2 50+ mi bike rides in 3 days, tour de France brace yourself!!

Sunday Feb 12: so yeah woke up at like 7 am and had breakfast with dirk. He put on the radio, which was in dutch of course but he told me that Whitney Houston had been found dead in her hotel room that morning (or maybe last night considering it was in the US) so that was a bit of a shocker. So then the radio played some songs by her, of course. But we ate kinda quickly, and because my water bottle had been freezing the past few days, I came up with this ingenious idea to boil water and then pour it into the bottle. Then I said my thank yous and good bye and then I was off by 8:30 am. I rode quick around the center of arnhem but obviously nothing was open given the time and day. So I just saw the main outer ring road which had one way lanes and in the middle was a grassy area with fountains, and there were several of these fountains in a row so I thought, hey that's quite pretty, wasn't expecting that from a small town lol. Then I rode around the shopping area and center but then headed off. I was doing well with not getting lost and then I saw some train tracks that I followed which brought me to nijmegen, so I rode around that center for a bit. Apparently this is the oldest city in the Netherlands! It was nearly 11 am so the town was just waking up, but still not a lot of people on the streets and the maps were a bit awful so I got lost trying to find a museum to go to, but I eventually found the pedestrian directional signs so I just followed it till I got somewhere lol. I ended up at the valkoff museum which has archeological stuff and old and contemporary paintings. So they had lots of Roman artifacts, and even pre history finds and a reconstruction of a tribal hut and stuff. Not a lot was in English though, just a select few, but I knew what a lot of things were, like the religious treasury stuff, the dull protestant section and the decorative catholic one, but like with the paintings, a lot of them were from the golden age and of local landscapes so it would have been nice to read about them. Then they had 60s pop art and featured Andy Warhol among others, it was saying how american artists really paved the way during that time and had an influence on English artists as well as other European ones. There also was an exhibit, in English, that compared the Roman community in nijmegen to todays life. Like for instance, they explained how Romans traveled across the land and then compared it to using a gps system in a car today. So it was a bit for kids but a cute idea, and they also had archeological finds in each section as well (the permanent collection also had a bunch of Roman stuff but not much had English labels). So I left the museum at 1 pm and quickly went to the adjacent park which had some castle ruins (barbarossa ruins) and continued on my way to eindhoven. Unfortunately I didn't recall which way I came from and thus which way to go back to following the signs. So I pretty much circled the town over and over again for a while. I then saw a sign with "fietsplat" on it so I thought it was telling me this is the way to the bicycle lanes so I follow it until I discovered that sign meant "bicycle parking". So what a stupid waste of time that was. Then I found the outer ring road but I used Google maps to just point me in the right direction, but it was a real confusing intersection, with lots of turn offs, so I kept choosing the wrong one. Well by process of elimination I finally found the right road to follow, so I followed it to grave (which I actually saw signs for earlier but for some reason, didn't follow them!) So yeah after leaving the nijmegen area I did ok with deciding which routes to follow. I mainly went through towns and stuff (uden, veghel etc), in the bike lanes along busy roads, so that sucked a bit, but at least it was straightforward. After riding for a while i finally saw signs for eindhoven, which was farther than I thought, so I was a bit annoyed cause it was cold and dark by then. By the way every time i drank from my water bottle it tasted like plastic! So yeah, not exactly appetizing! Once I got to the area of eindhoven, traffic picked up quite a lot. It was actually a bigger area than I thought! My hosts lived in the center, which was convenient for exploring the next day but the whole time I kept thinking, am I there yet lol. When I really got close to the main center area, I saw this artwork of a giant bowling ball and bowling pins, in the middle of a busy intersection. Ive seen plenty of roundabouts with art in the middle of them, but this was by far the strangest! But anyway i found the building easily and then arrived, 7:50 pm after riding 57.98 (a new personal record for me!) max 20.5 avg 7.3. My hosts were 2 boys similar to my age, joost (dutch) and Chris (English, from London). Joost was going to be attending a star wars party soon and he never really seen the movies so he was trying to do a movie marathon to become knowledgable with the story, but he was only on episode 4 when I arrived (and that was what he started with, not ep 1) and it wasn't holding his attention lol. So they had eaten but they said i could eat whatever i wanted, but they had a very studentesque kitchen. Only cup noodles and cookies! But I ate literally one of everything. I just went through whatever they had! Well not at first but they were really laid back and I could see they really didn't mind what I ate, and their lives consist of hosting couchsurfing guests (their wifi password was csparadise!), so once i saw it was okay, I went for it! I even ate a slice of cooking sugar, just cause I thought it was candy lol but when I put it in my mouth and it was rock hard I asked joost what it was and he said for cooking with, not eating!! Then Chris invited another couchsurfer who apparently sent him a message asking to stay the night but he didn't respond in time so she booked a hotel which she couldnt cancel, so he said well then at least come hang out with us. So she came by and brought cheesecake cause there was some bday party of her friend she went to and made this cake so she brought the left overs cause she was flying back to Romania the next morning and couldn't bring that on the plane. So Score for me, I ate nearly the whole thing!! So the 4 of us talked for several hours, joost said they get a lot of requests because the eindhoven airport has cheap European flights, so they literally host people every few days but usually just for the night. I really liked joost and Chris, they were fun to talk to, and they kept teasing me about eating so much cause I really was just nonstop all night long! Joost told me about how the Phillips company is originally from eindhoven (and all this time I thought they were American!) And he said the old factory is now a museum which is across the street from them although currently under renovation. I told them my tentative plans for the rest of my trip through mainland Europe and joost told me that Luxembourg had a lot of scary hills! Then i asked "are there a lot of cyclepaths in Belgium?" And then he started telling me stories about child molestors from Belgium and other crazy people he heard about on the news but then he asked "why do you want to know about psychopaths in Belgium!?!" And I said "not psychopaths, CYCLEpaths!!" Lmao. And with the Romanian girl we had a long discussion about the cold war, they told me the history behind it and how Europeans were treated when the countries were more communistic and stuff. Then we talked about the space race and she asked me if I knew the name of the first person in space and I said no and she said most Americans would say Neil Armstrong, even though he was only the first person to land on the moon. She was saying that Americans don't know that Russian guy, I forgot his name, who was the first person in space cause we weren't taught it, we were always drilled with neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin because of the rivalry America had with Russia about sending people to space. And i said I bet most Russians don't know who Neil Armstrong is either! So we talked about recent European history with wars and stuff. I really didn't know anything about that type of stuff so it was good to hear! A few hours and lots of cake and cookies later, the girl left and I started getting ready for bed. I was hoping to see Walter actually cause he lives in tillburg which is close enough but I arrived too late and then he had work the next morning, so that didn't end up ever happening :-( I asked joost if I could make pancakes in the morning and he said yes, but I had to wake up early cause he needed to be at work at 8 am. So I packed my bag and talked with Chris a bit more who was going to be up late writing a report for work, and then went to bed!
