End of biking

After escaping from the wilderness of the Netherlands, I stopped by the castle where I studied seven years ago. It was kind of more beautiful than I rememb
ered. Really amazing that I was able to live there for a few months. Finally my lack of planning came back to bite me. I had failed to realize that I was really in rural Netherlands with day light fading fast. This posed a problem as I had no information for hotels in the vicinity. So I couldn't call for a reservation and by the time I biked to a large enough town with a hotel, they probably would be closed for the night if they weren't expecting anyone. So I made the trip to Venray which I had ridden to before in 2002. I didn't want to stay there but didn't have much of an option. Waking up the next day I could have taken a train back to Amersfoort to see Boris and Katinka and drop off the bike but I was having too much fun biking. So I made one last trip to a familiar haunt, Venlo, south of Venray, a pretty big town we used to catch trains out of. I booked a ticket to Amersfoort and then had a snack. I opened my shoulder bag to get my water bottle out and forgot to close it. When I boarded the train, the bag fell off the back of my bike. I turned around and it was gone! The bag had fallen between the train and the platform and since it was unzipped everything had spilled out! I also had cleverly not wrapped my camera in it's protective wrap and the bag with all my flash equipment was also open. To top it all off the train was leaving in about five minutes. I frantically ran down the platform to a conductor and explained the situation (luckily he spoke English). He had to climb down under the train and get all my stuff out. Miraculously nothing was broken, the lens cap had even gotten knocked off and the lens was OK. Pretty lucky. I'm in Prague now, but haven't color corrected the photos from Amsterdam so I'll save that for later.
Tricky self-portraits.My old stomping grounds.Ghosts.
The river Maas.This place looks like a painting.

Nijmegen to Well/Venray

So my camera battery died at the museum. I wasn't able to charge it until I arrived in Nijmegen, so there is a black out from that journey. Navigating has become rather easy. There are red signs at most major intersections pointing the directions to towns. I started looking at a map and picking a nearby city and just following the signs going from town to town until I reach the destination. This worked great until I hit rural Netherlands when looking for Well. I got completely lost and there were no signs. After going down some random dirt road, I finally found a sign. The other minor catastrophe was, when visiting the big lake near Well, it started to rain while I was hiking. I'd cleverly left my umbrella and jacket with my bike so I decided to sit under a tree and wait it out. The rain didn't let up so I made a break for my bike, got my jacket and umbrella and tried to figure out what to do in the middle of nowhere when it's raining. I decided to at least move towards some place I could sleep for the night if I had to. That's when the key got stuck in the bike lock. The bike wasn't chained to a tree, but NL bike locks put a bar across the back tire preventing it from rolling. So after about 20 minutes of trying to get the key out, I was able to at least unlock the lock. Close call...
*Note to friends* When I die, I expect to have some sort of weird Tupac shrine made in my honor.
Obligatory windmill picture

Arnhem and Kruller-Muller Museum

So I finally made it to Arnhem, walked around a bit. I stayed the night and rode out to the Kroller-Muller Museum the next day. It's this great modern art museum in the middle of a huge national park. There are free bikes anyone can take for the day to reach the museum. After that I headed south to Nijmegen with plans of going back to Well where I studied.
Train station in ArnhemAll around ArnhemThis is the entrance to a world class museum...seriouslyLost in La Mancha
Still en route to the musuem...Installation in the museum. Can't remember who did it but it's ribbons with wishes on them.The museum had this great sculpture garden. This is a sculpture!

Day Three

Boris, Katinka, Moshe, Banu, and I took the train to Utrecht. Later I rode back to the sand dunes in a bit of rain.
Probably the closest Boris and Katinka go to church.Banu! Language barriers meant nothing to her...
Storm's brewing...

Day Two

First full day in the Netherlands...
Boris at the long dunes.

Katinka and Moshe at home.During the first bike ride I got lost on.You can kind of see to the right of that pole, there is a little tower on an island. There's a raft with a chain on it that you can use to pull yourself over to the island. Oh, and that is the beast I'm riding around the Netherlands.A picture taken from said tower.

oops

So my lack of posting has been due to many things including; hanging out with good friends, riding bikes, bringing the wrong power converters for my computer, not having access to the internet, and being lost in rural Netherlands. Anyway, to bring everyone up to speed, I got into Amsterdam, took a train to Amersfoort where I stayed the last three days. I went on the first bike ride today, from Amersfoort to Arnhem, I got lost, a lot. Enjoy the photos (in chronological order)!

There was a 750 year anniversary festival for the city of Amersfoort. A lot of things seemed to come in these.

Boris and Banu in the mean streets of Amersfoort.

The first night I sat by the window for like 15 minutes amazed this was my view.


That was day one...