FINALLY writing about the netherlands!

oh one thing i had forgotten to mention yesterday that i want to now before i get into the next days entry. so on tues, that guy david who i was supposed to stay with in chelmsford finally got back to me saying "oh michele im so sorry, i only just saw your email now. if you still want to come to chelmsford you are most welcome, here is my address and phone number!" and i didnt even respond. i mean ive had people respond to my initial request to them several days after i messaged them and they say that they didnt see the email at first cause it ended up in their spam folder. that i totally understand, but this guy knew he was expecting me on monday. i know i messaged him like a week in advance, but come on at least write it down on the calendar so you dont forget! so yeah i figured he wasnt worth my time to write back to. but ok now for my actual journey entry! fri jan 20: so i again woke up before ahmed and went to more of the sites. i  walked around the town, saw the roman city walls and the old water tower, then walked through the shopping center and did a bit of that walking tour i downloaded. then i walked around the castle park grounds since i didnt actually see any of it the day before. it was a bit drizzly though so that was annoying. i went down to the river  and took some photos and also of the roman city wall over there. when it came to 10 am i went to the holyroods house museum which depicted victorian life in colchester. there also was a room full of grandfather and other old clocks and they were all going off at once! i was the only one in the museum with the exception of a school group and they sure took over! there was a room about life as a child in victorian times, so they had toys and games and books etc etc  but it also talked about how they had to work at any early age. the lady who invented twinkle twinkle (actually called "the star") was from colchester, and i think her mother or grandmother was deaf, so local children from a school (now, not back then) made a video of twinkle twinkle in BSL. then another room had WWII stories from locals that you could listen to and that was quite moving. the rest just had current local stuff, like how in the 80s the council asked for people to take pics around colchester, it could be anyone and of anything. and now 30 years later they are doing round 2 and are going to compare the photos to see how colchester has changed. i thought that was a nice idea! so after that museum i went to the natural history museum right across the st. it was kind of small (it was housed in an old church) but surprisingly  it talked more about conservation efforts than any of natural history museum ive been to!  it mentioned the beaches at harwich and other coastal towns of essex, and the london clay and other geology deposits that built up over the years. then of course there were the bones, some mammoth and whooly rhino and lots of shark teeth and the usual. and it had a small section on local natural disasters throughout history. but as for conservation it explained global warming and greenhouse gases in detail and gave tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint. and it also showed comparitively the temperature of british homes in the winter, from victorian times, to the 1970s to now, and we (well i mean they..) are progressively using more heat in the house! and then it talked about the normal wildlife stuff..beetles, badgers, squirrels, rats and the like. so after that i went to find the augustinian monastery ruins, but i got lost using my crappy map with hardly any street names. i ended up going to another old looking church but thought no way can this be it! and yeah i was wrong. but it was getting dark now so i figured id just go to it tomorrow before i leave for harwich. so i had seen an ad for On Golden Pond at the theatre that was going on that week, so i went there  and tried to get tickets. its 5:30 pm now but the girl says to come back at 6:30 when they release the student tickets. so i went to ahmeds, we had dinner and then hung out until it was time for me to go. he was going to a beer festival that night but said to let him know when the play was over so he would come let me in, then go back to the festival since it was only around the corner. so then i left and bought the ticket, P6, and front row! not bad for a friday night! then i just waited there for the show to start in an hour. i was the youngest by about 20 years, but i expected that! so its been a while since i saw the movie so i had forgotten that the setting was 1970s maine. one of the actress's couldnt pull off an american accent at all! but everyone else's was fine.  the guy who played norman was real funny. i think i was the only one in the audience who understood the references he was making (about the red sox and yankees..but i didnt understand the one about the tiger's manager!).  so that was quite a good play and it ended at 10 pm as i had told ahmed that it would, and it literally was a 2 minute walk to his place so i texted him saying ill be there in a minute as i was walking, and so he  texted me back saying he'll be there in 30 min!! now it had been raining all day so my hat, gloves and jacket were wet, so i left them to dry at his place, so the only thing i was wearing at this point  was my hoody and my rain coat. but luckily it stopped raining and wasnt too cold, but still, i wasnt too happy about having to wait that long outside, esp when i told him i needed to go to bed early to leave early for harwich the next morning. so when he eventually came he decided to not go back to the festival since it was ending in a half hour. so we went back upstairs and i did some last minute preps and packing for harwich then went to bed, and he went off to an after party.