Monday Feb 13: so joost came and woke me up at 7:15 ish cause I told him I would only need like 10 min to make the pancakes. I forgot that pancakes in this part of the world are actually crepes so I asked if he had baking powder and he said no only baking soda. So I threw that in the mix but the batter was very thick, so I just kept adding water till it got more liquidy, but it was taking a lot of time so I was rushing to get them cooked. So as a result, some came out burnt, undercooked and ok (although this was the least amount of them!) And joost ended up being late for work! So I felt bad but he didn't get fired lol. And Chris left for work too so I was alone but I didn't go back to sleep, I cleaned everything in the kitchen. Then I left and went to the tourist info and of course got a little walking tour of the area. There were 2, the old town and one all about Phillips. So I did the old town first. I walked along the "longest st in the Netherlands" which is the nightlife scene. I know the streets in the Netherlands are short but this one wasn't really long, I think maybe the leaflet meant in a city/town and not like a main road connecting cities. Well I walked around for a bit, there was a nice little river by a convent in a park that still had some snow and ice. This led to the canal and busy roads. The core of eindhoven didn't have anything too spectacular to see, and I got lost on the grand berg and klein berg streets, but found my way back to the old center. Also saw some old churches (duh) and a mosque, I think it was pretty recent though. So after walking around and seeing the museums (from outside) and the historic builidings, I then did the Phillips tour, which took me to the big modern buildings, the old factory by Chris and joost, and some other stuff. I had wanted to Leave kinda quick,  cause I was spending my first night in Belgium and I wasn't familiar with the signs, roads, lines etc. And the Phillips tour didn't last very long so I was able to leave at a normal(ish) time. Oh I also learnt that those giant bowling pins and ball were contemporary art by a local. So I forget but I Think it was around 2:30 pm that I left. Leaving eindhoven was not much of an issue I followed Google maps instead of the cycle signs since I was cutting through Belgium. I made better time than I imagined because riding through Belgium was a piece of cake! The Belgium border sign wasn't as elaborate as I thought it would be, definitely not like the welcome to the fabulous las Vegas sign! The land was flat and there were cycle lanes following the main road, so that put all my worries at Ease. There were no red bicycle direction signs like in the Netherlands though, so I just followed the main road, which wasn't busy at all anyway. I literally just kept going straight on it, and only getting a little turned around in one town, but quickly found my way. I had a slight panic attack cause I thought I lost my phone but I had just put it in my coat pocket and not my pants one as usual lol. and after all that time i spent in the netherlands, i saw no roadkill, and my first few hours in belgium, i saw one. too bad it was somebodys cat! but yeah to sum up the netherlands: i really enjoyed the people, they were friendly, and so open minded and forward thinking. the landscape got a bit monotonous being polder field and canal/river the whole time and no mountains, but i shouldnt really complain about that! plus the water was always nice to see (until it got frozen) because it always had waterfowl in it. but that really did it for the wildlife, but i guess i didnt go at the best time of year! although there just isnt really a lot of natural land left, at least on the holland side of the country. and the cycle paths and network was really good, although not perfect, but still better than anything the US or UK can devise. but i really enjoyed myself! So my hosts lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere! It was a village called neeroeteren in the masseik region, closer to maastricht than eindhoven. I followed a canal until it got dark and they lived on the other side of it, a few blocks in. So I didn't know exactly where a bridge was (and it was esp hard to see in the dark) but when I checked the map it said I was just past their place so i turned around and found a bridge, crossed over and then made my way to theirs. so my hosts were a nice couple named patrick and anne marie. they had a 20 year old son but he didnt speak english so they had to translate for him (usually its the other way around lol). they have a daughter who is my age and she likes to travel but she wasnt at home cause she is at university so i stayed in her room. but she is the one who introduced them to couchsurfing, and patrick likes to travel so he was open to the idea. anne marie was too, as a host, but she only likes to visit spain where they have a house there. but i arrived at 6:15 pm, rode 31.46 mi, max 17.4, avg 7.5 and my time was 4:09 on the bike. and this is to be continued as I am now falling asleep!

