Getting setttled.

It’s been a great first week in Europe for me. I was lucky with the whole jetlag thing and arrived in Milano feeling pretty fresh. I took the advice of trying to stay awake for the first leg into Singapore, and this seemed to work pretty well for me. So for 8 hours I just watched the movies. It’s been a few years since I’ve been on long haulflights and I’m pretty taken with the whole movies on demand thing. My very own remote control, all power to me!

Working on getting settled an finding my way around Castronno and surrounds. I now know the local cafe, pizza joint and supermarket, as well as the nearby IPER.

The IPER is a hybrid K-mart and and supermarket. It’s a soignie’s delight. Not only can I do my grocery shopping here, but I can pick up all my sundries like knives (found a beauty), plastic tubs (efficient storage is an OCD’s heaven), wash cloths, brushes and everything else to fill out a soignie’s kit.

One of the first things I did at the base was sort my way through the soignie garage. The guys who arrived the week before me had tidied everything up and put things in order. This didn’t stop me pulling a bunch of it apart just so i could see what was where. I found a couple of spare tables and stacked them up to form some makeshift shelving. Having another layer to stack things on gave me a whole bunch more room. After I added my own little touch to the garage I stood back pretty satisfied with my work, everything looked neat and accessible. With the crew here, I’m pretty sure it will stay that way, and if not, it will give me something to do on those rainy days when I’m bored and restless.

After a few days of finding my feet it was time to get ready for the trip to Flanders. We have 3 races, de Ronde van Vlaanderen Espoirs, Tour de Picardie and the ZLM tour. We head to Belgium to set up for the week, do Flanders, head to France for 2 days to do Picardie and then back to Belgium before racing ZLM in the Netherlands and back home to Castronno.

Packing up the usual stuff for a tour or racing trip, I found something that excited me, I found the perfect esky. In my favourite shade of blue, the perfect size for sitting in the race car or roadside feed station, functional for a food storage bin, rubberised and with a zip lid, I’d buy one myself if I were home! It’s always the little things in life that make me smile the most.

I have already done 3 airport runs and I’m starting to get used to the right hand side driving thing. There’s nothing like a 700km road trip across 4 nations to get the hang of it. I did have a moment where a truck drifted into my lane, and as I was sitting a bit too far to the right in the lane, we came pretty close to each other. Certainly not a vehicle you want to get into an argument with about who was drifting into whose lane. Still, not a bad way to keep you on your toes at 6am in a foreign country with 2 hours of RHS driving under your belt. By the time we arrived in Flanders, I started to get the hang of it.

I can now walk to the correct side of the car to get in, I remember which side the gear stick is, which way to reach for the seat belt and how to drive in the middle of the lane. I can even reverse park with some degree of proficiency, although would probably crack under the pressure of an audience. I did find a nice little quiet street while waiting for the boys to arrive on one of my airport runs.

So ther you have it, getting settled. But everything is still fresh enough that the Euro flavour is still fresh and exciting. The houses close to the street front, pointy roofs, the foreign accents, punters cycling about, I hope the novelty never wears off.