Week 2 August 12 – 15

August 12

Today we biked into Düsseldorf to spend a few days with the Giouvanitskas family. We rode from Ingrid’s house in the morning after a beautiful breakfast spread and arrived in Düsseldorf around 2PM.

Yonis, Ilias and Anke took us out for Greek food in the evening and told us that the best Greek food we will ever have would be at that restaurant in Germany. So far it is living up to our expectations.

We have always heard that beer is a big part of German culture, but we never guessed it was this big. At the Greek restaurant alone we had 15 beers and 5 shots between the five of us.

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August 13

Today was the big tour of Cologne and Düsseldorf. We learned that dusseldorf and cologne residents do not mix. In cologne we went to the döm and to the love bridge and to McDonald’s, because according to Yonis that’s the only good parts of cologne.

The part of Cologne that we saw was amazing. We went to the top of the döm and looked over the city, and we walked over the love bridge and looked at the powerful Rhine River. Also McDonald’s was cool.

Düsseldorf was a bit bigger of a tour as it was their home town and their preferred town. We explored the old town and stopped at some breweries for ‘alt’ beer, which means Dark Beer. And we walked along the busy Rhine River restaurant stretch.

We also went to the top of the cell tower in Düsseldorf and saw for tens of miles. We were able to point out the döm in cologne from Düsseldorf.

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August 14

Today was my birthday and my grandmas birthday!

We left Düsseldorf today, but not before being treated to an all you can eat breakfast buffet for my birthday.

We ended up in Susteren, NL today. We got to camp pretty late because we stayed in Düsseldorf until 1PM. The classic Netherlands campground was very nice to come back to for sure.

I finally patched my sleeping pad too, so now I can have full sleeps without waking up to reinflate my pad.

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August 15

We left camp around 11 today and I ended up riding the first 15 miles alone because Henry wanted to stay to make an Instagram post, so we decided we’d meet in Belgium. There wasn’t even any recognition of a border going into a Belgium, you just cross a river and you’re there. The home country of Jupiler’s

The border town was really pretty with lots of walking streets.

I biked about 10 miles past the border to a roadside ice cream shop to wait for Henry, who showed up about an hour later. Then we bike to the campsite I picked out. This campsite is €30 a night and super fancy. With a pool, water slides, restaurant etc all at our disposal. We spent the night swimming and then went to the restaurant for a cheap dinner and then went to bed. We may stay another night due to rain, and the campsite in general.