Week 53 - April 11-17

As the weather warms up and the days get longer, Antwerp and Belgium come alive. The city must spend a lot of money to constantly organize different events every weekend. This fun season officially started for us with a weekend in April.

We are constantly on the lookout for concerts to attend in Europe. Antwerp itself has many quality acts coming through town, and then there are many cities close by that attract even more must-see performances. However, despite constantly coming across shows we would love to go to, the tickets always seem to be sold out. And unlike 'Merica, there is no official re-sell market like Stub Hub in Europe. So, long story short we haven't made it to many concerts.  This winding narrative all leads up to us seeing a poster proclaiming that the Dixie Chicks were coming to Antwerp. We figured we'd never be able to get tickets, but they must give Tennesseans preferential treatment for county music shows (also, it seems concert sales are a bit down in Belgium at the moment).  At any rate, we scored tix and got to spend a lovely evening with our good friends the Dixie Chicks. It was the opening show of their European tour, so there were a few bugs to be worked out, but they made up for it with energy. It had been almost 15 years since Tyler had last seen the Chicks in concert, and he says they still got it. It was a fun show with a mix of their rockier sounding tunes set to high-tech visuals, and their more acoustic and exposed vocal pieces set to a low-tech white backdrop. And don't worry, Natalie Maines has still got plenty of sass despite being publicly disowned by the country music community in the early 2000's for her comments against then president George W.  Between songs she worked in a few Trump jabs, mocked the whole state of Florida, and shamed us for not standing up and dancing to every song.  All in all, it was a fun night.  We sang along to our favorite songs and had a few laughs that we felt were meant just for us as the Americans in the audience. While it certainly wasn't the band we would have expected to say this about, the Dixie Chicks were a great first-concert-in-Europe experience.

Big crowd for the Chicks

Now, the timing of this concert was not the best.  The very next day, we had to get up and run the furthest either of us has ever run in our lives.  Antwerp hosts a 10 mile race every year in April.  Yes, we also find it strange that the race distance is promoted in miles, but at least we could easily understand how far it was (too far).  The event attracts some 40,000 participants, and it effectively shuts down the city for the day.  Last year, we hadn't been in Antwerp too long when the race was run, and after seeing the crowds, we had then tentatively decided that we should see what all the fuss was about.  We didn't make our decision to run official until January, when we started a regimented training program.  Over the next 4 months, there were many moments of "I don't want to get up early to run" or "it is too cold to run" or "can't we eat ice cream instead of running," but we are proud to say that we stuck to the training for the most part.  In the end, all of the pain and reduced ice cream intake were worth it for a very memorable race experience and for new personal 10 mile records. The race course took a full tour of Antwerp on both sides of the river.  The streets were lined with people cheering us on.  There were many memorable moments.  We saw a group of friends/family helping a friend in a wheelchair complete the race.  A group of firemen in full uniform and equipment ran the race without a complaint to be heard.  Finally, we shuffled across the finish line exactly at our goal time.  We truly enjoyed the experience.  We might even do it again next year.

The crowded starting line

Molly was nervous... Tyler looks more excited!?!?

Running on the highway into the tunnel

We finished!

It was that kind of special weekend Antwerp can deliver.  We really felt like a part of the city.  And we even got our names in the newspaper (at the bottom of the 28th page of the sports section).