So I wasn’t having much luck calling Westvleteren — I’d be embarrassed to tally up all the time I spent dialing over and over, getting a variety of busy signals.  But finally, I got through.  The process of making a reservation was very quick and easy — you tell them your license plate number, and pick one of three days available to come pickup.  I’d read online that they will sometimes be flexible for out-of-country visitors, but that wasn’t the case for me.  So the call was over in about a minute.  Only then did it really hit me that I had pretty much given up on getting through, and was now very excited to finally have a reservation.

The drive out to Westvleteren went very smoothly.  I’d made the drive before, so I knew pretty much where I was going (and I had a GPS to help me once I got off the highway and had to navigate the last few crazy miles of twisty, narrow roads right around the abbey).  The flat, green fields rolled by, punctuated with windmills both ancient and modern.  My route took me through historic towns I’d heard about in school, like Antwerp, Ghent, and Ypres.

I got to Westvleteren around noon and had a small lunch at the abbey’s cafe, In De Vrede. It was still more than an hour until my pickup time, so I decided that I’d do the recommended 7km walk around the abbey, even though it was a little windy and overcast.  We’d done the first part of the walk last time, down a nice tree-lined lane to a little grotto shrine at the corner of the abbey property.  Then the path led through some woods and out to the fields beyond.  Of course by now the wind had picked up and it had started to rain.  But I pressed on, and the wind blew harder and harder until it was literally blowing my hat off my head and down the street.  Nobody else was in sight, except a large black dog (looked like an American bulldog, but I’m really not up on my Belgian dog breeds).  I fought back a brief moment of panic when I thought about what would happen if he attacked me out here in the middle of nowhere with no one around, and just ignored him and walked past.

After completing the circuit, the Westvleteren beer shop was open and a few cars had already pulled in.  I asked if I had to wait for my scheduled time, and they told me I could come right then.  So I pulled up and found a stack of empties and a couple stacks of Westy 8, all in their traditional wooden crates.  I tossed my two crates in my trunk, and headed inside to the counter to pay my €96.  That’s obviously pretty expensive, but it’s about 1/7th the price you see in shops (and I’ve never seen a whole case, let alone two, in a shop).  And 10 minutes later, I was on my way home.

The trip back was a lot less fun.  It rained most of the way, and there was a gnarly accident two cars ahead of me.  I didn’t see how it happened, I just saw a little hatchback slide out from around the front of a semi, completely sideways, still zooming down the freeway at 120kph (75mph).  Luckily, everybody was able to stop and I don’t think there were any secondary accidents.  And the little hatchback was able to drive off.  The traffic was heavy pretty much the rest of the way home, but luckily just in the ordinary, boring way.

So, we are now the proud owners of two crates of Westy 8.  I look forward to getting the crates and as many of the bottles as possible home.  On a purely objective level, I have to admit it’s a little ridiculous to drive to the next country and spend almost €100 on a couple cases of beer.  But I have to admit it was a pretty entertaining experience.  And the beer really is quite good.

So I’ve enjoyed being able to find Westvleteren beer at Bert’s Bierhuis in Utrecht.  It’s a lot less than you have to pay on Ebay in the US, but still not cheap.  So I’ve been calling Westvleteren each time they have an open slot.  So far: no luck.

Their phone lines are constantly busy.  My cell phone can’t call international numbers (haven’t figured out how to navigate the Dutch phonetree to turn that on).  And Westvleteren doesn’t allow anonymous numbers, so Skype is out.  So my only option is my landline, which is a phone that I think is older than I am, with clunky buttons and no redial, currently on a short cord in the living room, with a wobbly base sliding around as I try to punch in the, by now memorized, 12-digit phone number for Westvleteren (00 32 70 21 00 54, at least I don’t have to dial all those zeroes on a rotary dial phone).

To relieve the monotony, I get a couple of different kinds of busy signal.  About half the time, I get a busy signal right away.  The other half of the time, it rings for a bit and then gives me a busy signal (I wonder whether these are the times when a bunch of people are all trying at the same time, and some other lucky bastard gets through instead of me).  Occasionally, I misdial because the phone is sliding around or I don’t get the buttons pushed all the way down.  But the result is always the same: busy signal.

So next weekend, I think we’re going to just drive out there and see what there is to see.  I’ve seen blog and forum posts saying their cafe sometimes has six-packs for sale.  And since it’s the middle of winter, I figure the tourist traffic is going to be as low as it’s going to get.  So you never know, I might get lucky.