23rd of February, 2022.
While I am waiting for Maria to finish her shift, she brings me some dinner! How nice! It is from the Hostel, the left overs of what they cooked for the teenager’s group staying here. It is pasta with a vegetarian sauce! I love it! Maria also print a map of how can I walk from here to her house. She has her bike with her, so I will leave about half an hour earlier than her, so we can arrive more or less in the same time.
At her house I meet Coco! I don’t really remember her breed but she is super fit and looks like a hunting dog. She is dark brown, quite big and super sweet! She is so cute! I love her immediately, of course. She is so kind and playful, like (perhaps) all dogs should be. And she is big too! Maria’s house is so lovely, and also it is big! I stay in a guestroom.
I have a great night of sleep. In the morning, we go for a walk in a forest nearby. Maria is going for a run and I can take the chance to visit a castle there. The Ryckevelde Park is absolutely amazing! It is huge and lovely, with many paths and walks to go around. It is surrounded by trees and wild life. And there is also the castle, which is now a cafe, for you to take a look.
When we come back home, me and Maria have some breakfast. Maria is such a lovely soul! The type of person I would love to be friends with. We chat a little bit over breakfast, but unfortunately I have to keep going and she will take lovely Coco for a walk.
I ask for a piece of cardboard for my sign and she gives me a marker! Yay! She also gives me some more pasta and sauce from last night. Lunch! We leave her place at the same time, but she is taken Coco for a walk in the Park while I take my way towards my hitchhiking spot.
When I sit down to write my sign at the gas station, a lovely lady stop by for gas, and when she reads my sign, she asks me if I want her to drop me nearer the E40 to Brussels. She seems so lovely that I definitely say yes.
Ahanna leaves nearby that road. She has travelled a bit but also has plans of going to Brazil and Canada, for example.
The place where Ahanna drops me is great, and in five minutes a guy offers to drive me until Gent. Me and Gent again! I have a feeling that he is not a great person, but I know I can get in the car with him. To prove me right, after a few ordinary questions, he asks me how do I do about sex, because if I don’t have a boyfriend or a husband, it must be difficult. Loki, help me! I answer shortly and direct, to let him know I am not to be played with. And he behaves pretty well after that. He drops me in a huge gas station.
The gas station is so big that for the first 20 seconds, I am a bit confuse about to whom should I ask. There is so many people! Dimitri is waking around smoking a cigarette, and after I have asked to a few people, I decide to ask him. He tells me he is going in that direction so he can take me there. Yay!
Dimitri is a charming and tall man, very well dressed and with a huge marriage ring. He tells me about his family, his kids, his travels and his plans. It is incredible how you can get to know someone, a completely stranger, so well in only 30 minutes driving. He tells me about his believes about what time is the best time for you to have kids, for example. He and his wife had them a bit later than most of people, and now he thinks that it would be better if they had them earlier. Just a though, of course.
We make a plan of where he will drop me off. It is in a gas station, just around the corner from E40, but to the right, towards Lennik, the next town before Gaasbeek Castle. But once we get there, he checks the map and when he sees it is less than 10 Km driving to Lennik, he offers to drive me there. At first I kindly refuse, because I don’t want to drive him out of his way. But when he says it is totally fine and he has the time for it, I accept. Yay!
Around 13.30 we arrive in Lennik.
I first go to the church. It is open but I cannot find anyone inside. I sit in a bench and have my vegetarian pasta for lunch followed by one chocolate waffle. A cheap one, from Delhauze, not the ones they are charging 7€ in the towns! Absurd!
I ask a lady in the streets if she know the house where the pastor or the nuns live. She tells me to follow her. In a few blocks we are there.
I talk with a lovely elderly sister, Christel, and tell her my story. She tells me she need to talk with someone else, but the lady will be back only at 5 p.m. It almost 3 o’clock now. So I tell her I want to walk to Gaasbeek Castle and by the time I am back, the lady will also probably be back. I also ask her if I can leave my backpack here for the time. She kindly say yes.
The walk to the castle is very charming. The sky is looking gorgeous, a strong blue full of fatty and fluffy clouds. I am only following some road signs, but when I feel a bit uncertain because of the absence of more signs, I knock in a house door and ask for directions. A very nice lady tells me how to proceed. It is easy peezy and in about 20 minutes I arrive in the castle.
Important note: if you are walking from Lennik, when you pass the chapel in Gaasbeek village, soon enough you will arrive to a sign saying “Parking 500 m” and pointing for you to keep straight. But because you are walking, you can take a short cut, kind of, to another entrance. Take the right at the sign, and walk in the road until a path to your left, which crosses in between two ponds. That will lead you to one of the gates of the castle, which will be open until 8 p.m. After crossing the path, you will find a map of how to go around. You can take the steps up on your left if you want to go first directly to the castle, or take a nice long walk to your right, towards some nice ponds and a small white chapel, and from there you can find your way to the castle. You can have some good views of the castle in these walks.
Alright, the castle! It is so pretty! Oh! I don’t understand some people who wrote something about not being worth it to see it. OK, I understand that right now it is under restoration, so you cannot take a great photograph from the front, or visit the museum inside. But still, it is so nice, it looks so old and medieval. Plus, the whole area is enjoyable for a long walk in nature. I absolutely love it and I am very happy that I decided to come here!
I pass in front a bakery on my way back, near to the nuns house, and I decide that, if they don’t allow me to stay there, I will come back here and ask for some bread.
They say yes! I can stay! Yay! Oh! the room is so nice, cozy and clean! And there is a bathroom! Shower! Sister Christel tells me she will bring me some dinner and we arrange for tomorrow morning she can also bring me some breakfast around 7.30, just before she leaves to a funeral, at 8 o’clock.
Oh, boy, I am so happy! Do I deserve all this kindness? Am I just so lucky for keep finding these wonderful and helpful people everywhere I go?