Never go on a winter cycling trip without a portable radiator

Sat Feb 11: so dirk and I got up early and had breakfast. He had shown me how to get to de hoge veluwe national park on Google maps so it was straight forward. It was a sunny morning although a bit chilly. His side of arnhem was actually a bit nice, with a little pond and some "green" space. There was an open air museum near him too which would have been cool to see. But I went straight for the park, which was all uphill! Once I arrived I followed the bike paths thru a mixture of different habitats, and it wasn't hilly thank god! There was grassland, woodland and kinda sandy a bit. There was some info boards that mentioned the big animals in the park (wild boar!!) but the names weren't in English, but it mentioned the best time to see the deer is in the morning and evening. And literally not too long after, when I was riding through some woodland, I saw 3 deer, possibly red cause they were a decent size, run straight over the path and onto the other side. They stopped to look around although they were a bit far away and obscured by trees so I couldn't get a good photo.  But wow my first European deer spotting!! So I rode around some more and came to the kröller möller museum. At this point I was frozen, so much that I couldn't unclip my helmet again so I locked up lance and then walked into the museum and showed my museum card at the counter, all while wearing my helmet lol. They had a coat and bag check instead of lockers ( I mean seriously what's the point of those damn lockers with their €1 fee that you get back anyway!? Do the museums hope people will forget their coins and so the staff goes searching the lockers for left behind coins to add to their salary!?) So I had to give the woman my bag, jacket and helmet! Then I entered the art part, nearly everything was in English, hot diggity! The first rooms were very contemporary, so I didn't like them too much. Then it got better with a bit older art, mostly paintings, but also some sculptures. Saw some impressionists, pointillists, and of course their van gogh collection. So all in all it was a pretty good art collection, and they had a sculpture garden so I walked around there for a bit before I got too cold! Saw Henry Moore, Barbara hepworth (from wakefield, Leeds) and lots of other sculptures by people I don't know. It was quite a big garden actually. A few of the artworks couldn't be viewed cause you had to go up and down stairs to get to them, but there wasn't any snow so I don't see what the issue was. So after a bit, I went back Inside, saw some more art and then grabbed my stuff and left. Then I rode to the visitor center which had a really cool kind of small natural history museum attached to it. It had a section where there were lots of video clips of animals in their habitats going about their business, so a mole digging a tunnel for instance (still wondering how the camera was shoved down there). Then there was this section on water consumption and how we are depleting the earth of all its fresh water before it can generate more and as a result many countries don't have clean water, if much at all! So quite a wake up call there. The rest of the visitor center had the usual about the habitats in the park, and the species you expect to see (when its a little warmer than freezing temperatures!), they even had a section on fungus and lichens, I was impressed cause in England the visitor centers seem to leave those out! So before I knew it, it was 5 pm so time to go. The park closed at 6 which was when it got dark anyway, so I rode back to the entrance gate. Took some photos of the sunset too :-) when I was riding through a grassland area I saw another 3 deer frollicing away, they were far away as well, so not quite sure what type they were. Then right as I was approaching the gate (its very dark by this point) I saw a figure on the path. As soon as I stopped, it ran off so I saw it was another deer, probably red. So I rode back to dirks, got a little lost cause I didn't recognize the road I came from in the dark! But at least it was downhill now! There were some real nice houses on this road, which was picturesque in its own right cause it was a bit windy and foresty. I pasted like 2 pancake houses and it really got me craving pancakes even more so than I already was! So i got back to dirks around 7. We then cooked dinner together and talked more about his degree in biology and him working at the zoo. He then showed me some photo books he made, one of his trip to rotterdam and other of the living statues (the people who dress up and don't move on the street as a form of panhandling) festival in arnhem. So apparently this is a big deal cause people all over the world come to dress up and take part in this festival, although most are kids. There are prizes for the best costume. So the book he made was from last year or 2010, and some of those kids looked quite good! So I then looked up directions to my hosts in eindhoven. We had to be up early cause dirk needed to be at work in the morning, but I asked if we could make pancakes cause i saw he had mix in the cabinet and he said we wouldn't have time and he didn't have enough milk, so I was a bit bummed. So I then went to bed, not as early as I had hoped cause of the early wake up lol.

next euro trip will be done by car! an eco friendly one =)

friday feb 10: this was a real stressful day!! so i left marieke and anthonys in the morning, again after they had already left for work. the night before i had been looking for a host for arnhem but i kept getting declined from people, but someone advised that i put a post on the last minute need a couch forum, so i did and a guy named dirk who apparently hosts a lot of people (he must be pretty famous cause another one of the people i messaged even told me to message him saying he is real friendly and has space for my bike) said he would host me. i had seen his profile when i did the search the other night but i didnt message him cause he said he gets home from work at 8 pm but since he was my only option, i accepted. and anyway it turns out that this day was his day off so he was home all day, so that was good. but arnhem was over 50 miles from utrecht so i didnt want to spend too long in utrecht, although i did want to check out the railway museum, as recommended by anthony who said his uncle or whoever had came to visit him had really liked that museum. and i hadnt bothered to look up directions to arnhem the night before because there was still a lot of snow and ice on the ground so i still wasnt going to use the cycle network and any back roads, and i had seen one of those red cycling route signs for arnhem right near marieke and anthonys place, so i had assumed i was good to go. so that morning i went to the railway museum. it was way bigger than i had imagined! it was almost like an open air museum (well it did have some things outside, but the majority were inside) and the first part you walk in is a 19th cent booking hall, probably for the train station in utrecht. there was quite a difference between the 2nd class and the 1st class waiting rooms, and they even had the royal waiting room from the hague, where the queen waited!! then you exit the lobby and cross the railway tracks with signals and signs and a train on the tracks, so i was a bit taken back at first, i thought it was a still working station!! so then you enter this big hall and thats where most of the museum is. they had some old trains in the main part of the hall, some steam, some diesel and some a bit more modern and electric. unfortunately a lot of the text explaining the usage of the trains when they were in operation was in dutch, so i dont actually know what they were really used for. i did play a game on a computer screen about guessing which trains from the pics provided ran on steam, diesel or electricity, and i made the top 5 (4th place!). other parts of the museum had collections of old memorabilia related to trains, so old parts, models, passenger attire and worker uniforms, badges, signs, etc. one section had old posters and advertisements for trains when they were in their heyday so those were awesome to see. and one really cool part was a mock coal mine that you go througH! There was an audio tour in english and the nararrator is a guy called john middlemiss from newcastle lol just when i thought i escaped the ugly english accents! but yeah this guy  was the first engine driver in the netherlands. then you go thru a mock 19th century english mining village which was cool. then the tour ended with the first steam locomotive in the