25 May ’04, Tuesday. A “Day Off”… actually, I’m going to have to change the name of Day Off to “Work Like Hell Day”…it is more realistic. The one good thing is we normally sleep in a little later, but otherwise, we start tearing everything apart, pull out the laundry, wash the van, pull down the luggage and sort through it to see if there is a chance that you have something you haven’t worn yet or was put away dirty (what me???). After we got the laundry all sorted and we headed up to the machines, we found that they were already in use. The manager told us it would probably be at least 3 before we could get our stuff in so, we lugged it all back to the van. While we waiting, we decided to take a walk toward the Abbey. The manager made a phone call for us and set it up so we could get a tour of the Abbey in the morning. So we wanted to test how long it might take to walk it. After a 2 hour walk to the Abbey and town, we made it back to do our washing. Oh yes, I had lifted a large bag and it caught my sunglasses and took one of the lenses out and twisted the frame. While on our walk we came across a great little optical shop and they jumped right in and fixed them just like new. Wouldn’t you know it but, they wouldn’t take any money for it….great people here in Belgium. Now, back to the laundry…it turns out that the machines that we had been waiting for hadn’t been in use after-all…but we could use them now… We have found that every campground has a completely different pair of washer and dryer systems that keep you guessing as to how to make them work. It’s not because we haven’t used a washer and dryer before but… It would really help if the instructions were written in ENGLISH. Wouldn’t that make everything better? Right !! Well, back to reality. It seems that the washing cycle takes 1 ½ hours for each load and the drying cycle takes 2 ½ hours for each load. We finished (actually pulled the load out before finishing) just after 11pm…our bed time. The final load that we pulled early included our sheets from the bed. Somewhat dry but, somewhat damp as well,… we put them on and went to bed. What can I say? Tomorrow…. Abbey tour.