I ordered the huaraches a couple of days ago and am eagerly waiting to try them out. As soon as I got them I'll post the good new on here! :) Also expect a review about the shoes after I tested them. ;)
If you experience regular pains in your ankles, knees, lower back and other parts of your body. it isn't a bad idea to use the above information and test out walking the proper way by using the forefoot strike. If you know somebody who experiences these pains, by all means share this information with them!
The first playlist is electro-mediaeval, which fuses medieval influences with electronic sounds. Here you can find artists like: Qntal, Faun, Hedningarna, Helium Vola, Valravn, Garmarna, Hurdy-Gurdy, etc.
The second playlist is folk metal, mediaeval metal & celtic punk. Pretty heavy genres, so not for everyone. Artists like: Fejd, Heidevolk, Korpiklaani, Subway to Sally, Les ramoneurs de menhirs, Tanzwut, Moonsorrow, Folkearth, In extremo, etc.
Last week was the Ducasse fest (are more often called Doudou by the locals) in Mons. A quite unique festivity where among other things they carry around a big dragon, called Doudou. :)
There are a few pictures I added to my Mons album: link
And some videos, most of them are from the fireworks: link
Below I listed all the 8 extensions that I use in Chrome to enhance my productivity.
Before going into this I'll quickly answer 2 questions that some of you might have: What is Chrome? What is an extension?
Chrome is a browser, just like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari. I used to be a Firefox adept, but then I gave Chrome a try. It was faster, simpler and more intuitive. Since that try I'm hooked to Chrome. The other browsers certainly aren't bad, but at the moment most new browser features will be found first in Chrome because Google is the leader on the market when it comes to innovation. You can download it here for free: click
Within Chrome you can install extensions which can enhance your browsers functionality. Take a look at the Chrome web store to see if there are extensions you like.
Here are the extensions I use on a daily basis:
AdBlock
Do you also find all those advertisements on websites irritating? Get rid of them with AdBlock!
I think you'll recognize this scenario: You finished typing a pretty long form on a website and press the submit button only to see an error message on the next page. You go back and the form is entirely blank again, so you can start typing it all over again. Lazarus automatically saves everything you type in a form, so when an error occurs you just go back, push the Lazarus button and everything you typed will pop up again like it never happened. It's an extension you easily forget about...until disaster strikes. Better be save than sorry, so install this while you can!
A handy extension with a lot of features, like automatic page loading and instant definitions. I'm not going to cover all the functions here, so follow the link and take a look.
Do you want to be in total control of how your gmail (and other webservices) looks like? Than this is a must! You can adjust almost everything with this extension.
Awesome extension when used properly. It sets a timer for a period of time (default is 25 minutes). During that period you can't get on distracting websites because it blocks them. As soon as your period is done it gives a signal and you can have your break. It is based on the ideas behind the Pomodoro Technique, a time management method which I highly recommend.
This is my favorite extension! It's the note-taking application where I keep my to do list, projects lists, record list and many other things. The reason why I find this so superb is because it functions offline as well as online. Next to that it integrates and synchronizes seamlessly with Google Docs, where I keep the rest of my documents. The problem with Google Docs is that you can't work on your documents, only see them, when you're offline. However with this extension that problem is something of the past. I can not recommend this highly enough to everyone. Simplicity at its best!
That's it for now. Who knows which other extensions I'll use in the future. I'll try to keep you up to date on that. If you by any chance have another extension that you use to increase your productivity and wish to share, than certainly let me know!
Planes: Top
Explanation: The same movement as the regular rotor only above your head. Be careful with this one in the beginning. Getting a staff on your head can be pretty painful. The lower you keep your staff, the easier it will be to perform this rotor.
Planes: Back
Explanation: Try to keep your staff straight when doing this. A trick that helps me a lot when doing this is to keep a finger or two around the center of the staff and spin the staff around them. Look at the close up view to see what I mean.
I'm putting everything from my old blog on to this blog, so here are the entries I made there. My apologies to the English speaking crowd, these entries are in Dutch. ;)
De eerste dag
Ik ben in Overijse geraakt! :) Onderweg schone landschappen en bossen tegengekomen. Nu alleen nog zo slim zijn om daar foto's van te trekken...
Pfiew, ik voel het nu toch wel dat ik een kleine 25 kilometer heb gestapt met een volgeladen rugzak. Ik ben enorm blij dat ik de volgende dagen wat minder kilometertjes moet doen, want mijn spieren moeten recupereren. Ik zit hier nu bij Jelle, supervriendelijke kerel, die al serieus wat ervaring heeft met CouchSurfing, zowel surfen als hosten.
In Waterloo aangekomen
Gisteren was ik in Braine-L'alleud, bij een ex-huisgenootje, blijven slapen. Dank u, B.! :) Ik was naar Brussel gestapt (de laatste honderden meters waren echt moordend voor mijn benen!) waar het normaal gezien de bedoeling was dat ik zou blijven slapen, maar door onvoorziene omstandigheden zijn we dan naar Braine-L'alleud gegaan. Was wel een goede meevaller, gezien dat mijn reis naar Waterloo inkortte.
