Adventure Start In Amsterdam 2026
Table Of Contents
- Why This Tour; Why Now? April 18, 2026
- More Miraculous Air Travel April 19, 2026
- Customs And Assembly April 20, 2026
- First Amsterdam Outing April 21, 2026
- Bakeries, Parks, and Statues? Yes please! April 22, 2026
- Bridges and Broodjes April 23, 2026
- Watching Yoshi April 24, 2026
- Amsterdam To Hamburg April 25, 2026
- Hamburg To Hirtshals April 26, 2026
Why This Tour; Why Now?
April 18, 2026 Filed Under Introspection
I think the best way I can say it is, “Things tend to continue exactly as they are unless you change them.”
A lot of interesting work happens here.
My Schedule
Up until a few days ago, I worked at a lab. It was a good job. There was a lot I loved about it.
If I had that job ten years ago, I’d have rolled with it for many years, helping scientists build interesting workflows to do unique research. It would have been perfect for the 2016 version of me. But between now and then something fundamental shifted: I’ve became much more aware of the finality of death, and the loss of opportunity that comes with declining health.
A few years back I lost my father, after a long slow decline into dementia. I’ll never stop missing him of course, but I spent a lot of time with him in later years and that helped ease the loss. Last year, my close cousin died from an awful aggressive cancer, and it happened faster than anyone was prepared for. I deeply regret not spending more time with him. I was living with a delusion, based on my experience with my Dad: There would always be just a little bit more time, so I could push our social plans out just a little bit more and it would be fine.
I had this plan, see. I would convince him to hang out with me for an hour or so every week, and we would record our conversations, and he would tell me all the stories from his youth and adulthood that I missed or forgot. All the things that his own kids were still too young to hear. I would edit the recordings, and then in a few years I would start giving them to his kids, a batch at a time, so they could still learn about their dad. It was a great plan. But my own relatively tiny concerns with work and schedules and stress kept pushing it just a little bit into the future. I had the chance to do it, and suddenly it was gone. Now I feel very, very stupid.
It also made me very thoughtful. I would go to the lab, and in the middle of a meeting or writing some code, a little bomb would explode in my head: “Who’s next? Who are you going to lose next, while you’re sitting here waiting for it to happen?”
The lab had a policy of two discontinuous remote days per week. I wanted the chance to see friends and relatives who lived farther away. I knew I was spoiled by previous jobs: For the last seven years, even before the pandemic, my managers had not cared where in the world I was, as long as I got things done and hit my marks at meetings. Having that flexibility felt urgent in a way it hadn’t before. I asked for the chance to work remotely for longer periods. “I don’t even want more remote days,” I said. “I want to rearrange the days I have, so I get longer intervals. Then I can travel and see people.”
After a year of asking, inside and outside the lab bureaucracy, the final straw came when I lost my cat. I’d rescued her as a kitten and she’d been a constant in my life for over 20 years. It was aggressive cancer, and it took her even faster than it took my cousin. Suddenly I was done waiting around for life to take more things away. I had to see people; I had to be in more places.
I asked for a different schedule one more time and was turned down, so I declared mid-April would be my last week. I’d been agonizing for a year and it still felt sudden. I think my boss was surprised I actually followed through. So was I, honestly. My friends encouraged me to make the change, but my relatives were split. Some of them thought I was crazy to leave a stable gig, especially in this economy shell-shocked by AI and global conflict. There’s only a handful of places in the world where research like this happens and I’m lucky to be involved.
Well, as they say, you can do anything but you can’t do everything. And some things you can do now, but not later.
My Body
My job was great, and there was also something great about the routine I had around it. Halfway between the house and the office is a café, and the coffee and food there are so good that instead of calling it by its real name, I just call it “Best Café.”
Why does it deserve that title? Because of all the places I’ve tried in the world so far, including cafés in Paris, Copenhagen, New York, etc., that café makes the best iced mocha. They start by scooping chocolate ganache into a glass with an ice cream scooper, then stirring it by hand to melt it. They stack ice on top of that, and pour hot espresso and a bit of cream over it, melting most of the ice and forming a drink with several layers by the time it gets into your hands.
This iced mocha is so good that I couldn’t resist buying it every time I went from the house to the office. So at least three days a week I bought this extremely rich drink and finished about a third of it on the way to my desk. Some days I would work at the café, snacking on the very dense quiche or frittata, or curried chicken salad, or poached eggs and sausage. I was probably eating a third more calories every day than I actually needed, in spite of riding the bicycle uphill to the café.
