Almost another week has passed – we are now on the road for more than sixteen!!! days. After visiting Ternuzen we continued on to Antwerpen and Amsterdam. A lot of things happened in a very short time, I am going to start with two of the most frantic driving days.

Driving into Antwerpen was quite a chore. Horrendous traffic and road construction made finding our exchange point near an old train station rather difficult and we were stressing early that day. The handover was nicely attended, we had a nice crowd but still had to manage to somehow get back out of the city for our next exchange. Lorel “volunteered” to run the first leg out of the city and we were attempting to meet her on time approximately 10 miles outside of the city center. Everything went wrong right from the beginning, and nearly one half hour and several “near misses” later we arrived again at the exchange point at the train station – the GPS had lead us in a circle through town back to where we just had started from!!! After some frantic phone calls for directions we finally managed to get out of town and met Lorel at the exchange point – she had already finished her 10 miles…

But – so we thought – we had Jason with us as the day replacement for Rudy (who was off busy with the media), and everything was still good. Jason had just come in yesterday as an replacement or substitute runner and was eager to get his feet wet. Approximately 6 miles into his run he stepped of the curb and badly twisted his right foot. He actually managed to finished his run, but within minutes his foot was swollen and looked pretty bad. Our doc decided we had to get into Amsterdam, and Jason needed to be taken to the hospital for a check-up. In the meantime Paul and me split the remaining ~18 miles of our shift and tried to make up some time. We managed to run the distance in less than two hours total and arrived at out 9 pm exchange only about four minutes over. The exchange point was located in a residential neighborhood, and within minutes we had company from some residents which were cooking tea and bringing us cookies – what a nice way to finish our shift. However, the bad news came later when Jason (around 1;30 am) returned from the hospital: The foot was cleanly broken – what a terrible thing for him. So, after a short night we had to say Good By to Jason with great difficulty, he was going to return home after only two days with us. A stark reminder on how closely to the edge we operate and that this could happen to anyone of us at any time.

A part of that difficult day - our “day off” we spent sight seeing in Amsterdam, but time was short. By 4 pm we were back on the road on the way to Bremen, our first stop in Germany. We actually arrived at a reasonable hour (about 8:30 pm), enough time for a German welcome dinner for the team. The true welcome arrived next morning: Our van had been broken into, and our navigation computer had been stolen. Language skills were now needed, of course time for me to move in… So, the morning – and most of the rest of the day – went by with filling a police report and getting to the dealership to get the car fixed up. The cups turned quite friendly – after I handed over some BPR stickers and gave us each a small set of handcuffs – as presents! We also go a free lunch from the folks as the Mercedes dealership, and by 4 pm we were back on the road. I had to switch teams to be available in Germany during day hours, and my team went on for the night shift. The day still was not quite done yet since we had to drive to Stade for one of the Dow events next day. When we arrived at the hotel we got the call that the team van had been broken in a second time!!!!! (all just within a few hours) Dill, our big boss arrived at the hotel and first asked for a shot of vodka… Things calmed down a bit later on, but the night was short and by 4:30 am we were heading out for the exchange point. My morning run into Stade (at 6 am) was awesome, and I run the last few miles with more than 150 local runners and kids. The event in Stade was very memorable, and a great success for everybody. I was not quite finished with the day just yet, continued on to Hamburg by noon, and run the last two miles to this exchange point. We than drove to our next hotel in Berlin were I was supposed to have an early night (around midnight…). The relief was short lived since it turned out that one of my jackets was missing – and with it MY PASSPORT!!! The next hours were spent with some frantic phone calls, and by 7 am next morning I prepared myself to head over to the embassy. Just as I was about to get in the cab, Lansing and Sunila showed up holding my jacket in their hands – it had accidentally been moved together with some other items to their team van. Needless to say I immediately had to give both a big hug of relief…

The main event of the day for me was the about 9 ½ mile run to the Potzdamer Platz in the center of Berlin. The first exchange point was at a small pizza place in the Berlin suburbs. After the owners (from Lebanon) found out about BPR, they asked us for a T-shirt + running shorts for their store. I handed over one of my own sets, and everybody signed their names, countries, and wrote “Water is Life” in their native language. We took some pictures and promised to send copies to their store. Another one of -already many- great stories from the road… At 4 pm it was finally time for me. It was very hot (32 oC), a hard day for a city run. But adrenaline was up, and I got in on time and to a crowd of more than 200 people. Dot and Brynn did a terrific job on stage and the crowed as awesome. Too bad I had to move on quickly, and after only 20 minutes we were back on the road to Halle. After some food and some beers (well deserved!) I finally got to bed at around 1:30 am. The next two days turned out to be quite demanding but also pretty special. I will save the details for the next time.