sat jan 21: so this was my last day in the UK as it was the last day my visa was valid for! i was scheduled to take a 11:15 pm ferry out of harwich and couldnt find a host for the evening (just to spend some time with), so i told michael to meet me and hang out with me until it was time for me to leave. his train got in around 11:15 am so i wanted to make sure i wasnt late, which was why i wanted to leave so early. so i had said good bye and thanks to ahmed before i went to sleep the night before, so i left quickly that morning. i wanted to see that monastery before i left, but i got really lost trying to find it. i eventually did and then i was on my way! i left colchester at 9:03 am and took another A road, possibly even the a 12 to harwich. i got a bit lost going to this a road though and i had to turn around a bit and i was on the right track for some time but i somehow missed the turn off for harwich and i ended up riding in the opp direction for a bit! i didnt realize until i saw signs for chelmsford and london.  and i had no idea when the next turn around point was going to be, so i crossed the dual carriageway (there was almost no one on the road) and through lance over the metal barrier and hopped over and then road in the right direction! then i followed this all the way to harwich. stopped off at lidl to get some more food and then went to the train station to meet michael, which conveniently was right next to the ferry terminal. so it was perfect timing, i arrived just as his train was pulling in! so i got there at 11:16 am, rode 20.43 mi, max 28, avg 10.9 (I was not messing around, i really didnt want to be late this time!!) so when i met up with mike, i parked lance then we went inside and i picked up my ticket (a printed out version) and then we walked to the harwich center,which was like 40 min. he brought me macarons, and some yummy butterfly cakes. neither lasted more than a day! we turned onto the beach and had lunch (but on a roofed bench cause it was raining..and super windy!). then we walked along the esplanade and went down to the beach for a short while. we ended up in old harwich, walked around that a bit and went to the "pier" but none of the museums and attractions were open! i guess harwich doesnt get any tourists at any other point in the year! so we walked around some more, it wasnt raining anymore so that was good, passed through devonport and  some parks and lighthouses, then walked along the beach again, then tried to find somewhere to get dinner. there was virtually nowhere, so i looked up on my google maps some pubs/restaurants near to the terminal, so we walked to a pub, and what do you know, its pub thats in the same parking lot as lidl! they had free wifi there so  i took advantage of that cause i had to do lots of preparations for the netherlands. we were there for 3 hours! then around 8:30-9 pm we walked back to the terminal, we sat inside  until it was time for mike to leave to catch his train. when he left i went down to lance, and road him to the vehicle entrance. didnt even need my ticket afterall! i just showed my passport and i guess the guy looked me up in the system. so then i rode lance up the ramp, got on the ferry, left him in the vehicle area, and took the elevator to my cabin. it was actually quite nice!! comfy bed, nice tv, clean bathroom, warm shower, totally much fancier than what i was expecting! i guess i watch too many pirate movies! so after my shower i watched a little tv. it was a bit odd, they had american channels, so i watched discovery channel. so that was obviously in english, with dutch subtitles, but the commercials were a combo of english (england) and dutch. the english ones had dutch subtitles, but the dutch didnt have english ones!  but i didnt watch for very long cause the ferry docked at 7:45 am, and it was now around 11 pm, and i would lose one hour by traveling across time zones, so i wouldnt have gotten much sleep.  so i went to bed and it was warm and comfy, not much swaying (very different to the over night boat in indonesia!) but then again we hadnt even departed yet. sun jan 22: so at around 6:30 am a lovely announcement "wake up call" was made on the speaker in the room. i tried to go back to sleep but literally every 15 min another announcement was made about breakfast or the shop (who goes shopping on a boat!?) so i just ate a bit of the food i bought from lidl (it was still early so i didnt eat too much with the intention of stopping on my cycle ride and eating more breakfast at some point), and then packed and made my way to lance.  i had left ahmed postive feedback on couchsurfing and he left me feedback too saying that i was inspirational to him, he was going to bed earlier, waking up earlier, going to the gym more and eating healthier! so glad i can be a great influence on people! so up until this point, i had been real nervous about going to the netherlands. this was my first time i would be spending a prolonged period of time alone in a country whose native language is not english. and i was nervous when i first left leicester to start my biking tour, but i had been living in england a year, so i knew the layout of the land and the location of major cities, i knew the language, the culture, and the law of the road. but here i was going into it blind, so i was excited but also a bit apprehensive!  