When the emotional turmoil set in, of feeling like I should be somewhere else but also feeling like I had a great thing going, I addressed it by eating my emotions. When you have a “Best Café” within easy reach, it’s easy to take that option. It’s honestly surprising that I only gained 15 or 20 pounds over a year and a half. My body somehow ignored most of the extra calories — or perhaps my brain turned them into code.
Starting last year, I’ve been able to grab a wad of extra flesh about the size of a baseball in my fist, from just beneath my belt. It’s at the point where I have to unsnap my pants on long car drives to be comfortable. I refuse to deal with this by just buying bigger pants.
I’m appalled that I can’t go up a single flight of stairs without feeling winded. I’m horrified that my pants feel constricted just when I’m standing straight up. I’m depressed that sometimes when I’m in the shower, I can’t see my own junk unless I lean forward. I’m too young to stop being on a face-to-face basis with my own junk! … Or maybe just too vain.
Years ago I wrote an entry about my relationship with food, which was mostly about the emotional component in my eating. Some people can be surrounded by amazing food and diligently manage their intake regardless of what they’re feeling. Not me. I’ve always had a hedonistic streak, and it’s how I counterbalance the side of me that’s prone to bleakness and depression. Modern medicine has ways to cancel out that part, but after 50 years I feel like I would lose a kind of personal continuity, or sense of who I am, if I intervened that way. Also, the lows I reach are relatively shallow compared to some other people around me – some of my favorite people in fact – and I would feel like a fraud if I couldn’t handle mine through some natural means. If I wander too far away from nature in the management of my brain, I face difficult questions about who or even what I am. Gratefully I can choose to avoid those.
Is that choice rational? Nope! Very little of what people do is rational. Since I can’t resist a perfect iced mocha, especially when I’m rushing to my first meeting of the day, I’m putting 5000 miles between me and the café it comes from. Rationality is how we do science, but our lives are utterly dominated by emotions — including the ones we don’t know we’re feeling.
One of my favorite lessons from the book “The Switch” is, “Environmental tweaks beats willpower, every single time.” To make a real course correction, I can’t just burn a zillion calories in a week and effectively starve myself into a different shape. I have to keep that downward caloric pressure and upward metabolic pressure in place for much longer, and at the same time pay more attention to what my body is really saying.
Hence, bike tour. Like previous tours, I actually expect to eat ravenously, but at the same time I expect to burn such an outrageous amount of energy that my body will change shape in spite of it. Food will taste amazing, but as long as I am conscious of what my stomach and my guts and my limbs are really saying, and as long as I keep pedaling, I can expect positive change.
My People
Some of my friends and family have moved farther away in the last few years. Out of the state, or out of the country entirely. A job that needs me on-site for most of every week isn’t compatible with seeing them, so that needed to change, but it’s also likely that my next job will require me to be within the continental US. Since I don’t know how much time I have for international travel, I’m starting with a trip abroad.
After seeing Iceland, I was keen on exploring more of the far north in Europe, but never got the chance. When I arrived by ferry in Hirtshals at the end of 2001, I saw that I could immediately board another ferry bound for Norway. What if I could get to Hirtshals again, and make it one continuous bicycle tour geographically, even though there’s a gap in time of five years? That would be cool.
The smartest way to explore Norway is to follow the coast, then head inland if the weather permits. And you know what Norway has a lot of? Hills. More than Iceland, more than New Zealand, more than any other place I’ve been so far. I’m going to climb a zillion hills and I’m going to like it.
I’d also like to see more of Copenhagen, and Denmark in general, where my grandfather was born. And, I’d like to retrace some of the explorations my Mom did over 50 years ago, including Amsterdam, where one of my best friends now lives. We’ll see how much time I have.
Time to pack things up again!
A pretty good packing job.
About a week before departure time, I kitted out the recumbent with all my touring gear, to do a “road test.” I took the bike up to Best Café – where else – and sat outside eating a slice of cake, thinking about how it was probably the last time I would be going here for a long while.
A full gear test up by my favorite cafe
A woman wandered by and asked to take a picture of the bike, then told me a long tale about one of her sons, who lived in Texas currently but was a life-long bike tourist. “It’s not how I would do things,” she said, “but it’s great for him. He’s been all over, and he loves his life. He and his wife just spent a month biking around France!”