netherlands, called the arend, on the amsterdam platform. and then you go thru the building which was set up to be the station and that was the temp exhibition space and they had some old paintings from the 19 & 20th cent of trains in landscapes and people aboard trains. they were quite pretty so i was annoyed that the descriptions werent in english. actually out of all the dutch places ive visited, id say utrecht was the least "english friendly". so after that i continued walking around the museum, i went to another section which had a theatre (but performances were in dutch only!) and another old train car, but a real fancy one called the orient express from the late 19th cent when train travel was starting to pick up. there was a screen near it that was playing old silent films, so i was watching one about a woman being bound to tracks by the bad guy so she calls for her dog and she gives him a note to give to her husband to come and save her (how she wrote on the note when she was tied up, i still havent figured out). but it was a race against time if the husband could get to her and free her before the oncoming train squashed her like a pancake, but i never got to finish it (now ill never know how it ends) cause an employee there who was dressed in an old conductor outfit comes up to me and asked if i am waiting for the train. so i asked where it is going, thinking that its a virtual reality ride or something but he said he lets people onto the orient express train car at certain times, so i said i would go on it. he asked where i was from and i said new york and so he said "oh so the languages you know are english, english and english" and i said yup!!! so then a school group came and he let us all on and he asked them in dutch if he could speak in english and they said no lol but he said in english that he will talk in english because he knows they will understand, at least bits and pieces. so we went onto the train. it was so decked out and looked super fancy!! there was fake fruit and drinks on the table but it was so beautifully laid out and everything, it really would have been a luxurious train ride! the conductor guy said the cost of a long distance journey on this train (one way) is the equivalent of €200,000 in todays money!! so obviously only the very wealthy like dukes and earls could afford this type of train. it made me want to go on a real fancy long distance train ride though! but considering the cost of a damn ticket just from london to leeds, i think ill just have to continue getting around by bike for the time being. then i went to the main hall again and looked at more trains, i went to the outside part where there was a water tower and a signal box. it was a bit cold so i went inside rather quickly lol. there was a catwalk where you can go up to and see the trains from above so i did that and up there were some old bicycles and motorcycles as well.  they had this "scary" ride called steel monsters which departed from some guys attic who had been assemblying his own railway museum with more memorabilia. then you go on a ride in a cart on some tracks in the dark. it was quite cute actually, i thought it was going to be tacky (although it was no haunted mansion at disney!!) so after that i pretty much did everything that my language barrier could allow me to which was fine because it was (as usual) later than i had planned on leaving, so i was in a bit of a rush. so i hopped on lance at 12:50 pm and headed back towards that sign that i said was near mariekes and anthonys that pointed in the right direction for arnhem. so i followed it but unfortunately that was the only sign there was! there was no follow up to tell me which way to turn! so i had this ingenious idea to follow the highway, thinking there will be a bicycle lane along side, since the N200 to amsterdam, which was a pretty busy road, had one. but it didnt. so i tried to follow along side it from the ground as best as i could but after a few miles i couldnt go straight anymore and it just loomed overhead. so i kept riding back and forth to the big intersection with all the ring roads trying to decipher which one i should follow. the direction signs (for cars) for arnhem were also misleading cause they were pointing in the opposite direction which was why i followed it at first but then i realized that was only to get onto the highway ramp. so i just followed along some road on the other side of the highway and turned where i thought i was supposed to turn and ended up following a bike path along the canal, but when the direction signs didnt mention anything about arnhem i doubted myself so i checked the map and sure enough i was heading in the wrong direction. so i continued to try and follow these busy high way intersections but it only took me to roads i couldnt cross cause there was no signal and the bike lane turned in the opp direction to where i wanted to go so that gave me the impression that i couldnt follow the busy roads in the direction i wanted. so i again went back to the busy ring road (this is like an hour later now) and i am super stressed so i decide to just go in the last direction i hadnt tried yet. there i saw a sign for a place called bilby (i think) and i saw on the map that was on the way to arnhem so i followed signs for that. dont know why i didnt just do that in the first place, but in fairness, i would have had more sense to do that if there were NO signs that mentioned arnhem! but no, i had complete faith in these red directional signs that if it mentioned a place it would take me all the way there. so i was finally on my way, and it wasnt very scenic at first, going through a bit of an industrial area. but it wasnt long before i was going through forests. i didnt even really enjoy it cause the paths were covered in snow and a bit hilly so i wasnt going anywhere fast. i remember rob telling me that i would have more trouble going up some bridges than with the hills in the national parks around arnhem so i didnt bother to look up the elevation, but i guess he was referring to De Hoge Verluwe specifically cause there were some decent hills in these parks. and one in particular which had a narrow path and was pretty steep and was covered in snow so i walked lance up there, for the first (and only!) time in the netherlands. i did see a biker ride straight up in though, but im sure his tires and legs were better equipped for the conditions. so the signs in the parks were quite annoying, they were these small pyramid shaped signs close to the ground, so i would definitely miss those in the dark so i was stressing about it getting dark soon and still being stuck in woodland. but it kept pointing me in the right direction for arnhem so thats all that matters. after i got out of the park areas i followed signs for arnhem along  roads but on bike lanes that were shoveled so i started to pick up speed. it was mostly straight forward, although one sign was like bent on an angle and these ones annoy me to no end cause i can never figure out exactly where it is telling me to go. technically it was pointing to a field with no bike path so that obviously wasnt it. i again got super stressed and wished i wasnt so reliant on these signs and just wrote down normal directions as a back up. the bike signs nationwide are definitely the best ive seen in any country by far, but if you are going to do something, then do it right! cause if this was england i would be relying more on the roads and not on the bike paths and so when i get lost at least i can look up on google maps where i am and can back track. but its not so easy, say, when im stuck in the middle of a forest!! but anyway, so there i was a bit lost and nearly wanting to give up, but i saw some people on their bikes riding by so i asked which way to arnhem and one guy told me to keep straight so i did and i eventually saw signs for arnhem again. by the way it had been dark for several hours now, and my water bottle froze again. at 7 pm i stopped to message dirk to say im running late and to eat without me, so i had a quick food break then, but otherwise i didnt eat or drink anything, so i had started to feel a bit weak and tired by like mile 40. but i was really going as fast as i could so i didnt even care that my hands and toes were numb and my nose was drippling!! when i finally arrived in arnhem i had remembered dirk lived near a train station although it wasnt a main one. i saw a street map but it only had the main station on it, which i thought was a bit stupid! so i just rode along the river and followed it till i saw some bright building lights so i knew i was getting close to the center. i asked some guy sitting on a bench where the station was but i pronounced it wrong so he assumed i was talking about the central station so he showed me how to get there, so i followed. when i arrived i saw i was at the wrong station so i just looked up on google maps where this other station was (why i didnt do this in the first place is still a mystery) so i followed the roads to the station and followed dirks directions and sure enough found his place!! i was so happy to be inside where it was warm and to not be pedalling anymore! i rode 54.35 mi, max 21.5 (see, pretty high for netherlands standards!)  