So Much Cycling

My first day back in Amsterdam was the one which we had decided on for a bike ride. The forecast was good, with only a small chance of showers, and though it wasn't sunny, with a mostly clear sky. The plan was a bike ride of epic proportions to "Waterland", an area of the Dutch countryside.

Lisa and I were both feeling a bit unsure about going through with the plan. We were both feeling pretty taken over by colds, but were also both quite excited at the prospect of this ride.

We mulled it over during breakfast at Bagels&Beans, whose food we are still impressed by, but find their timely service is somewhat lacking. We met Jenny, Sam and Povka back at the flat with the decision that we would give the bike ride a go, and turn back early if we felt the need. At this point, I was under the impression that our final destination was about an hour away. 2 hours of bike riding with a break in between? I can handle that, figured silly Danica.

Can you sense the turn of events coming up in this tale?

Turns out the itinerary we had discovered had two options, a shorter and a longer, and I was unintentionally bamboozled into doing the latter.

Our ride started off through what were becoming the familiar streets of Amsterdam, to Central Station. There, we took the world's shortest ferry ride across a small channel to Amsterdam-Noord.

Sam, myself, Jenny and Povka on the ferry across the channel

Amsterdam-Noord

 We biked along a lot of enchanting woodland paths, down some tree lined streets, made a a quick stop at a sweet playground and scared some Dutch children with our "Big People" ways, and finally made it to Zuiderdorp. Yes, I believe that is the actual name of the town, if not the actual spelling.

Z-town

Z-town was simply stop number one, a cutesy little farming town that reminded me a bit of Cloverdale, but with more sheep, more canals, and cute cottagey looking houses.

We then embarked on the next leg of our trip, that took us through some skinny little country lanes, and a really neat bike path that was raised far above the street for cars, and above sea level (rare in Ams). We had a nice little system going of Jenny, Sam and Povka stopping every once in a while to let the sickies catch up, and then the 5 of us would set out again, forming a very Sound of Music like convoy.

Me and Povka

Me and Jenny

Weeeeeeee

The crew

In what felt like forever, we made it to the Island town of Merken, which was pretty cool, and worth the trek. It was a quaint little harbour town, with lots of typically Dutch looking houses, some souvenir shops, and some restaurants- though a lot of them were closed, as it was a Sunday. Truthfully the town was so quiet when we arrived around 3:00 that I had moments of feeling like I was in a zombie apocalypse film.

Jenny and Sam succeeded in finding an open restaurant, and a quite nice one at that. We warmed up with some hot Chocomelk (with lots o' slagrom- whipped cream), and most of us had the soup of the day- a yummy homemade pumpkin. Lis and Jenny also had "toasties"- paninis that looked amazing. I had an ice cream sundae for dessert. Delicious.

We stayed at the restaurant for a couple hours. There's a thing in the Netherlands where your bill is never given until asked for. The Dutch apparently don't care if you just hang out forever- or at least, want to appear that they feel that way. After our scrumptious meal, we hit up a couple souvenir shops with some great deals. At around 5:30 we realized that, oh shit, our clocks had fallen back that day, and so it was really more like 6:30, and the skies were beginning to darken.

Merken at dusk

There was much humming and hawing on my part whether or not I was going to faint off my bike in some field somewhere, but as the buses don't take bikes here, toughing it out was the only viable option.

We took a more direct route home then we had taken away from it, but partly due to mine and Lisa's lethargy it still took about an hour and a half to get back to Ams.

Navigating the narrow roads in the nearly pitch black that night is something I'll never forget. There are no street lights on the beaten down bike paths in the countryside. There is very little stopping you from going just a tad to far to one side of the lane and ending up knee-deep in canal water. When I told my dad this story he said "didn't you have lights on your bikes?" Technically the answer was no, not all of us did, but I personally had one, and so answered my Pa, "yeah, so you could see, like, maybe 3 feet in front of you. Not super helpful." What a freaking adventure though! Like I said, I'll never forget it.

When the lights of Amsterdam starting popping up in the distance I had never been happier to see a city coming into view. Many WOOOOOOOOs were given when we made it, mostly unscathed, to the ferry back to town.

Bums were bruised and legs were burning, but we'd accomplished a 50km bike ride and lived to tell the tale.

Amsterdam doesn't sell Gatorade, but a sports drink called Aquarius. I got the blue one.