It is hard to believe – we are now on the road for more than eleven!!! days. The following is a summary from my daily personal notes – the only way to keep track of the most memorable happenings during our busy days of running and traveling…

Last time I finished with leaving NYC, so I will begin with our arrival in Shannon, Ireland. The flight over to Europe was quite uneventful – a welcome break from the rather stressful first days. We arrived in Shannon on time, met our European road crew and spend the first night in the famous town of Limerick. We started our way through Ireland directly outside the airport in Shannon, and Paul as the local hero took the BPR on the road in Ireland. Later we drove to Dublin, and left our hotel right away for some photo and video shooting in the city. Paul and me ran (probably 20 times!!!) back and forth across one of the foot bridges over the river before everything “looked ok…” and we were free to have some dinner. Next morning we ran from St. Paul’s Church in the center of Dublin out the docks for the ferry to Wales. We got (briefly) lost in the crowded streets in the center of Dublin, and got some curious looks from the pedestrians…

The 2 1/2 ride on the ferry was quite nice, and we arrived in late afternoon on the British mainland – Wales, to be more politically correct. We then continued on to the town of Shrewsberry where we spent the night and in the morning got on the road towards London. The roads through the English countryside were beautiful, but dangerously narrow without any place to spare on either side. So, in some of the quite hilly and narrow sections I had to step off the road a few times and lean into the hillside, just to get out of the way. The folks along the way were very friendly, and even at some of the exchange points out in the country side we had some friendly encounters. One of the exchange points was located at a small gas station, and when we left everyone was wearing a BPR T-shirt and sticker. Another team told us that after they asked for directions in a small town, the local postman actually drove them to the place they were looking for. On June 7 we made it into London, with a main exchange point at Trafalgar Square. Paul run the last part into London with his daughter, a very nice moment for everybody.

In the afternoon we made our way to the ferry in Dover and left the UK at 4:30 pm for Calais in France. We continued to drive on to Boulogne, a very historical place in France with a pretty major castle. Fortunately Laurel speaks French, and we had no problems “getting to know” some of the locals later that night, and a few bottles of Boudreaux later even I considered changing my mind about French hospitality… Next day we had a full 40 mi on the road – starting out with a bit of an headache… We started out in Abbeville, a historically rather infamous place where more than 2000 protestants were burned by radical Cathlics in the 16th century. The big cathedral is still there. The night of that day we spent at the outskirts of Paris – driving into the city was a nightmare, and at the hotel I (almost) considered reversing my new appreciation for French hospitality. On Saturday we were on the road through the beautiful French country side, and we passed through several small villages on our way to Belgium. I run the last leg on that day, and in Pierrefounds we passed by a MASSIVE castle – one of the biggest I have ever seen in that good of a shape.

Day 10 has finally arrived – I considered this day as a bit of a bench mark, for the initial part of the trip. Things have been going rather well so far, although a few folks had already some issues relating to the lack of sleep, and improper rest. We had an alternate runner arriving today – Jason – and invited him in to join our team for a while. We were scheduled to run out of Brussels today – another terrible city to drive in. The day was pretty hot, we had a good turnout at the exchange point, and met some of the Dow folks from Europe. In the evening we drove out to Ternuzen to participate in the local Dow events for the weekend. Rudy as the local from the Netherlands was the man of the hour. A lot of kids participated in the event which turned out to be a great success for everybody. Not much rest (like everywhere else), and we were on our way to Antwerpen. We had some interesting encounters that day, but I am going to leave this for the next time.