and avg 7.3. i arrived at 9:15 pm, riding for 07:23 hours. dirk was nice enough to wait for me to eat so i felt bad about arriving so late but he said it was no problem. so we made dinner together and talked for a bit but not for too long because it was so late and i was tired. but he works at the zoo in the other national park close to arnhem. that park is publicly funded so its free admission, whereas De Hoge Verluwe is private so you have to pay €8.20 to get in!! grr! and i had already gone through 2 national parks this day, and its all pretty much the same, trees are trees! but whatever, i came all this way to see that park so thats where i was going in the morning. so yeah dirk works in the restaurant at the zoo, which he has done for a while. he got his degree in biology but he said he couldnt find a job which he blames on going to the military right after finishing college but i think its because it took him 5 1/2 years to complete his bachelors. at least i think it was his bachelors and not his masters, there was a bit of a language barrier there. he also does private tours of the zoo for weddings and stuff, so he takes them "back stage" like how we had our tour of chester zoo where we went into the rhino holding pens. but he kind of worried me when he said he couldnt find a job cause i thought, oh no here i am with a biology degree, is it going to be tough for me as well? but then again i dont want to work for a zoo or conservation type org, so ill keep my chin up! he does have an obsession with animals, especially turtles. he had so much turtle memorabilia and i dont mean turtle products, but like mugs and figurines and junk. his bathroom was quite interesting too. he had an underwater themed shower curtain, and his toilet seat cover and toilet paper holder had sand and seashells in it, and his shower head changed into several colors like disco lights! so i thought that was a bit odd lol. before i went to bed we watched "the voice" which is another one of these singing competitions, except the judges dont face the contestants so they dont make any judgements about their appearance, which i think is awesome. there were mostly young girls though, and they only sang english songs, so it was strange to hear them sing english but when the song was other, they started speaking in dutch lol. one little girl like 11 years old sang "popperazzi" by lady gaga, so clearly some of their english needed some work! but soon after i went to bed so i can wake up early to go to the national park and visit the kröller-möller museum!

Still in Netherlands, Germany to come soon :-)

<p>So there was mostly contemporary art at the museum so I had seen mostly better stuff at the culture center I went to in Sydney, but it was still pretty cool. So after it closed at 5 pm I did the walking tour, which took me around the university, another smaller church, along the canals where old almshouses and the old department store with the columns of 4 figures which needed a crane to lift them and put them in place. When it started to get dark around 6 pm I walked through the city back to marieke and anthonys. I first stopped for some frites although I didn't have it with mayo like the locals do, just ketchup. As I was walking back I noticed a bike on the ice, don't know how or why that ended up there but it seems to be a common occurrence in the Netherlands! So I got back before both hosts but Anthony arrived shortly afterwards. He said a lot of people played hooky to go skating!! They were apparently practicing for that 11 city race that elise told me about cause they were real hopeful it was going to happen this year. Then he had to show the apt around to someone cause him and marieke are planning on going on a bicycle tour through Germany to turkey, so they were looking for a subletter starting in may. The guy who came to see the place was Turkish so he liked they were going to turkey, but thought it was crazy to go by bike (sounds familiar). So that guy left soon and then ant and I cooked dinner and then marieke came home from swimming. We then ate dinner, which consisted of fries and ketchup lol just like I had bought like 1 1/2 hours earlier to try traditional dutch food! So I told them that a lot of people on the street look at me strange and I said I think its cause I'm short with curly hair and I wear a helmet. Anthony agreed about the height and the helmet lol. So we talked a bit more over dinner but I went to bed kinda early again.<br>
Thurs Feb 9: so the night before I had put the smaller blankets under the duvet and I was much warmer then!! The hosts had again left for work before I woke up so I went out first to this museum of musical clocks and music boxes and stuff. It was housed in an old church which I thought was a bit strange. So I arrived a few minutes after 10 which was when they opened and I think i was the first person in the museum. They have free guided tours every hour on the hour but the reception guy said that the guide could just take me now. So she first took me to a really old musical chimer that used to be in a Church. She then took me to the another room which had old grandfather clocks, paintings that had moving parts and that played noise and street music making boxes. She explained that the music is played on either a disc that rotates with holes in it cut to match the melody, or a cardboard foldable sheet with holes, or an organ with like ridges on the outside. And you need a weight to make it play on its own and a power source, etc a hand crank. Then these 2 older ladies joined the tour and I thought oh great now the guide will have to speak dutch but she said she would do it in English and dutch but the ladies said English was fine. I love this country!! So she took us to all of these musical clocks and street organs, it was really cool!! She played for us some really big street organs from the early 20th cent that sadly aRe no Longer used because people "have their own music" meaning ipods and stuff. It was quite a shame, I mean these street organs were playing pianos and violins all automatically! She then took us to the dance hall which had these street organs that filled the room from floor to ceiling. They sure were loud!! Then the tour ended so I looked around at everything. And like I said it was housed in an old church so there were still some old paintings with descriptions on the walls So it was a double whammy for me. The upstairs section had all old music boxes and stuff. There was this one section on puppets! And they even had a van gogh puppet sitting at an easel painting his sunflowers. But after being in there for a bit I went to the city archives in the library cause the girl at the tourist info the day prior had said it was a good place for utrecht history. Well nothing was in English, even the audio tours were in German only. But I walked around anyway, trying to get the gist of things. They had one exhibit with old photos of utrecht and old type cameras as well. But otherwise I was walking thru the building and I had no idea what the rooms used to be for, although I did come across a dark tunnel that maybe was a dungeon or something once upon a time. So I left there and then it was coming up to 4 pm so I thought id try my luck with going up to the dom tower. And I was in luck, there really was a large group this time. So the guide asked if anyone didn't speak dutch and me and the guy next to me (also from new York, I overheard him say) were the only ones who raised their hands. So she also said she would do the tour in dutch and English. So she gave the history of the church and how the hurricane collapsed the nave and stuff, then she took us over to the tower. Before we climbed the steps she asked in Dutch if English was ok and everyone said yes so that was probably a relief for her! So we went up in stages, to see the musical instrument that makes the chimes, although it was broken :-( but I saw enough at the museum earlier so I didn't mind! Then to the bells, where she gonged some with a hammer so we could