Belgium and Stuff

Last weekend I went to Liege, Belgium to watch Caleb race in the historic Liege-Bastogne-Liege. It was a great race to go to not only because it is an incredibly famous, classic race but also because I was able to meet up with Caleb’s father Alex and his friend Mark. It’s always great to watch a race with people who know more than you do about cycling! And of course spending time with Alex is always great. I have fantastic in-laws…just sayin.

I need to spend a moment describing my travel experience because it was kind of epic for a one-night trip. I got up before it was light and made the 20 min walk to the train station in the dark, boarded the train for Barcelona, switched trains to go the airport, took a flight to Charleroi, Brussels, took a bus to the train station, took a train to Liege. I didn’t know which stop to get off at in Liege, so I asked the guy next to me for help. He ended up walking me to the taxi pool (unluckily further away than I was hoping, but thank goodness for kind, not-creepy strangers) and I took a taxi to the hotel. LONG day, and I had to ask for help and directions at almost every stop. I was really relieved to meet up with Alex and Mark, who had a rental car, and just tag along and not make any decisions for the rest of the time.

Watching the race was really cool, it was just such a big, exciting event to be at. It was definitely the biggest race I’ve been to so far. We watched the start of the race in the city center, drove through the beautiful Ardennes and watched the race go by on a climb, and then went to the finish and watched the rest of the race on a megatron. It was a great ending, I hope you were able to catch it on verses (if you like cycling) because it was super exciting. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good day for Caleb because he was really exhausted from a hard schedule. But it was still so cool to be there to support him at his first time at the Ardenne Classics. He’ll be back 😉

After the race we all made late flights back to Spain. We spent Monday and Tuesday showing Alex and Mark around. It felt like we spent most of our time eating (a good choice in girona!) but the guys got some good rides in as well. Alex even took us all to Can Roca, the 2nd best restaurant in the world right now. It was an incredible experience, albeit a bit over our heads haha! But we had an awesome time together with lots of laughing. Can’t wait to show pictures of that crazy food.

Caleb has been recovering the rest of this week, so we haven’t done a whole lot. And now we’re actually getting ready to head back to the US on Monday! I can’t believe how fast this first stint in Spain has gone by. It wasn’t even long enough to get properly homesick. But we’re really excited to see family and friends, and eat Chipotle…oh yeah. I have great pictures of all of this, but I took them on my real camera (instead of my phone) and the camera cord happens to be in CO. I’ll post them soon!