Bike Tangent

Okay so I was getting bored posting what I did each day (but don't miss tomorrow's installation of day 4!) so I thought I would take a little break.

Susan commented on my bike picture and it took me a while to figure out what she meant. I think with all the bikes in Amsterdam I became blinded to them! Biking is a way of life in the Netherlands and I can see why - especially in Amsterdam. There are trams and taxis but both are fairly expensive especially since the distances in Amsterdam are very low. For example to walk form the museum district to Anne Frank House, it only took us about 30-40 minutes. Why take the tram that costs almost 3 Euros?

So today I dedicate an entry to the bikes.


Here is an example of the bike lane, see the brick sidewalks in the picture above and below? That is actually the bike lanes. I never saw such fantastic bike lanes as I did in Amsterdam and Den Haag. Also of note - you can see the tram in the bottom picture as well. They are very skinny trams.




In the picture above you can see a whole mess of bikes parked as well as an itty bitty truck that litterly is the size (well at least the length) of a bike. Too Cute! Can you imagine getting a sandwich delivered in that in the U.S.?


Here is a picture of a bike crossing. These are set up along major roads and people on the bikes press them to get the go ahead to cross. They are usually near a pedestrian crosswalk. Although one does see a bit of Jay-biking mostly people wait for the lights because it is too dangerous. We did see one guy (who was walking his bike) jay-walk with his bike and his bike was hit by a car. It made a loud noise but it didn't seem to faze him one bit - he just kept walking and rolling his bike along. Any accident that involves a bike and car - it is automatically the car's fault. Keep that in mind if you go driving there.

There are also a variety of shapes and sizes of bikes. Here is one I call the minivan of bikes. it looks like a wheelbarrow but when it is uncovered (they cover them because of rain, it rained a lot while we were there) there is usually a bench seat at handlebar side and little kids sit there while there mom pushes them around... sometimes with groceries at their feet. Also some bakeries make deliveries in these types.

(note the name on the building with the arches, pretty clever - ArchAngel).



And when we were in Den Haag at Scheviningen (it is a beach resort area) they had these "team building bikes" that could seat 7 or 8 people (only one person steers while everyone peddles) These people were having a real good time. The were so loud we looked out our hotel window to see what the fuss was about.



Well Harland is calling me to help him set the camping gear outside to dry - we went camping last night in Prince William Forest Park again. It was nice, my feet were a little cold... but I love waking up in the woods. We saw a mushroom that was red on top and white on the bottom like the kind you see next to Ceramic Gnomes which was cool, I didn't know those were actual mushrooms i thought they were just make-believe. We didn't stay very long since we still are unpacking here and have all the sunday errands to run (ie grocery shopping, cleaning).