hear the difference between them,  and some boy asked if he could gong too lol. Then to the top of tower! The weather was nice so we had good views. I saw a giant ice cream cone on top of a building!! Still curious what business that was. Then there was this interesting looking building so I asked the guide what it was for and she said the railway company hq and she said a lot of people aren't happy with them at the moment cause of all the delays that's been happening due to the snow! I'd love to see these people use the trains in England then!! So after spending some time up there we headed back down and left. I then went to the other part of the cathedral that's still standing and finished my walking tour around the other side of the canal area where I saw the citadel and other old buildings. Walter had told me the previous night that he was going to be in utrecht working this day but I didn't hear from him during or after work so I just figured he was tired and wanted to go home, so I had hopes of seeing him in eindhoven. So I walked back to marieke and anthonys place and marieke didn't go to her spinning class cause she had to show the apt to 2 more potential subletters. One was a colombian girl who lived in Canada who is doing her masters in utrecht and the other were 2 undergrad guys. I felt a bit bad cause here they were showing my room I was sleeping in and my stuff was all over the place!! But after both groups had came and went marieke said she preferred the girl cause she was older and she was afraid the undergrad guys might want to throw parties. That's a bit prejudice lol but they couldn't afford to be selective cause they have to give their landlord 3 months prior notice so the landlord can interview the potential new renters! So everyone was asking them if they could register with the govt or whatever and unfortunately ant and mariekes landlord won't let subletters register, so everyone who had already looked at the place was turning them down just for that reason. I have no idea about dutch policies and stuff but I don't see the big idea with registering, so the govt knows exactly where you live. The US govt has probably forgotten about me by now, I think they have plenty more people higher up on their priority list!! And it all sounds so complicated, when I subletted in Boston it was easy as pie! So I felt a bit bad for them because they really want to go on this trip but if they can't find someone they will have to move out and then try and find a new place when they get back. Sounds stressful (and somehow, familiar!) But anyway, so we then had dinner, homemade veggie burgers! So the word was out that no 11 city race this year :-( I bet everyone was bummed!! We chatted for a bit more, I mentioned how there is like no wildlife in the Netherlands other than waterfowl, like not even urban animals like squirrels. Marieke said she agreed and she said she sees people getting all interested in squirrels when they see them in parks lol. I went to bed not too long after, but said my thank yous cause I knew I wasn't going to see them in the morning!

Just like haarlem, utrecht is quite nicer than its NY counterparts

So yeah marieke is Canadian actually, and so is anthony, but they are now working in the Netherlands, marieke in delft as a type of consultant (not sure if this is the right word) for companies that go to her and ask which way is more economical and better for the environment, to use say, glass bottles for their product, or plastic. So she calculates the pros and cons for each case. Like as an example, glass weighs more than plastic so to put coke in all these glass bottles and then to drive the bottles to the warehouse would cost more in fuel cause it weighs down the truck more. So I thought that was a very awesome job! And Anthony works with wind energy with the turbines. But I think marieke went on exchange to like Denmark or something but I forgot her reason for wanting to live in the Netherlands lol. After some time Anthony came home (he was helping his friend to build a canoe..or a kayak) but I went to bed pretty soon after (and ate the last 2 stroop waffles. They didn't even last a day!)
Wed Feb 8: I had been kind of cold that night since I put the smaller blankets on top of the duvet one so didn't sleep the greatest. When I woke up marieke and Anthony had both left for work so I just ate some food and left to explore utrecht. I walked to the center which wasnt far but was taking a lot longer than if I had gone by bike. I did notice the crossing sign at the street was instead of the usual green and red man, it was a sporty girl jogging lol. I thought that was cute. So My first stop was (of course) the tourist info where I got a map. The girl said they had no self guided walking tours in English though. So I went to this museum specifically for catholic art in an old convent. You get an audio tour thru the museum which wasn't for all of the items, but most. And they also had a book explaining what some exceptional pieces were, and it translated the intros to each section, cause otherwise it wasnt in English (so still a large portion wasn't in English but I spent enough time in there to make it work my admission price:free!) The oldest were sculptures from the 13th century, in particular was this massive wood carving of st Christopher with baby Jesus on his shoulders. And they had triptychs From churches and lots of paintings and bishops jewelry, relics and stuff from church treasuries and all this. The treasury items were actually in a small room and some were really decorated with gold and jewels and finely carved. The doorway was arched and had a sign that said "please watch your head" but I thought the top was miles away!! My lonely planet said that the new requirement for doorway heights is 5'11"! But ok anyway in the treasury they had some protestant stuff for the mass and it was just plain pewter dishes and cups and it explained that protestants think that worshipping god should be with simple items, and all the flash jewels is just greed on the catholic churches part. But the catholics think that god deserves the best!! I agree with the protestants, I think this wonderful and powerful god of theirs will still love them without all the ornamentation, and they are doing the earth a favor by not encouraging excavations for these precious jewels! So the museum They had a small section of contemporary religious art, thank god. One of the temp exhibits was real cute, it was mainly for kids, but it was all about catholic festivals and holidays (these dutch love to have museum exhibits about partying!) it looked real cool but very barely in English :-( I did find out about world pets day in like April or something, and well most of the other holidays I could deduce what they were (the Easter bunny for Easter and the sintaklass for Dec 5) but knowing about the origin of these traditions would have been nice. Another temp exhibit they had was about pilgrimages. They had small sections on pilgrimages in Muslim and Hindi and some Asian cultures but the main theme of the exhibit was to Santiago. This had a book which had everything translated so I went thru the whole exhibit and it actually was more interesting than I thought it was going to be lol. They had old photos of Bethlehem and some other places related to Jesus's birth and life. So it kept talking about st James the greater (I had to Wikipedia "pilgrim" to get his name and I just found out that Santiago is st James in Spanish. It all makes sense now!)  and it showed so many paintings of him in pilgrim clothes and it talked about the hard ships of the pilgrims how they could only eat when accepted offerings and they went to all these important churches around the world to pay their respects. Then I thought, wait a tick, I'm pretty much a pilgrim! I'm not walking or roughing it like they did, but still, only eating food from my hosts, and going to all these churches in every place I visit!! But yeah I went thru the whole exhibit and then I was done with the museum. So at 4pm the dom tower (the highest in the Netherlands) was doing a guided tour up to the top (you can't go up otherwise) so I went at 3:45 pm but the lady at the counter said they need a minimum of 5 people and so far there were only 3 so I waited around and then came across a self guided walking tour in english (so the other girl just didn't have a clue about how to do her job) so I bought that for €2. When 4 came the lady said the tour wasn't going to go ahead :-( so I left and then went to the aboriginal art museum, which is the biggest in Europe (I think!) And that's all folks for the night!!

