Day 9: Time For a Break!

Day 9, 5/17/09:

This morning we got up early and packed up a ridiculous number of suitcases, trunks, and other paraphernalia, along with the horses of course, loaded it up in the giant green lorrie and drove to Henk Norin's farm just outside of Liege, Belgium. We are spending ten days here to train the horses and rest up for the next competition in Reims, France starting on May 26th. The farm is absolutely spectacular! The huge brick house was built in the 1700s as a hunting lodge, and the barn and other buildings were completed about five years ago when Henk and his wife, Nicole, and three daughters moved to the 75-acre property. It is truly picturesque, complete with a beautiful field to ride in, roomy paddocks for the horses, both indoor and outdoor rings with all-weather footing, a hot walker and roundpen, and a riding track, all of which is surrounded by beautiful trees and flowers.

Unfortunately, this beautiful setting's one snag is that we are truly in the middle of nowhere. After unpacking and letting the horses settle in, all the riders and grooms were very hungry, so we headed to the "town" to find food. I use quotation marks because this town is most accurately described as a few houses with one or two European versions of fast food restaurants and, luckily, one supermarket. After getting lost (what else is new?) Nick very wisely got out of the car and asked a local woman where to find the supermarket. With the woman's help, the group successfully found the market and ravenously pillaged the food aisles because no one had eaten all day! After this shopping trip, we searched for a restaurant to eat dinner at which proved to be a difficult task. First, we walked into a place we thought was a restaurant but, with Claire's French skills to help us, we quickly discovered that it was a bar that did not serve any food. The bartender pointed us in the direction of the only two restaurants in the whole town: a sandwich shop and a pizza place, both of which could be considered European fast food, meaning they are not sit down restaurants but the food still takes about an hour to arrive. It almost makes a hungry American miss McDonald's!

Finally, everyone was fed and we settled into the apartments on the farm we are living in for the next week and a half. This feels like a vacation!

- Jen and Taylor