The first thing we did was rent OV-Fiets bikes. These bikes that are available to rent at every train station in The Netherlands. Biking in Amsterdam was much scarier than biking in Delft. There are a lot more people and objects to avoid, and the facilities seemed much narrower. It seemed much more chaotic in Amsterdam, which makes sense as it is a big city. Luckily I didn't hit anything though! My main biking strategy was just to follow the person in front of me as closely as I could. It worked out!
All of our rental bikes
As a group we went to the headquarters of the Amsterdam Cyclists Union. From there a woman with the cyclist union gave us a mini tour around Amsterdam. We saw a neighborhood that's going through gentrification, new bike facilities that have been built, a neighborhood closer to the outside of the city where new office buildings are going, and the central park of the city. It was a pretty interesting tour. After a brief presentation we split into groups to go look at some other facilities in the city.
Some statue I found. I have no idea who this guy is.
What a nice new roundabout
My group looked at three different roads and compared the bike facilities on all three. Along the way we stopped for lunch in the plaza in front of the Rijksmuseum. That area was really bustling with tourists all lining up in front of the I Amsterdam sign. One of my group said it reminded them of a small version of the national mall in DC, which I agreed with.
The front side of the Rijksmuseum, which is like the national museum of The Netherlands. Interesting note is that they built a bike path through the middle of the museum.
Back side of the museum with the I Amsterdam sign
Large reflecting pool and some odd statue. Are they very sad or just tired?
The I Amsterdam sign again. If only all these tourists would get out of my photo!
After the assignment, we were free to tour Amsterdam. My group decided to do the Heineken Experience. I thought it would be a normal brewery tour, but it was more like a museum. It was self guided, and they even had some cheesy ride at the end where you became the beer. It was fun though! Plus we got three free drinks and were able to stand outside on their rooftop deck!
An old Heineken sign
A creepy old Heineken sign
The big vats where the beer used to be brewed. They actually don't brew beer here anymore. This used to be the site of the main Heineken Brewery from the 1800's until the 1980's when they built a new brewery in the suburbs. Now the whole building is the museum.
Christine and the taps.
They even have horses! Is this Budweiser I'm at?
Chase and Sarah relaxing on the couches
Outside on the rooftop deck.
Look at all of Amsterdam below us! This is the old city center of Amsterdam, so no skyscrapers.
All of us on the roof.
After the tour we walked and biked around Amsterdam a little bit. We got dinner at a take-out Chinese wok place and saw some more of the city. At night we ended up going to a bar in the Leidseplein area of Amsterdam. It was pretty fun! It seemed like it was mostly locals minus our group of Americans and another group of people from Australia. I'm glad we didn't go to a place that was all tourists. I found it interesting that the bar played mostly American music. Our group ended up taking the 2:45am train back to Delft. I slept most of the hour train ride back and I had to be woken up when we got back to Delft.
The next day I slept in until 1:30. It was pretty glorious to get so much sleep, but also a little disappointing that I had wasted so much of my one free day. I ended up taking an afternoon bike ride. I rode out into the countryside west of Delft. My goal was to find the big shipping channel that feeds into Rotterdam and see the big ships. I found the channel, but unfortunately there weren't many ships at 5pm on a Sunday. The channel was cool though! I saw the big delta project gates that they use to close the channel during storm surge. And after being around people non-stop for the last two weeks it was nice to be by myself for a few hours. I ended up biking around 45km or so!
I found an old windmill! How Dutch!
I'm surprised by how many swans I've seen in Holland. I didn't know they had this many swans.
Nice place for a country bike ride
I found the shipping channel!
New wind turbines line the Port of Rotterdam. The actual port stretches for like 10 miles along the channel or something. It's the largest port in Europe!
Part of the Delta Project. When there's a risk of flooding this big structure can swing to the side and block the canal acting like a dam.
Notice the leaves blowing in the wind. It was a nice bike ride, but super windy! At some points I felt like I could barely move because of the wind.
Signs to get me back to Delft. Even following the signs I managed to get rather lost on the way back. I circled around this small town like twice and I lost the bike route I was following. Eventually I found another sign pointing me to Delft and I followed it.
Sunday evening a group of us went and got unlimited pancakes at a restaurant in the central square in Delft. It turns out Dutch pancakes are more like crepes, but that's fine. I also love crepes. They were really good and only 8.50 euro! I had one crepe with cheese, one with bacon, and one with apples. Sounds like a nutritious dinner to me!
Location of unlimited pancakes (crepes)
And afterward we took a short walk around Delft and then got gelato. I think I can get used to this,
Better not leave your house, or you'll step into a canal!
Another old building
A very menacing looking sky. Looks like it's time for our daily rain shower. So far there have only been three days where it hasn't rained at least once. I guess you get used to it if you live here.
And at this point another week was over!
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