Giving up for lent: not being so lazy with the posting :-)

Monday Feb 6: so this day I had plans to hang out with elise by day and carmen by night. I started off my morning with going to a bakery and trying Bosch boll or whatever it was, some pastry covered in chocolate. Mmmmm that was real good and went down quickly! Then I went to this famous courtyard I had read about in my lonely planet that used to house nuns. I then realized I had already visited it last time lol. So I went to the museum of Amsterdam history or something along those lines. I was happy that some museums were open on a Monday! They had a new temp exhibit called DNA where it goes thru an abbreviated history of Amsterdam right up to today, but it was a bit techie, so they had lots of comp screens and you were given this piece of paper with a bar code and you scan the bar code and you watch a short film. Well that was only in English, the other languages had to read from a translated booklet. So I saw that exhibit, they had this booth where they have replica knights armor on a stand so you stand behind it and fit yourself inside the armor and then the cam takes a pic. Only the armor was positioned for dutch people height so it ended way after my face began. So the photo is quite funny, I went on my tippies to fit normally in the armor, but it still looked ridiculous. I think the photos are then uploades to the museums FB page but I haven't checked it.in the more current section of the history story they had videos from the provos and also when john Lennon and yoko came to visit and sat in bed to promote world peace and stuff so it was quite good. Then I went on to the permanent exhibit but I didn't stay for long cause then I had to meet elise at the war memorial at dam sq. This was my first time going to dam sq since being in Amsterdam again, so I was quite delighted to see the palace in all its glory cause last year it was covered in scaffolding!! So around 1 ish elise came although her train was delayed cause of the snow. But it was a nice sunny day and not too cold so we just walking around and talked for a few hours. We didn't have a destination in mind, so we really just walked all over, even the not so touristy places (which was nice to get out of the bustle) like behind centraal station and stuff. So it was good to see her again, but she told me her house she is living in with her sister got broken into and the thieves made off with her nephews €40 life savings (he's like 8) so he was real upset about that, her necklace and some of her sisters stuff. But they really ransacked the place so she spent that morning helping her sister clean up. Apparently this has been happening a lot in her neighborhood yet the police are so chillax about burglary that the criminals still aren't (and probably never will be) caught. And because her nephew was so upset about his money being stolen, her other sister did some fundraising to raise the money back for him, and she ended up getting more than €40, so she donated the rest to her sister, whose place it was, that had hundreds of euros stolen from her. And this sis is going through a stressful time cause she is trying to move permanently with her son to south Africa cause her husband lives there and she's been having to deal a lot with paperwork and translating documents to English (don't they practically speak dutch down there?) And it costs a lot of money and yada yada so this robbery came at a very bad time (is it ever a good time?).  But yeah we walked for like 4 hours so then we were starting to get a bit cold, esp in the shade. When we walked back towards the center we saw A LOT of people on the iced over canals, one guy was even in just a t-shirt playing hockey with his friends. And there were lots of families and kids skating on it or just running around on it. There was even a guy with a stand selling soup! Which according to elise is very traditional during winter time. She also told me about this 11 city race that only happens in the north when the canals completely freeze, then people partake in like a fun race through these 11 cities on skates along the canals. But it only happens when its really cold, so the last time was 1997. And she also told me about how she volunteered for a bunch of places, locally and abroad, and she said lots of dutch people like to volunteer for places (hence another reason why I like them so much!). So elise had plans to meet up with another friend so I Hung out with them until it was time to meet carmen. we met up with her friend at dam sq again, and I found out it was actually elises birthday!! I was like why didn't you tell me!? And she said she spent the whole morning cleaning up the mess at the apt, so it didn't feel like her bday. Burglars are so inconsiderate! So then her friend said oh did you go on the ice yet, this is the first time in my life the canals here have been frozen over! So with that we went onto the ice and had a bit of fun. I wished I had my skates! Then we went to the university campus (she studies there) and had some tea. I found out she did an exchange in Nebraska and I asked why there of all places and she just wanted a typical American campus-like college, so yeah meaning big university in the middle of nowhere so there is nothing else to do but party. So I left them around 6 to go back to the hostel, change and meet carmen. When I got there a whole new batch of people arrived (all young males!) And one asked where was a good coffeeshop to go to, and I said you're asking the wrong person! But I said mellow yellow was the first one and the maddog or belushis or whatever were popular. So I got ready quickly and then went to meet carmen at 7:15 pm on rembrandt sq. We went to an Australian bar (of course) and had dinner and some drinks there. By Joe was it expensive! So we just caught each other up with our lives since the last time I saw her, which was last January. She is doing another masters degree, in something economics related. So after a while we left to then go to some other bars, which the night started off slow but got a bit crazy toward the end, but I won't go into any details!
