2.1.2018 - Finally arriving

I woke up, took a shower and went down for breakfast. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Got my stuff and checked out. I was pointed in the direction of the train station. And so, the second stage of my journey to Nieuwpoort started. When I got to the station I discovered that the only ticket machine wasn't working. Eventually, after explaining the problem to the conductor, I was able to buy a ticket from the train.

Now I was set... I was on the right train, I knew where I needed to change trains and what train to take. Though it was a bit difficult to navigate when the two languages displayed were Dutch and French. I made it to the second train and everything seemed ok. That's untill I realised that I needed to send a message to Johan so he could come and pick me up (I was going to a station 45 km away from Nieuwpoort). Now remember, I couldn't buy the prepaid card on the day before... I tried roaming, SMS, some random wifi and more but nothing worked. That's when I started asking people walking by in the train to borrow their phone. On the fourth try I was lucky, since the previous ones either didn't have a phone or were tourists... The woman who lent me their phone, as I later heard from Johan, was Dutch, so the call must have cost them quite a lot...

I got to the final station and followed the instructions Johan gave me. Managed to message him after connecting to the wifi of some tour bus.

After a while he came and picked me up. We drove to Nieuwpoort and laughed for half the trip at my misfortune. We went to quickly look at my workplace, and came to the Floreal hotel where I would be staying for a week. The check-in was only at four o'clock, so we sat down in the restaurant and went over some information regarding the work.

After coffee, I went to buy a prepaid card. I went to the beach to take some photos... Apparently swimming in the ocean is somehow crazy.. I mean it was almost 7°C, that is very nice and warm... But no.. the Belgians won't allow it.

I went to eat some pancakes and waited to get the key. The rest of the evening I unpacked and rested.