Joining the Movement (on two wheels)

October 14

Mom:

After a couple of very busy weeks, we chose to spend this wet Monday catching up on some schoolwork, working with watercolours, and having an almost typical Thanksgiving dinner with just our little family of four.

Dad:

One of the things I really wanted to experience is biking around Amsterdam.

Biking is a primary means of transportation in the Netherlands, more so than any other country. The streets and sidewalks are designed to accommodate bike traffic, and it is a very efficient way to get around Amsterdam. Also, the country also has very few hills and the temperature doesn’t get really hot or cold which helps them bike just about any time of year. Despite not wearing helmets, I also read that the Netherlands (but probably not Central Amsterdam) is one of the safer places in the world to ride a bike since the cars respect bikes and all of the dedicated bike lanes.

So anyways, I wanted to take the family out for a ride, but first, I wanted to ride around by myself to see if it was something we could all do safely. I studied nearby bike routes and Google maps of the area before heading out. I borrowed a bike from our home swapping hosts’ shed and set out for a ride on some streets in North Amsterdam near the dykes, through a few parks called Vliegenbos and Noorderpark, and along the Noordhollandsch canal. It was a wonderful experience riding on smooth bike paths away from the streets going whatever speed you were comfortable with. Only a few times did I ever have to cross the road and it wasn’t that bad. I also tried it using Google maps navigation with bike routes and put the phone in my zipped up jacket pocket and it would speak out the directions safely even for all the bike lanes, nice!

As I was driving around and having a great time biking around North Amsterdam, I decided that this was something we had to do together and everyone would really enjoy it. I wouldn’t recommend riding downtown though… too many tourists accidentally walking into bike lanes 😁

October 15

Sam:

After Dad’s ride yesterday, we all decided to do something more Dutch, like riding some bikes. We went to a place called NDSM which is a big dock area and what was special about it is that there is a giant street art area. There was even an entire wall with just an Anne Frank mural.

We rented some bikes and started heading towards Noorderpark, which is a giant park that isn’t that far from our house. It was beautiful and relaxing, too.

When we got back to NDSM, we returned the bikes. We were about to take the bus back home, but as we were walking around the docks, we saw a free ferry port which would take us to Central Station, the metro station just one stop away from our stop. It was a longer way home, but it was really cool to see Amsterdam from the water. There are some weird hotels on the water, like the “Botel” and a crane with a few hotel rooms built into it.

When we saw the bike storage at the Central Station dock, it was even more obvious that the Dutch really like their bikes!

October 16 and 17

Mom:

For our last day in the Netherlands, the weather was once again miserable (shocking!). We all agreed to spend the day cleaning, packing, and walking around the neighborhood.

On the morning of the 17th, we left Holland and took several trains to our next destination: Paris.