Thursday 27 March 2008

Utrecht, Netherlands

Hi Everybody,
It’s been a really long time since I’ve blogged. For some reason I couldn't get inspired to write. Maybe it was that good old winter blues syndrome. I guess that can’t be the excuse since winter in London is an awful lot like summer in London. Rainy and just cold enough to make you wish it was warmer. Anyway, I've decided to change things a little so that I'll blog more often. No more thinking, oops I mean no more huge, long, information filled blogs. Hopefully, I can show a few pictures, tell you what I think is probably happening in them and then move on. Each will have a theme (possibly maybe sometimes, but probably not really) and hopefully all entries will be short.
To start things rolling, Cheryl and I visited our friends Candice and Dirk in Utrecht, Netherlands last November. We had a great time even though I managed to get food poisoning in Amsterdam and Cheryl managed to break her thumb while riding home on a borrowed bicycle. (Cheryl, I told you it was broken;).
Almost everybody rides a bike here. I never thought I would see so many bikes in one place. My question is how would you ever find your bike, especially if you were the first in that day. If this was in the states, you might think that only the bikes on the outside were ever ridden, the ones on the inside were long forgotten about and were left to rust in this bicycle graveyard.
I'm pretty sure that almost all of these are used on a daily basis. It was actually difficult getting into the bicycle lane during rush hour just because of all the bicycle traffic. Still it was a great way to get around.
I tried to take a few pictures of the people we saw on bicycles while we were in Amsterdam one night. My camera really doesn't like to take pictures at night, either that or I was starting to feel the effects of the food poisoning. Never, ever eat hamburgers in Amsterdam, ever.
This is a typical family bicycle that you see around Amsterdam. I saw a woman riding one of these with 3 kids and a small dog in the basket, while she was talking on her cell phone. Now that would have been a great picture.
Cheryl and I will be in the Netherlands again in a couple of weeks. She will be participating in the Rotterdam Marathon on the 13th of April. More about that in the near future.

Ok that's all for now. Check back soon as I intend to update a lot more often.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The bicycles are unreal! How do people find their's? If they are leaning on each other, how do you get your's out? I'm sure they've worked things out.
Very cool slice of Dutch life.
Glad you'll be able to cheer Cheryl on for the marathon. We are looking forward to seeing her for the Passover Seder.
-Lauren