Holland in Review

My first taste of Europe was in holland and I am not sure if any other European country can to that. The first two nights with the groupbwere spent camping, doing orientation and getting to meet all the other riders whom I'll be spending the next 4.5 weeks with. I have to admit I love all of them and we are only a couple days into the ride. 15 canadians and 2 americans. We are such a diverse group of people so bit only will I learn a tom from travelling but also from within this group.

The first day of riding was only 45 km but a majority of it was into a very strong headwind. We left around 11 in the morning and arrived in utrect at around 3 pm. Our accomadation for that night was in a ladies home that I contacted through couch surfing. She lived right in re downtown area along a canal. She prepared dinner for us with the help of a few or her friends, one of whom was a chef. 95% of the food was attained by dumpster diving whichbis why she was able to cook us such a large dinner. There was nothing wrong with the food but stores waste so much becuase the package is dirty or dented or other various reasons. Long story short dinner was delicoius as was brekkie. After dinner we wereanle to use wifi, I went canoeing on then canal, and then we had wine along the canal by a camp fire. The perfect night.

The next daybwe rode 55km to Waginegen. Here we stayed in a student housing compound.

Holland thus far

Met the team. Love the team. There are 17 of us in total, 15 canadians and 2 Americans. Everyone isbfrom different areas so of is cool to learn about every person and where they are from. I have learned so much in the last couple of days from other riders and people we randomly meet.

In holland, the rules of the road are slightly different that in Canada. Right of way first goes to bicycles then pedestrians and finally cars. In Vancouver, pedestrians definitely have the right of way. I love riding around holland on my bike is way faster than walking and sometimes faster than a car. I was only almost hit by a scooter twice which are also allowed in bike lanes. Every street has a bike lane and some are bikes only. Love it.

Favorite food so far: chocolate covered waffles. So delicous, they have huge sugar crystals inside of them.

First day of riding today. It was only suppose to be a 40 km ride but it turned out to be closer to 60 km. And we rode the majority of it into a head wind.

Sorry about the little detail but I'm off the a bonfire along the canal.

Good night from Utrecht, Holland.

The joys of time

Tuesday morning i was up at 8:00 am and flew out of Seattle at 1:40 pm. Napped on the plane fo maybe 90 minutes and landed in Amsterdam at 8:30 am local time or just after midnight in Vancouver. Once I got to my hotel I napped for 2 hours and then I was off to find a place to watch the hockey game at 2am. Returned to the hotel at 5:30 am and went straight to bed. I was suppose to get up at 7:30 am to go into town but I couldn't get out of my bed. I gotnleft begin and went back to sleep. I woke up at 5:00 pm, went for a 90 minute bike ride, picked up dimmer returned to the hotel. It's not almost 11 pm so hopefully if I got bed soon I can get my sleep cycle back on track.

We are planning on seeing some tourist attractions tomorrow. I did get my first taste of Amsterdam last night/rrally early this morning. The architecture, the canals and the people are so amazing. There is a bicycle parking Lot just outside the central sstation that is three stories high. The buildigs are so old and slanted. The canals are everywhere.

I saw my first Dutch windmill and tomorow I plan on finding the flower market.

I wanted to attach some pictures but no can do as I am writng this on my
iPod which explains the poor spelling. Hopefully everything still makes sense.

Good night from holland,

Nicole

Travel day setbacks

Flight was scheduled for 1:40 pm out of Seattle so my parents and I drve down Monday afternoon and stayed the night to avoid an early rushed Tuesday morning. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time and having checked in online I lined up to check my bag straight away. When I got to the counter I put my bike box on the scale and it weighed in at a whopping 74 lbs which is apparently 4 lbs over the limit and the lady said "we can't put that on the plane". Um what? The whole purpose of this trip is to ride my bike. So I had to openly bf and remove some weight so it would only weigh 70. In the end it weighed 68.9 lbs. Phew.

Next I had to drop it off at oversized baggage. There the officer looked at the strapping which I had just undone by hand to take out some weight said "you can't have these straps". Yikes, day is not starting out so well. I stayed to watch him unstrap my box and take everything to swab it and check for radiation. He finally finished and then started putting the straps back on. All good.

Next I had to clear security and obviously this is where I said goodbye to my parents. I had to admit there were some tears, I've never been away frommy parents for this long and across the world on a different continent.

Advice from my dad "don't do anything stupid". Thanks dad! Love you guys!

Everything else went smoothly, got on the plane and arrived in amsterd no problem. Picked upmy bike and then headed outside to find the shuttle to my hotel. Of course it was late so I had a minor panic attack but then it showed up and I was all good. Then I pushed my cart towards the shuttle and the driver was like I can't take that box, and I was like what? And in my head. Was thinking you are a freaking shuttle bs what do you mean you can't fit my bike on the bus. I must admit the compartments underneath the bus were quite small but he didn't even offer to try. I had to convince him it would fit. The first compartment did not but the second one fit no problem. He said I was the exception and if he had more passengers with baggage he would not have been able to take me. Bullshit. I'm a hotel guest and have just as much of a right t ride that shuttle withy extremely large box as any other smuck. I didn't want toake a big scene and I got on the shuttle and kept mouth shut.

And now I sit here inky hotel waiting to meet up with Katie, Julie and Gabe and think back on all the advice I have been given:
Don't do anything stupid
Don't die
Have fun
Take lots of pictures
Go to all the places they tell you not to
Don't forget me
Buy me something nice(I guess that's more a request than advice)
Stick to the buddy system.

Thanks everyone for the advice, good or bad.

Signing out from Amsterdam for the first time,

Nicole

Bike Box Packing

 Let's just say good thing I started a day early. Originally I thought it would only take my about half an hour to pack up my bike to take on the plane. Definitely not the case. The first hour was spent taking my bike apart and deciding which bike box I was going to use. I came to the conclusion that the two boxes I had were not going to work. Off to the bike store I went to get another box. I got a third box, this one packed slightly different and would require me to take of the rear wheel but makes it easier to fill the box with the rest of my gear. Another hour past with me trying to figure how to arrange the frame and the wheels in the box. At this point I was getting very sleepy so I put packing on hold and had a solid 90 minute nap, ate some food and then got back at.

Now, I had everything arranged the way I wanted but I still needed to make the box wider so I used one of the other boxes to cut strips out and increase the width of my current box by about 2 inches. Then I started zap straping everything  and filling the spaces with all my gear that I don't want/need for the plane ride. Everything was wrapped in foam or bubble wrap. Oh bubble wrap so entertaining.

Everything I wanted to be in the box fit and I had to double check that all the pieces I took off my bike ended up in that box so when I get to Amsterdam I will be able to fully assemble my bike (no idea how long that will take me, but should be a very entertaining process).  From start to finish, only took me 7 hours, no big deal.

 Next I put the lid back on the box, covered it in fragile stickers, added my name, address and phone number, and Dad strapped it shut.

That was all done last night. When I got up this morning, I was informed by my Mom that I was going to have to open the box and remove the derailleur. I actually didn't take to long to open the box, remove the one screw that attached the derailleur and then seal the box again. Whew. Of course my dad supervised and helped throughout the entire process. I am just hoping that it makes it to Amsterdam safely and I will be able to put it back together on my own.