Ondertussen ben ik in Waterloo aangekomen. Heel leuke vrouw die mij nu host. Al verhalen gehoord over haar vroegere hond en wat een deugnietenstreken dat die uithaalde. Bijvoorbeeld een stoel naar de koelkast schuiven om de kerststronk die erboven op staat te verorberen. Ik moest aan onze Floris denken daardoor. Schrander beestje.
Heb ze ook al alle voordelen van Ubuntu laten zien ten op zichte van Windows (haar laptop is nogal traagjes). Ik raad het altijd aan aan iedereen trouwens! ;)
De leeuw nog niet gezien. Ook geen idee of ik de tijd ga hebben om hem te zien, want moet morgen naar Braine-Le-Comte stappen. Dat is wel iets wat ik spijtig vind. Dat het allemaal zo snel gaat. Ik heb precies geen tijd om de mensen en de plaats wat beter te leren kennen. Veel tijd om op de blog te schrijven is er ook niet. Ook nog niet de kans gehad om foto's te uploaden. Het is aankomen, eten, babbelen, slapen, computer, eten en hup, terug weg. Nogal gejaagd. Misschien moet ik toch een dagje extra incalculeren per host? Dan gaat het wel natuurlijk veel langer duren om te arriveren in Parijs, laat staan Compostela. Ik zal wel zien hoe de volgende dagen verlopen.
La Grande Cense
Gisteren vertrokken bij Irene and Dominic (of Dominique?). Heel interessante gesprekken nog gehad die avond. Meer te weten gekomen over de geschiedenis van België en zelfs Leuven door Dominic. Hij lijkt me een heel intelligente kerel te zijn. Hij is momenteel bezig met research over Danté's boek, met name de mathematiek ervan. Moeilijk om uit te leggen, maar zeer interessant! Heb hem ook laten zien hoe ik in zekere zin met hetzelfde bezig ben, maar dan voor de anatomie van de mens.
Irene heeft ook wat meer uitgelegd over haar werk. Ze is een soort van tussenpersoon tussen vrijwilligers en organisaties die met vrijwilligers werken. Nog nooit van gehoord, gezien wij dat naar mijn weten niet echt hebben in Vlaanderen.
De tocht naar Clabecq (Tubize) ging redelijk makkelijk, hoewel ik toch wat moet oppassen met mijn achillespees.
In Clabecq aangekomen, waar ik gehost word door een koppeltje, Katrien en Jasper, dat woont in een co-housing project, La Grande Cense genoemd. Ik vind het echt super hier! Meer hierover wanneer ik ben aangekomen in mijn volgende stop.
La Grande Cense is een co-housingproject in Clabecq. Meer info vind je op hun website
Onderweg naar Neufvilles
In Braine-le-Comte spijtig genoeg geen foto's gemaakt. Naar Neufvilles zou een lange tocht worden van over de 20 km. Ik vreesde echt dat ik het niet ging halen met mijn achillespezen. Uiteindelijk is het verrassend vlot gegaan!
Neufvilles
In Neufvilles aangekomen rond de avond. Het had wel iets, zo in het donker wandelen, maar langs een autobaan stappen is wel een stuk gevaarlijker. In Neufvilles word ik warm onthaald door Viviane.
Onderweg naar Mons
En hup, terug onderweg. Deze keer iets vroeger vertrokken, maar het zal toch donker zijn wanneer ik in Mons aan kom.
In Mons
In Mons aangekomen met serieuze pijn aan mijn achillespezen. Hier ben ik een langere tijd gebleven om te herstellen, een drietal dagen. Ik had een supervriendelijke vrouw als host, Roseline genaamd. Ze is kunstenares. Ze maakt hoeden en weeft. Ze spreekt ook Esperanto en heeft me zover gekregen dat ik het ook wil leren! :D
Onderweg naar Valenciennes
Na een avondje bij Pierre en zijn vriendin te verblijven (en het verslavende spelletje 'Jungle speed' gespeeld te hebben), die ochtend vroeg terug vertrokken naar Valenciennes.
In Valenciennes
In Valenciennes ben ik een paar dagen gebleven bij Patrick omdat mijn benen weer serieus pijn deden. Qua hosts vinden is het ook een pak moeilijker omdat de steden in Frankrijk een pak verder uit elkaar liggen.
Back in Mons!
Haha, terug in Mons! :D Na een paar dagen Valenciennes heb ik besloten om even terug te gaan naar Mons om daar een langere tijd te blijven. Dit om verschillende redenen:
Om mijn benen eens helemaal te laten recupereren.
Om Mons wat verder te verkennen, want het is echt een aangename stad!
Om wat meer hosts te vinden in Frankrijk.
Om mijn internetconnectie op mijn gsm terug in orde te krijgen, want die was weg in Frankrijk. Redelijk irritant als je je GPS gebruikt om je weg te vinden.
Om terug wat makkelijker vegetarisch eten te vinden, want dat was heel moeilijk in Valenciennes.