This bike was parked outside the café a couple of times every week for well over a year. Hundreds of people walked by it without comment. But this time, I had the touring gear on. “Ah yes,” I thought to myself. “I forgot about this bit. More than any other kind of vehicle, a loaded touring bike gets attention.” I chatted with the lady for half an hour, then she waved goodbye … and wandered back five minutes later because she forgot to actually take the photograph.
It was a reminder to me, that I was making a massive change to my life, and it was entirely voluntary. This could have been like every other week. All I had to do, was nothing.
The Other Me
There’s a version of me that did do nothing. In a month, instead of being in Norway, he’ll be at his desk at the lab. In six months, he’ll be at his desk. Roll forward five more years and he’ll probably have enough money saved up to pay off his mortgage and effectively retire. From the outside looking in, no one will accuse him of making a bad decision.
He’s probably even pudgier than I am now, and he’s probably using a CPAP machine to deal with his sleep apnea, and he probably regrets not seeing his friends and family. But he’s got his name on a bunch of papers and he helped a lot of great science happen, and he’s probably enjoyed another 700 of the best iced mochas on the planet, and now that he’s retired maybe he can try and get back into shape.
That me is well taken care of. He’ll be fine. But I think I’m getting the better deal.
More Miraculous Air Travel
April 19, 2026 Filed Under Curious
Like most of my previous bike tours, this one involves a huge pile of stuff. There’s the bicycle in a humungous box, but also two additional suitcases full of camping gear, parts, clothing, electronics, and so forth.
I worry about thieves grabbing my suitcases off the luggage carousels, so the more decorated and weird and eye-catching they are, the better. Luckily I had a fine artist on hand!
Custom luggage art by Rachel!
Jon arrived right on schedule and gave me a ride to the airport in his groovy truck, and helped me unload the gear when we got there. We had fun telling war stories about old software upgrades gone wrong, and the changing nature of our industry.
Thanks to this handy SFO Security Time Estimate web page, I could relax about the time it would take to pass through all the checkpoints when I got to the airport.
Jon got everything to the airport safely. Love that guy!
I stuck the little wheels on the bottom of the box, hooked one suitcase onto the handle of the other, and rolled everything to the check-in desk.
Two tenths of a pound below the cutoff. Whew!
Well that was close! I had to pay the over-weight fee, but I didn’t have to pry open the box and shuffle things around like last time.
As I roamed around and located my gate, then settled in to do some paperwork, I checked the state of my luggage on my phone. The two suitcases and the bicycle slowly migrated across the airport, and by the time I was on the plane, the Airtags told me my luggage probably was too. Airtags are just wonderful for this sort of thing.
Airtags sure do give me peace of mind.
Waiting on the tarmac…
Here’s another reason I’m a lucky bastard: I can spend enough money to get a nonstop flight. Why does this matter to me? The dang luggage. A bicycle box is awkward, and relatively fragile. If it has to be moved between airplanes it will be messed with by airport personnel at least twice as much. And it’s quite possible one of them will damage the box or the contents while they’re mucking around inside looking for nuclear weapons or five thousand tiny snakes or whatever.
So, to ease my paranoia, I’m going non-stop. I could have potentially started the trip much closer to Norway – or in Norway – and tacked Amsterdam onto the end, but everything non-stop over there was brutally expensive. Plus, seeing Zach in Amsterdam was important. I didn’t want to defer that and potentially miss it.
And so, we flew nearly over the top of the world, in a straight line to Amsterdam:
We went over the top of the world.
As we passed over Greenland I looked down and saw an endless expanse of fog-shrouded snow, piled on top of itself and blown into long, curving valleys by the freezing wind. I thought of the jacket in my backpack, and the wee life vest that was supposedly somewhere beneath my chair.
Even if there was an actual airstrip down there, and the plane landed and rolled to a stop without any problems, we would all freeze solid long before any rescue could arrive. We wouldn’t even have time to resort to cannibalism.
On that note, time for dinner!
It’s harder to freak out about plane crashes when you’re constantly eating.
As we passed over Iceland I looked down and recognized one of the finger-like appendages of the northwestern region.
Northwestern arm of Iceland. It sure does look different in the winter!
I’d bypassed this on my first trip in 1999. That had been late summer, after the tourist rush, and I navigated a fair amount of wind and rain, but there hadn’t been a scrap of snow on those mountains. In the winter they’re a whole lot less inviting.
You ever try pedaling a loaded bicycle on a snow-covered road? If so, good job: You did the best that anyone can do, which is try.
I drifted in and out of consciousness a bunch, wearing noise-canceling headphones and an eye mask and using my inflatable pillow and the patch of blanket they give you for the flight. About all I could handle for input was episodes of The Goon Show, and when that was too complicated I just went with ambient music by Alio Die.
