The third day we all woke up and made some quick breakfast, then headed back towards the center to get Erika a bike and to exchange ours for the 3-speed hand brake versions.
We noticed there were already a few bikes parked at the Centraal Station…
We went and got the bikes worked out, and then came back to Dam Square to meet up with Marc and Eva for Marc’s grand tour of the city.
We hopped on our bikes, and we were off down the narrow streets of the center.
We stopped along the way to get a picture of all of us together, as I guess Marc was being interviewed for an article from the Dutch Fietsersbond about collaboration of bicycle advocates, and he was going to tell them about all of us meeting there in Amsterdam.
photo courtesy of eva.lu
Marc then took us by one of the many herring carts around the streets, where you can get either raw herring with onions or smoked herring sandwich. I had the raw herring with onions, which was really tasty, and Patrina even liked it, though she’s usually not a big fan of fish.
photo courtesy of eva.lu
photo courtesy of eva.lu
At this point, we started to notice a few people dressed rather strangely going by on bikes, and Marc thought he was having some great luck for a photoshoot (we would find out an hour and half later as we were still seeing people ride by all dressed up that they were going to a party):
photo courtesy of Amsterdamize
photo courtesy of Amsterdamize
photo courtesy of Amsterdamize
We decided at this point to go get some lunch, but the first two places Marc took us were jam packed, so we ended up at a third, back near Dam Square:
Marc rides pretty quickly and knows where he’s going, and there were a couple times we had to catch up with him after getting stuck behind a car or some pedestrians. The nice thing about riding in Amsterdam, which takes some getting used to at first, is that you should ride assertively because you have right of way, and people expect you to ride assertively. You don’t wait for cars to pass, they stop for you. You don’t wait for bikes coming the opposite direction to pass before you turn, you turn and they veer slightly to go around you. Basically the whole system functions so that the bikes never stop :) If you need to, you can just stop with one foot on a curb, and people will go around you nicely, but otherwise, you just keep going.
Anyway, eventually we made it to the cafe and sat down to a delicious lunch of tomato, basil and buffalo mozzarella sandwich (I don’t remember for sure what everyone else had), and as we sat for about an hour, the stream of people dressed up just kept going by.
photo courtesy of eva.lu (but taken by Marc)
photo courtesy of eva.lu (but taken by Marc)
We brought Marc some coffee (what else do you bring someone from Portland, really?), and he was trying to take a photo of it on his table, but he only had a 300mm lens on him (long telephoto for the non-photo-savvy), so we had this situation :)
We even got to see the beer bike:
After lunch, we split up, and Patrina, Erika and I went to the flower market and the Albert Cuyp market. We got some flower bulbs as gifts, and a few trinkets at the Albert Cuyp, but most importantly, a LUGGAGE TROLLEY (Thank you Eva for that suggestion! It was a lifesaver the rest of the trip).
photo courtesy of eva.lu
On the way from the flower market to Albert Cuyp, we passed the Heiniken Brewery, so I snapped a shot as we were riding.
This stretch of road was one of the few larger roads where bicycles were riding in the road with cars (that is, there is no separated infrastructure). I don’t think I once had a car come within a few feet of me however, and it was still very comfortable. Granted, I’m used to riding in the road at home, but traffic there just feels very non-aggressive in general.
The most typical bike racks there look like this one, where you put your front wheel in the little scoop, and it holds your bike up, then you chain it to the tall loop. In residential areas, these are on basically every street corner (and on all four sides of every corner), and most destination areas will have a bunch of them, as well as open space to just leave your bike, as I mentioned in the last post.
From the Albert Cuyp market, we rode home, made some extremely spicy Thai Curry for dinner, and proceeded to stay up until about 3am watching Eddie Izzard, talking, etc :) A great end to a beautiful day.
