At this point I'm sitting home, 'recovering' from my two-days trip to Leuven, a small county village in Belgium near Brussel, which is mainly populated by Belgian and Dutch youth. Most of them study at the local university, which can be found in the citycentre, not far from my sleeping bag where I spend a morning in after a wild adventure in a local café.

It's thursday the 23th of October, almost 4:00 pm. After a 3 hours taking trainjourney I'm arriving at Leuven Central Station. Sounds big, but it isn't. Walking downstairs from the arrivalplatform, I find myself in a smelly tunnel. As I look to the right and the left I finally understand whats's causing the smell: Chocolate stained waffles...hundreds of them....all around me... Welcome in Belgium, the country of waffles, fries and too much beerbreweries.

Since I've been cycling a lot the last few weeks in order to prepare myself for my Tour de New Zealand, this break came at the right moment. One week before my arrival in Leuven I had my first flat tire. After cycling almost 1300km flat-tire-free, I drove my bike right in a two inch (5cm)wall grip. Flat tire instantly. Repairing my backtire wasn't an option. It was almost 7:30 pm and the air was getting darker every minute. After a desperate phonecall to the homefront, my dad came to pick me up and gave me a ride back. The next day I inspected my tire: not one hole, but there were at least 10 in my tire!! I couldn't be arsed even trying to repair it, so I installed a new one. Atleast I thought, because the next problem was a new tire which didn't fit the size of my wheel. Thank you bikerepairshop!

The following dayI went back pissed to the shop where I bought the tire. I told my story and asked them how they would feel when they stand in New Zealand with a flat tire and a reserve tire which doesn't have the right size!! Luckily they gave methe right tire without making problems.Fixing the tire around the wheel was really easy this time.

Back to Leuven. After catching up with a friend of me who lives there, we decided to go to her home first so I was able to drop my stuff and go to the toilet. Extremely important. She showed me 'her' town and some beautiful sights, like the cityhall, the univerisity library and the church which were all looking like they are made by human hands instead of machines.Last but not least we went to the great market. This last mentioned place is a great square with cafés, restaurants all over the place.

We decided to order a drink, so we found ourself a place were we could sit down. Sadly, the bargirl reminded me of the fact that I currenly was in Belgium. Asking multiple times for one beer (één bier) she still didn't understand me or she pretended like she couldn't understand me. She kept saying: 'what?' ('wablief?') with her Belgian accent! O My God, I remembered it myself: they call beer (bier) pints (pints, pintekes) in Belgium. How stupid....

After having some morefun, eating pizza and getting kicked out of the restaurant right after we finished eating ('we are full and want to serve all people who are waiting for a place to eat') we went back to my friend's crib. She already had invited some friends for the evening with who we would go out tonight. Yeah, that was the reason why I came to Leuven: to party on a thursday night, studentnight. To drink beer...sorry...pints in Belgium! Hurray for Belgium...

We started partying at around 9:00 pm and came back home at 5:00 am. What a night! Those Belgian citizens are weird, the music they play is ancient, the clothes they wear are dirty but the beer is so CHEAP! 0.5 litres for €1,50! In Holland we pay at least double for that amount of beer. Totaal money spent: €10,-. Total drank beer: 3,5 litres. And I haven't even counted the bottlesI drankbefore we went out to town....!

Mechelen, the 24th of October, 1:00 pm. I'm feeling ill. I'm having a bad hangover. My head is ticking and my stomach is like your mom's washingmachine, spinning around with 1200 rpm's. The train to Rotterdam Central Station has been cancelled. I have to wait for another houruntil the next train to Rotterdam stops in Mechelen. The station is crowded with Dutchies. All waiting for the train to Holland. They go home almost every weekend. I'm also going home but there's one difference. They look normal. Are they used to thursdaynights? Drinking so much beer every week?

A handsome girl looks into my direction. Her eyes are concentrating on my bag for at least one minute. She notices that I'm watching her. She smiles friendly at me. I smile back at her and start laughing very quiet while watching my bag. She looks confused. She tries to find out what's going on. But the pretty girlcan't find out, because shedoesn't know what's in my bag.

A beerglass. This time from Leuven, Belgium. This one will also be added to my worldwide beerglass collection. Currently excisting out beerglasses from over at least 15 countries on earth. Soon, there will be added another country. You know which one...