At long last we flew over land that wasn’t covered in snow, and as we spun around the airport I could see fields of flowers in long rectangles all around us.
Tulip fields!
Something tells me this is the Netherlands!
Customs And Assembly
Getting from the plane to the customs area was complicated. We boarded a shuttle, which went weaving around for a while and dropped us at a building, then we went upstairs and around a bunch of roped corners like mice running a maze where the cheese at the end was Amsterdam. Along the way I spotted this:
Tring tring!
Once we got to the line for biometric scanning and other digital shenanigans, an employee came by with a bag full of stroopwafels and handed them out indiscriminately.
Free waffles in the immigration line!
For a while we were all trapped in tiny glass boxes where we had to hold our passports up to a machine and then grip a fingerprint reader while gazing into a lens. The feeling of being a laboratory mouse was really intense. Then we were released to find our bags.
I walked a couple miles of carpet and ramps, and managed to find my stuff by following the Airtags. The suitcases were where the displays said they would be, but the bicycle was at the wrong oversize station. I would have searched for hours without the Airtag. Whew!
I hooked everything together and pulled my long tail of luggage over to a relatively traffic-free spot, just inside the big revolving doors. For the next two hours I slowly, methodically re-assembled the bicycle, and unpacked the suitcases of gear onto it.
Looks like everything is intact.
Milestone: The bike itself is complete.
Attaching bags and doodads; making adjustments.
Now it’s time to deal with the box.
Then I folded up the bicycle box, with all the padding, straps, and wheel caddies inside.
All the packing material, lined up inside.
As I was doing that, a couple of security people wandered up, wearing all-black combat gear and carrying really enormous rifles partially strapped to their chests. (Can they even run with those things?) One of them asked me what was inside the box, which I had just finished closing up with straps.
“Nothing,” I said. “There used to be a bicycle inside, but I put it together.” I pointed at the bike. “Now I’m folding up the box for transport. My friend will take it when he arrives.”
“And what about those suitcases?” said one of them, indicating with a tilt of his head.
Drat. My plan had been to just abandon those at the airport, with a little hand-lettered sign saying “FREE!” I couldn’t tell the guard that.
“Oh, my friend is taking those too,” I said.
They nodded, and moved away to a different part of the enormous room.
Zach arrived just at the right moment, and after some big hugs we chatted about transportation. I could ride the bike to his apartment, but in the meantime, could he bring the big box there, in his car? He said he would. What about the suitcases? If he didn’t want them I could find some way to dispose of them later…
He said he would take those too. My hero!
And thus unburdened thanks to my friend, I emerged into the wild wilderness of the greater Amsterdam area. In less than a minute I found the first of many bicycle paths, all separated from the cars. Lovely!
Spottersplaats?!?
A few minutes after that, I went through my first bicycle tunnel. A guy on a moped went farting past me at a startling speed, but still it was way better than being harassed by cars.
Bike-only tunnels! Wheee!
A first bit of Dutch graffiti. No idea what it means.
I had to add and remove my jacket, as the clouds obscured and then revealed the sun. My first of many “layer management” experiences, no doubt. It wasn’t long before the thrill of being outdoors on the ground again overwhelmed my sleep deprivation and I felt a bit hungry, so I chomped the free stroopwafel.
Time to eat the waffle.
As I passed around the edge of the airport, I stopped and took some cool photos of the runway. Then I followed the OpenCycle map in the direction of Zach’s place, which took me on a nice series of bike paths, mostly through parkland.
A giant plane in the heat haze.
A stack of planes. Got to keep the line moving…
Out on the Dutch highways!
Well this is pleasant!
A bit chilly but a lovely bike route just the same.
If this was on a different continent, I’d call it a Burning Man bike.
Before I knew it, I was at the apartment. Zach helped me maneuver the bike into the back yard, and shortly after saying hello, I brought my things up to the spare room and went SPLAT.
Exploding luggage all over Zach’s place!
Once I was indoors again, the exhaustion of a night without sleep hit me like a wave. Would going to bed in the early afternoon help with the jet-lag? Maybe; maybe not. Either way, it’s happening.
First Amsterdam Outing
April 21, 2026 Filed Under Curious
The first night was horrible, as expected. A nine hour time difference will do that…
In bed for 13 hours, asleep for 9. Honestly not bad.