esp since i didnt have a detailed map of the country , i had purchased a cycling atlas from a dutch book shop so i had to pick it up when i got to the hague. but anyway at 7:45 am we docked in hook of holland and soon made our way off the boat and down the ramp. border control was a breeze, the agent spoke english and only asked how long i was going to be in the netherlands and mainland europe as a whole, and then i got my visa! so it was still dark, and quite windy!! i lost some papers when i got off the boat cause they blew right out of my hand!  but i just continued on my way. i had written down driving directions on how to get to the hague from hook of holland just in case the cycling directions from the dutch websites were confusing, but i didnt need them at all, cause the cycling lanes were very well signed! i was super impressed. blows sustrans right out of the water! so around 8:30 am it finally started to get lighter, so i stopped to take off my tail light. these 2 cyclists rode by me and one asked if i was okay. how nice was that!? and  he even spoke in english, so that settled my heart at ease a little bit about the language barrier.  i passed through some dunes, farmland, rivers and saw some greenhouse nursies, and some windmills =) (molens) but it wasnt long before it started to rain, so i stopped off where there was a bench and got out my waterproofs, but the wind was so strong, it blew the bag with the last butterfly cake (which was on my handlebars) right off and the cake fell to the ground and the plastic bag blew away! so now there went breakfast #2 AND i littered!! hopefully mother nature will forgive me! but i ate what i could of that cake (so the part that was in the wrapper) and threw the top part (the yummiest part!) away. so the rest of the ride was fine, even though it didnt stop raining. once i got off the coast and a bit more in land the wind wasnt a problem. and the fact that the netherlands is a flat country didnt leave me with any nasty surprises =) i hardly saw anyone on the cycle paths, or even on the streets! there was a town called monster on the way to the hague and because it had an intriguing name i wanted to check it out, but it was still really early and not a soul was in sight. i passed the outskirts of it though. so i only got slightly lost but quickly found my way again and followed the cycling signs into the hague. oh and the bicycle signs even tell you how far away places are, quite handy! i really was loving all the cycle lanes, and the bike traffic lights. it was fantastic. once i was in the the hague area i got a bit turned around  but managed to find my way to the center. its a bit confusing though that on busy streets one side is called one name, and the other side is a different name!!  once i got into the center though the cycle path turned to brick, which wasnt a very smooth surface to ride on. i got a bit lost in the center, but the attractions are sign posted so it wasnt much of an issue.  so i had rode 15.87 mi, max speed 15.8 and avg 7.2. it took 2:11 hrs total according tothe compy, so i arrived around 10:30 am.  i had a few errands to take care of once things started opening. brendan from NUHOC had messaged me saying he was going to be in holland for business but then he was going to take a vaca to travel for 2 weeks, so we tried to coordinate a time to meet up, but his phone didnt work internationally, so he was asking for a specific time and place to meet. i just told him to meet me at 11 am at the tourist info, cause that was when it opened on sundays according to my book. so i had a half hour to kill, so i first went to the central station to exchange my travelers checks. i go to the GWK office and the guy tells me that i was supposed to have signed them when i picked them up from my bank, so he cant accept them cause they arent signed. so i said "i will sign them now!!" and he said "no you are on camera, they will see you". and i said "ok, then how about i go off to the side and sign them there and then come back to you", and he said "no, they will recognize your jacket" (i was still wearing my rain jacket) and i said "ok so ill take it off!!" but i clearly wasnt going to win this battle so he advised me to go to the other GWK desk at the other train station. but this one was close to the tourist info  so i figured id do that later. i had to pee by this point and you had to pay for the toilets in the train station (and just about ANYWHERE in the netherlands..what is up with that!? thats my only gripe with this country so far) so i went to the tourist info at 11 and there was no brendan. and guess what! it was closed! they changed their opening times on sunday to 12 pm (thats what i get for using a 2 yr old lonely planet guide book!) so another one of my errands was to pick up a museum card, which can be done at any museum that accepts them, which are most! so i went to this museum called mauritshuis, bought the card and then finally peed (for free). while i was in the bathroom i had this ingenius idea to switch my UK sim to my global one while i am in the stall and i ended up, unbeknownst to me at the time, losing my UK sim card!!  so i go around and enjoy the museum. they had some real nice paintings from the golden age. almost all were dutch artists, so there were a lot of mythological ones, biblical ones, dutch landscapes and winter scenes, and portraits. jan steen, rembrandt and vermeer were featured. it really was quite lovely, and the security guard was quite a looker!  so after the museum i went to the binnenhof for some quick photos, then went to the tourist info. it was a lot more crowded now, all the bike railings were taken! i had to leave lance up against a wall since i dont have a kickstand. but there were millions of bikes outside the office so he blended in a bit (although he was the only bike with a helmet on the handlebars). so thats when i realized the con about a country that is so bike friendly- hard to find parking! but nevertheless, i still prefer it to the alternative. so i picked up a map, enquired about a walking tour but it was E9! then i went to the book shop, stanley and livingstone to pick up my atlas. i needed to switch my global sim back to the UK one so i could use the internet and pull up my order number in my email. this is when i realized the sim was gone! so i get into ultra panic mode. the museum is going to close in 30 min, and i lost it about 4 hours ago!  so i rode back as fast as i could and i quickly ran into the bathroom stall to look for it but it was not there (obviously). so i talked to sexy security guard about a lost and found. his english wasnt that great but the girl handing out the audio tours overheard me so she translated.  