Sick

Yesterday Alistair and I had another encounter with the fabulous US Healthcare system, this time in the form of Kaiser Permanente. One thing is blatantly obvious from this brief encounter: while Kaiser may advertise "Thrive," their more correct slogan is "Pay or perish." It is so interesting to contrast this brief encounter with the one John had while in Tongeren. Not only was ours much more complex, much more draining and much more expensive -despite the fact that John had no insurance and we do-, but Kaiser also made it plain that they really don't care about our well-being unless we pay.

Here are some more pictures from the kermis koers at Geluveld. If it seems as if the pictures trickle in, note that my iPhone-iPhoto sync is out of whack and getting pictures out is now a real challenge. No more plug and play here.
Before the start:

Alex was nervous for his first race in Belgium

The corner, 'tHoekske

Top of the climb

The finish

Beernem kermis koers

Today we went to Beernem to race a kermis koers using our new wheels:

"Team car"

The race was a 77 km squarish "loop" of 7.7 km. The roads were wide -except the backstretch where it went through the woods- and smooth but there were lots of islands and traffic obstacles. This made for an "exciting" few laps with lots of crashes and a few angry parents. 139 people started but pretty soon the pack was down to 100 or so. There were premies/ primes on every lap so there was quite a bit of excitement and sprinting going on but overall the pace was not excessive (1:55 total time). The one and two person breaks never got further away than 20 seconds.

Addison before the start

Alex adjusting his glasses

John taking a nap. He was under the weather today

The weather was warm but overcast. For a while it looked like it might rain but it never did. The guys did well except Addison who got caught behind a crash and flipped over his bike into the scenery. Apart from some nettle stings he was Ok though. But once again his race was cut short and that left him pretty disappointed.

Beernem finish :



John ended up in 63rd and Alex in 67th so they were "out of the money,"even though the race paid 50 deep. After the race we stopped by a frituur on the road to Oudenaarde and had frieten en brochetten (fries and kebabs).

Frieten a piece of Belgicana

For the birds

While everyone is eagerly awaiting tomorrow's Milano-Sanremo or the equally famous Tobacco Road Marathon, I want to draw your attention to two other Belgian sports -although there is at least some doubt as to whether one of them is really a "sport"- that are commonly associated with the kermis. This just to show you that there is more to the kermis than the kermiskoers.

The first and legally most controversial -there is at least one legal precedent establishing that it is not a sport- is the duivensport (literally the "pigeon sport"). In this activity, that is popular in both Belgium and the Netherlands, pigeons are boxed and driven 300-1,300 km into France or Spain before being released. Pigeon sport is in effect an adventure race that combines navigation and time trialing for pigeons. It is no walk in the park either, as pigeons fly anywhere from 60 to 130 km/h (37-80 mph).

And they are off!

The objective -for the pigeon- is to make it home and deliver a ring that is then put in a special device to time the bird. Unfortunately, duivensport is rather boring to watch and the only thing offered to the spectator is birds circling their home till while anxious owners try to lure them in and retrieve the ring. Needless to say, many birds first sprint home and then spend hours flying around their till while the owners tear out their hair and chew up their fingernails.

Vinkensport or "finch sport," on the other hand is a spectator sport, a truly exciting activity where owners sit in front of cages and count the number of songs birds produce. A legitimate song is marked on a special stick and the bird with the most songs wins the event. To get a true sense of the intensity and tension created by this event, I post the following video of a vinkenzetting at the 2010 Destelbergen kermis.