Belgium Trip Day 1

Today was the first day of my three week "vacation" in Belgium. I left Houston at 3:30 yesterday afternoon for a ten hour flight to Amsterdam. I fell asleep after I was served dinner which was about 12:00 A.M. Belgium time and woke up at around 5:30 A.M. With in interesting breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs with cream spinach and spicy apple cobbler, I plugged in my earphones to finish the move on the T.V. We arrived at Amsterdam at around 7:15 A.M. to go over to gate B27 to meet with the rest of the team for our 30 minute flight to Bruge. After touching down at Bruge we all got our luggage without a problem. When we located our driver we walked into the parking lot to find a fairly large bus with USA Cycling and sponsors all over it. We all packed our luggage into the back and fought to keep our eyes open on the way to Izegem due to the fact that it was around 1:00 in the morning back in the U.S. After unloading all of our stuff into the rooms the six of us, along with the coach's 20 year old son, went for an easy 1 hour spin on the S-Works Specialized Bikes that we were supplied with. The riding in Belgium is WAY different than in the U.S. The roads are extremely skinny where only 3 riders, at the most, could ride side by side. The cars, with the exception of one or two, were extremely friendly and would drive off the road just so we could pass. We got back from the ride to find an extremely good meal made by Els, the wife/"mom" of the house. As I sat down at the table I found myself sitting next to none other than Danny Summerhill. When we finished dinner Tim Redus, the 15-16 Camp Director) gave us a "debriefing" on tomorrow and the race that we have. We don't really know the course yet, but it is a flat 68.8 KM Local Race. Ill keep y'all posted on how I do. Also, special thanks to Northwest Cycling Club for helping be able to afford this awesome trip and also to Optimist International.