I knew I couldn’t do anything adventurous. Just getting through the day and falling asleep at the right time would be a victory. But I had to look around a bit, so… Time go find a series of bakeries!
The first one I hit was a recommendation from Zach.
First bakery experience of the trip.
As I was parking my bike outside, a woman about half my age said “good morning” in bright English. This impressed me for two reasons: First, it was obvious I was a weird foreign tourist; yep. Time to use English. And second, back home, young women just plain never greet older men out on the street.
I told Zach about it and he said “Oh yeah, people out here love greeting strangers.”
I emerged from the bakery with a delightful ham and cheese croissant. This actually set a high standard and it was hard to find a bakery that would top it.
Nom nom nom nom
The birds are very optimistic around here.
The birds appreciated quality too. Perhaps they knew it’s impossible to eat a croissant without little pieces falling all over the place…
Just waiting for you to drop a snack…
I found it interesting that the birds were so used to parked bicycles that they’d use them as furniture.
Am I seeing this correctly? Is this a kiosk where you can buy a bike helmet … or a lawn gnome??
Am I seeing this correctly? Is this a kiosk where you can buy a bike helmet … and a lawn gnome?
All the essentials!
What the heck! I thought that was only a Japan thing?
Is it real? Or art?
… Okay I took a closer look, and it’s storage lockers. The pictures are just to help you remember which locker.
A welcome sight.
The next place I found did coffee and pastries, so I bought some of each. I didn’t see any “no laptop” signs and there were people working on them around me, so I imported photos for a while. My brain was in no shape to do anything else.
Soon the coffee was gone and it was time for the next bakery.
Note the extra windshield on top for protecting the hands!
On the way to my bike, I spotted this cool contraption!
These biking directions are really dang good.
I was quickly learning that no particular maps application had all the best routes. To make sure I found the bike lanes but didn’t get sent onto a footpath or a busy sidewalk, I had to compare routes between Google and Apple maps, and then switch to Map Plus, where I could follow the route while viewing the OpenCycle Map.
In due time I found bakery number three of the day:
So many breads in fun shapes!
I bought two things, including another croissant, which I chomped while standing around outside. A nice and easy itinerary for a massively jet-lagged cycle tourist.
On the way back to Zach’s place I decided to take a detour through the nearby parkland:
Quite the avenue of trees.
Great weather, nice separated paths, very flat … It makes sense that this country has so many bikes!
Here, learn about the area:
Here, learn about this project.
As I was riding through, I saw some separated paths that were covered in sand instead of paved. I couldn’t figure out what those were for until two women on horseback rode by. Of course! Special paths for critters with hooves!
Trail signposts blend in better when they lean!
Nice day for a four-legged walk!
These fellows are everywhere.
Every now and then I see a couple of these chillin’ by the side of the road.
“Oy oy!” said one of the riders, in a loud, boisterous voice.
I was all filled up with baked goods, but I wanted a drink to help me push through the rest of the day. I rolled closer to Zach’s house and found what he later told me was “the bougie part of Amstelveen, though it’s hard to tell because most of Amstelveen looks like that.” A cafe at a corner sold me a latte-like thing and I slowly drank it and poked around at maps, passing another couple of hours.
It wasn’t a mocha, but it was very foamy.
I dragged myself back to the house. Zach and Michael invited me out on a short walk, and I had just enough energy for that.
Ready for a dogscursion!
I dig this little red video game man.
Around 6:00pm I collapsed for another long, jagged run of sleep. Not bad for a first day, really.
Bakeries, Parks, and Statues? Yes please!
Another rough day of sleep, as expected. Four hours of laying in bed waiting for sleep to return…
First order of business: A bakery, of course.
Oh boy, another bakery!
This one had a massive gluten-free selection, and I was curious to see how they did.
If you squint, it looks like Shrek.
Pretty dang good for vegan!
Pretty good! I devoured the croissant and saved the chocolate croissant for later.
One bakery was good, but two bakeries would be better. I picked another one randomly on the map.
Weasel facts!
Along the way, I found a little sign talking about river systems and weasels. Two of my favorite things!
Second bakery of the day.
It’s got a hot dog in it. My American sense of taste is stimulated.
Since this bakery sold something like a pastry with a hotdog baked into it, and because I’m an American, I had to buy it. It tasted … better than you’d expect something with a hotdog in it to taste.
A quiet and sunny park.
“… you could remember … what I remember you … would undetstand …” et cetera
I didn’t read the little plaque, so I’m just going to assume it’s a tribute to Mr. Stay-Puft.