Tues Feb 7: so that morning I was so so tired but I managed to get up, have breakfast and check out of the hostel. At breakfast though I saw a whole package of stroop waffles in a basket with some other food, but there was no name on it so I asked some guy if this was up for grabs and he said yeah that was the basket which people leave behind food (who leaves behind an entire packet of stroop waffles!? But hey I'm not complaining!) So I took the whole thing! That was my lunch for my ride to utrecht :-) so that guy and I ate breakfast together. He has been living at the hostel for 2 months and working there. he got annoyed at me for eating a lot of the nutella (even though there were like 5 other jars on the other tables) and I just wanted to be like screw you dude, I will need my energy for today! But we talked a bit, he was from sweden. That's all I can remember lol. So I soon left the hostel and my original plan I had made the previous day was to wake up a bit early and walk around and see the canals and architecture cause my lonely planet mentions a lot of things to see. But I really wasn't up for it being so tired, so I instead went to the FOAM. I realized once i was inside that I went there last time but they had all new exhibits so that was fine then. And strangely enough, all American photographers, so the descriptions were in English too! One of the exhibits was of Joel sternfeld, "one of the pioneers of color photography" apparently. I wasn't too impressed with his photos, although they were mostly shot in new york, so it was nice to see photos of the city from the 70s-90s. The exhibit I found most interesting was where the photographer took photos of crime scene locations (but years after the crimes have happened). So if you only look at the photos you think, oh wow under a bridge, or oh great, a house, a street, how boring, but when you read the description it says what crime took place there and when. So there was one where a 14 yr old gang member (!!) had gotten into a gun fight on the street and ended up killing an innocent bystander with a stray bullet, and then the gang killed the 14 yr old boy cause they thought he was going to reveal some info to the police. Another one was a photo of a shop in dumbasshicksville USA and the story behind it was in the early 90s or something a 12 yr old black boy wanted to impress his friends by showing them he can talk to white women so he walked into the shop and said "hello mrs ____" and that was all he said and her husband was apparently threatened by this so he and his brother murdered him the next day. And both were found innocent by an all male all white jury. Don't you just love the south!! And another one (last one I promise) was where a japanese exchange student who barely spoke English was with the son of his host family on the way to a Halloween party in costume but he got the address wrong and knocked on the wrong door and the lady who answered was frightened by him in costume so she told her husband to go get his gun (seriously..who does that!?) And so he did and the Japanese guy didn't realize he was at the wrong house or that he frightened the lady so in his excitement went to run into the house and join the party, and the husband shot him dead. This was also in the south as you might imagine, guns are as popular as fried chicken!! So yes i saw all of the exhibits and then went to the allard Pearson museum, where the other half of the etruscan exhibit from leiden was being held. So this was all about the males. And being Amsterdam, everything was in English this time so I got a better idea of what I was looking at! But it was mainly about the men as warriors and with their fighting weapons and grave gifts and old possessions and stuff. After the exhibit I looked around the museum in general and they had Roman sculptures and the like for an archaeology museum, but it wasn't in English really so I didn't spend too long there. So then I went to the rembrandt house. On my way there a market on that sq right around the corner from the house had some souvenirs, so I stopped and bought some prints of old Amsterdam for mikes fam. So at the museum, It was an audio tour explaining the rooms. So there was his bedroom, his studio, his art dealing room and greeting room (both with paintings on the walls from masters from rembrandts time to give an idea of what type of paintings remmy would have Hung on the wall), the kitchen, and the etching room where I saw a demonstration on etching. The upstairs part which was now an exhibition space was the attic where his apprentices worked. The exhibition had a lot of his etching works and similar ones from the same period, but I whizzed thru that cause I needed to leave for utrecht and it was already later than I hoped to have left. So I left the museum at 4:43 pm but getting out of the Amsterdam center was a bit hectic. Lots of traffic and a little bit of getting lost, so I wasn't actually on my way until after 5. So yeah I rode most of the way in the dark :-( so it was a shame but I didn't get to do this route that henk mapped for me that included riding past these water forts that looked interesting, cause I needed to arrive asap and not be so leisurely. But at least following the red signs was straight forward enough. Went through some nice small villages, and of course some farm land. And saw more old fashioned molens :-) there was still some snow on the bike paths in some places, so maybe it was good I stuck to the main route, cause the water fort one probably wouldn't have been shovelled.i was doing fine with following the cycle paths until i got into this one village in particular (the only time when these red cycling signs aren't so frequent are in villages, cause otherwise they are every few feet sometimes!) So the village had twists and turns and I didn't know where to go so I asked an old lady on the street but she didn't know English but I figured it out by her hand gestures. I checked the map and saw I was only half way there and it was like 6 ish so I texted my host marieke and told her I was going to be later than expected (I told her I would arrive between 5-6 pm) so after that I found a busy road and my gps said that will take me to utrecht so I rode on it for a bit, but in the bike lane :-) so in a bit I made it to the center, I checked the gps as to where marieke lived exactly and it was real easy to find. I saw that she had called and messaged me saying she had to go to track at 7:30 pm but her neighbor would let me in so to just ring his bell. So I finally arrived at 7:53pm, rode 26.18 mi, max 17.8 avg 7.7 mph. I rang the guys bell and he let me in and I went upstairs to mariekes and she had a note on the stairs for me and she said I could cook f I wanted. But I was feeling super hungry, tired, and a bit cold by this point so I just microwaved some leftovers from their fridge (didn't want to finish off the last 2 stroop waffles for dinner). Marieke and her husband Anthony are vegans so it was nice to try a vegan meal, and it was good. They have a counter against the wall in the kitchen so I ate on there but it, and thus the  chairs were so high!! I could hardly scooch my butt onto the seat! Damn you gigantic dutch people! So marieke arrived shortly afterwards and I learnt that she does triathalons, so the track training was this night, followed by swimming and spinninging the next 2 respective nights!! Pretty crazy!  So we had the get to know you chat, but I will end it here for the night!