Edward Walsh: Navigating foreign lands
The worst part of the European experience is paying to use the public restrooms
Belgium is starting to feel like a second home to me. I have now spent two full months in Belgium in 2016. When living in the Tielt-Winge house and training on the roads it feels familiar. I have a bubble around Tielt that I feel I know but outside of that it is all still undiscovered country. When we travel to races, I am so quickly reminded that I am in a foreign land. The different languages and different cultures that you can see just at a bike race are amazing. Every race we go to has teams from all over Europe and the world. The Nations Cups bringing out riders from 25 different countries.
RELATED:Â Riding the Maratona dles Dolomites
For us English speaking Canadians though, there are definitely some struggles that come with traveling around different countries and speaking different languages. Simple tasks such as getting coffee or picking up groceries can sometimes be made a bit more difficult, I’ll use hand gestures or my broken French and hope people will understand what I am asking. It is amazing in Belgium how it seems that most people can speak two languages fluently, Flemish and French, and some can speak English on top of that. I often feel embarrassed that I cannot speak more than one language and really wish I did French immersion back in school.
Having the language barrier can be a real problem sometimes as well. When I was bitten by the dog a few weeks ago while in Luxembourg, the owner of the dog did not speak any English. I was able to communicate enough with him to get to a local doctor who spoke English and Flemish. I was able to sort everything out that day but it was not easy and I was a bit panicked the whole time.
RELATED: Edward Walsh:Â Executing the plan
Traveling in Europe is also completely different to back home in Canada. Without our GPS and local mechanic, we would be completely lost as European roads are not tourist friendly. Though the travel distances are relatively small, the time it takes to get anywhere here is mind boggling. Case in point, our estimated time to get to Berlin was a little over six hours, Â we ended up spending 10 hours in our little van, including coming to a standstill outside of Frankfurt.
The worst part of the European experience is paying to use the public restrooms. I barely ever have change on me, especially when I am in a hurry. Europe may still feel quite foreign but I really do love it here. The culture is amazing, the way towns sprawl all over the country and how each is unique in their own way. There is history around every corner and that is something that really interests me. I do sometimes forget how lucky I am to have the opportunity to race my bike all over the world. In the future, if I can make a living riding my bike, you can bet I will be living here.