I’m not sure I would feel safe working in it, but it sure looks cool.
I stopped at another café, in a more urban area. For the first time I actually deployed my bike lock in Amsterdam. I wasn’t really worried, but I knew I’d feel really stupid if I didn’t use the lock and the bike vanished.
It doesn’t really blend in with the other bikes…
Not the greatest mocha, but it’s a mocha…
I figured I was in a tourist area because everyone else in line at the café ordered in English. I asked for a mocha even though it wasn’t on the menu, and to my surprise they produced one. I gave it a 5.5 out of 10 and sipped it slowly, then chomped a dainty little salad of mixed greens. I felt coherent enough to do a little programming on the laptop.
I passed a couple of pleasant hours this way, then got back on the bike for more Seeing Of Beauty.
Resistance is fertile?
It was late enough in the day that my Mom was awake, so I texted her: “Tell me more about the stuff you saw in Amsterdam!”
She replied, “That was over 55 years ago, and I wasn’t there long. I saw poppy fields. I have a vague recollection of the Hague, and went to a Van Gogh museum. There were a lot of tall narrow buildings. We stayed in rooms on the third floor of a building that was accessed by narrow winding stairs, and they served a huge breakfast. I remember going to a deli and asking for a ‘broodje’ – a sandwich. That’s about it.”
I poked my maps and found the Van Gogh museum. I only had four days left in the area, but perhaps I could see that.
I continued north, choosing streets and lanes randomly. Many blooming flowers and small parks.
I just love blur sometimes. Yeah you can’t tell what it is, but it still looks nice.
I came across Amstelpark, a park that seemed kid-oriented, with little playground areas and a toy train that went in a meandering circle. There were signs posted saying “no bike riding”, and even though plenty of people disregarded that, I felt like I should be a polite guest of the country so I walked the bike.
It’s weird, adjusting to an environment where cars are not really a concern, but other cyclists are a constant hazard!
Ducks! Geese! Flowers! Adorable little bridges! And best of all: An actual hedge maze!
It’s an actual hedge maze!
Navigating this with a bike was every bit the hassle it was designed to be.
The day was moving on, and I intended to get to the canal area of Amsterdam. On I went. The buildings got taller and more squished together, and the cycling got more intense.
Before I knew it, I was looking at a statue of Rembrandt.
Rembrandt lookin’ artsy.
I didn’t have enough time for a full-on museum, but there was something nearby that was on my list: A little museum dedicated to cats!
I’ve been wanting to check this out for years.
KattenKabinet! It’s as charming and eccentric as you’d expect. I only had an hour before they closed, but I saw as much as I could.
When you check a bag at the door, you get this!
Touching letters to lost pets.
Adolphe Willette, according to the placard, but I can find zero corroboration elsewhere.
One of the artists-in-residence at KattenKabinet.
A cat with character!
This is a cat cabinet, in the KattenKabinet. Amazing!
The literal “cat cabinet”, and the living cats hanging around, were my favorite parts. There was a lot of detail I missed, though…
After that I did more random wiggling around the city.
De Nieuwe Kerk, in Amsterdam.
Detail on the outer walls of De Nieuwe Kerk, in Amsterdam.
Decoration on the outer walls of De Nieuwe Kerk, in Amsterdam.
Figure on the outer walls of De Nieuwe Kerk, in Amsterdam.
Flourish on the outer walls of De Nieuwe Kerk, in Amsterdam.
I found another little memorial on my checklist: The Homomonument.
A sign announcing the Homomonument.
One day, this won’t be covered in offerings for the recently slain…
Since I was on the west side, I decided to head west a bit more and check out Rembrandt Park. That was pleasant, so I lingered there for a little while.
Rembrandt Park.
Enjoying the sun in Rembrandt Park.
I picked a cyclist who was heading south – a tall gentleman with a nifty flatcap and one well-worn saddle bag on his bike – and followed him for over a mile, making my way back towards the house. Much easier than constantly checking a map.
Sometimes, the kids just need to nap right where they are.
The birds are well used to being left alone by cyclists.
Accompanied by a plaque bearing a tale called “The Gardener And Death”, from a 1926 Almanak by Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck (1887–1954)
Saw some fun art on the way!
The last interesting thing I saw before the house was another instance of bicycle-forward culture: Three young women were cycling together, and to make conversation easier they linked arms, making a formation. I just about never see this back home.
I often see cyclists having conversations with one arm on their companion.
That was it for the day. Jetlag was still making things feel a bit unreal, but I got some good riding in.