A saturday afternoon at the Boarebreker

Sofie and I sat in the Boarebreker this afternoon. This is one of the elderly homes in our city. It didn't start very well: no one at the reception and I did not bring the recommendation letter along. We took the elevator to the 4th floor - hoping to see someone there we know! No luck! Then the nurses asked us why we were there, and I had a hard time to formulate our goal. At last the guy asked me what I really wanted and I answered:"a table ... and some chairs to sit at the reception downstairs". This guy (with long hair in a ponytail) took us down again and helped us to get organised. The first person that entered the building gave us nothing, so we changed our lines a bit and started immediately with the goal: The Flemish Alzheimer League. It worked! This was a very very good afternoon! Fun part was when the guy from upstairs came back down and I went over to him and did my whole explanation again... not recognizing him, until he turned a bit and I noticed the ponytail again. Sofie was chocking with laughter, 'cause she did recognize him! A lot of people were really interested in our ride... one guy in particular who was going to make a cycling trip next summer. Some people also told us they couldn't ride along... Anyways, we thank everyone again for being so generous!

Fundraising on a saturday afternoon

The hospital AZ St. Jan campus Serruys was our goal today. Sofie and I sat at the entrance. The whole afternoon we asked people who entered to give us money - in exchange they will recieve a postcard from us while we are in the United States cycling our 2200 kilometers. We found it surprising that many people gave us money! Thanks to everyone who donated.

Sport workshops in Ensorinstituut

Friday 29th of May we held a sporting event in my school. Not too many people subscribed, but we decided to go on with the event anyways.
First of all the students of the 1st year of Middle school played some kind of softball against the teachers. The students of 1 B were the real champions: they crushed everyone! The students of 1 A did well but by now the teachers were wamed up and knew how the game iw being played at school. The teacher of English (Mr. Calcoen) was the first teacher to score a home run! The game was fun and even some of the older students from high school said "hey, this is great - we should do this also!"
From 5 pm till 9 pm we organised 3 work shops - all of them given by a teacher of the school. Just anybody could join as long as they paid 2 euro for the good cause. The first session included karate moves... some people were already 'dead' after this one. The second session let us work out on the step, aerobics, ropejumping (what a killer!) and, of course, abs! Salsa was the last session, which was rated high by everyone! I say thumbs up to all the participants and thank you for helping us raise money!

Antiques market

My street celebrates an annual "Belle Epoque" market. Most of the houses in my neighbourhood were build at that time. This year I decided to try to sell some of the stuff I never use anymore. Also, our school had a bunch of French books and an old encyclopedia which they gave me (they were too old!!). But... on May 24th I was on my way home from Barcelona (a schooltrip). So Sofie was so good to arrive early at my place. I must say: when I finally arrived just after noon (from a night sleeping on the bus), I found her sitting there looking rather cold. The sun just started to appear and it was finally getting warmer. We had a good time looking at people passing by or just counting how much our neighbour was eating...I had some old books of Physical Education out - it looked rather silly, but at least two persons were interested in teh book "Learning how to Swim". We had some fun trying to get rid of all the old French books... no one was interested in them. In the end we urged people to take a French book when they had bought something else. Some people found it very difficult to decide how much they wanted to give us: our rule was "we do this for the Flemish Alzheimer League, the Ensorinstituut and the Vloedlijn... You may give whatever you want to give..."
Thanks Sofie (and your mom) for sitting there in the cold morning!

Photoshoot

On the 16th of May we had an appointement with the press in front of Design Bike Shop in Oostende. It wasn't sunny at all :( but we took our pictures with Sweet Machine and Zulma, wearing my school t-shirt with the back in front.