he then radioed in to L&F but it wasnt there so he asked for my number and said he would call if it was found. i was kinda hoping he'd call regardless!! so still in frustation mode, i rode back to the book shop before that closed and picked up my atlas. i didnt need the order number anyway. so then i went to the other train station to cash the travelers checks ( i had signed them as soon as i left the GWK at central station) so i handed them over to the guy along with my receipt (good thing i brought that with me, i didnt know i was going to need it!!) and my passport.  then he passes back the travelers checks and asks me to sign again, to verify my signature. he then tells me that my signature didnt match the first one, or the one on my passport! i said, "how can that be possible, when i just signed these earlier today!?" now obviously that was a stupid thing to say cause i was supposed to have signed them when i received them, so he thought i was saying that i received the travelers checks today. so he said, "oh so youve come from england today?" and i said yes. and he goes, "but natwest isnt open on sundays, how did you get these today!?" and i said "no, ive picked them up a few weeks ago, i just never signed them until today." and he said "well its a pity for you, im not changing them. goodbye!" now if i hadnt had such a frustating time like 20 minutes prior i probably would have made a huge scene and would have said something like its a pity for you that youre a dickhead!! but it really just pushed me  over the edge and i nearly started crying right there at the counter, so i just said ok and walked away. when i got outside i broke down and started balling. it was like 5:30 pm by this point (and still not completely dark yet! that sure was a nice surprise!) and i was staying with a couple Henk and Petra from warm showers so with no internet i couldnt use google maps to take me to their place, so i tried calling henk, but ran into some issues. he tried calling me but i couldnt receive calls!! i thought my god, could this day get any worse!! so i eventually fixed the calling problem, and called him and he gave me directions to his place. i followed the tram line but i got a bit confused when the train turned into an EL so i called him and he gave me more directions. i finally made it to his place and started crying again, which was not how i envisioned meeting my warm shower host for the first time! but he was real sweet about it. when i got to his place, i tried calling vodafone to cancel my sim, but the keypad wasnt working on my phone, so i couldnt key in during the automated message  to the appropriate department i needed!! but henk let me use his phone, so i called vodafone and spoke to some tart (i swear, id like to see the IQ requirement to work for their customer service cause everyone i speak to whenever i call is a complete idiot!!) and i told him that i lost my sim but i am in the netherlands now. so he said he will cancel the sim and he will either order me a new one to be mailed to my registered address, or i can go to a vodafone shop and pick one up and then i can call back and they will put my same number back onto that sim card. and i said "but im in the netherlands remember, do they have vodafone here? and even if they did, its doing to be a dutch sim card right, so i wont be able to use it like a uk sim?" and he just wasnting getting it at all! he kept saying to me, "yes its fine just go to a vodafone store and pick up a sim and we can put your old number on it." so im like "okay if you say so, well can you look up which shop is nearest to me?" so he asks for the post code and henk gives it to me, but netherlands post codes are different to UK ones, so i tell him and hes like "huh..? im asking for the post code." and im like "IM TELLING YOU IM IN THE NETHERLANDS..HOLLAND!!!" and then hes like "oooooh." the light switch finally went on!! and he said "oh no you wont be able to pick up a sim there." and i said "ok mail it to me then please".  then after that waste of 10 minutes i called GEOSIM to sort out the issues i was having but there customer service was shut so i just emailed them. and needless to say, i used up all $15 worth of credit i just added to my GEOSIM account!! then petra came home and we had dinner that henk cooked and had a nice chat. they really calmed me down and made me feel better so i was grateful!  they also have 3 cats, 2 russian blues, so they were quite cute! they did a cycling tour through vietnam and stayed with some warm shower hosts there. henk introduced me to this website called ridewithgps that helps you plan your route, and it gives directions and elevation which is useful!! he showed me some examples of their vietnam trip and wow did that elevation map look scary!  the hills ive experienced in england are nothing but mere speed bumps compared to those mountains! so we chatted some more, i told them i want to get into animal welfare policies once i get back to the US and they said that there is actually an animal political party in the netherlands!! seriuosly i love this country!! i think i want to marry a dutch guy! im sure michael wont mind.  so we did some more chatting, then poor draak (in english dragon, i hope google translate spelt it correctly lol) was going through her "womenly troubles" as they called it cause apparently in dutch "in heat" is a different word for different animals!  but she was moaning an awful lot, waiting for her prince charming i guess!  so soon after that we made up my bed and after a long, hard and exhausting day, i went to sleep! and im going to do the same now. im quite proud, at least i am in the same country i am writing about!!