Holland

On Wednesday morning i hopped on a train in Copenhagen and headed south for Düsseldorf, Germany. I had to change trains about 5 or 6 times along the 11 hour journey which can be pretty hectic with a bike and 6 other bikers doing the same. As we were approaching Düsseldorf I went to my bike, which was in a wagon just behind the one i was seated in, to gather my things and prepare to get off. Sadly two of my bags were missing... aka stolen. Damn. They took one of my black Ortlieb bike bags with a lot of my biking clothes (polyester shirts, bike shoes and a few stinky socks). They also stole my river dry bag that had my tent (without the poles) and my sleeping bag in it. Lame. They cant even use the damn tent. Not the worst bags they could have stolen..... no biggy. Oh ya..... they also stole ONE of my pedals! ONE!!!

I managed to ride my one pedalled bike to Oskars house (Janines friend) in düsseldorf and was greeted with some much needed whiskey. I knew me and Oskar would be great friends. Thursday morning Oskar and I drove to Meppel, holland to visit Janine and Sebastian. Meppel is a very small and very Dutch. Small cobble stone streets and little canals running through town. The night we got there happened to be the last night of a 6 week long festival that this little town has every year. They had a parade and a live music in their city center. We drank some beer and played games before heading down to the festivities. We didnt head down there until about 11:30. When we got down there i was VERY surprised by what was taking place. I pictured old dutch people dancing to some american oldies rock but i could not have been more wrong. The streets were packed shoulder to shoulder with loud house music playing. The crowd was very rowdy and very few were not dancing. I had no idea the Dutch knew how to party so hard. The late night club we went to was fun but it was a little strange to see 15 year olds wasted in a club dancing. Good introduction to Holland.

The next morning we drove with 8 of us to a place that rented out paintball gear. We created a world war III with america vs holland vs germany. Id have to say the american army came out on top once again.

Saturday we went to Amsterdam for the day. There was large sailing/boating expo going on and the harbor was filled with OLD boats from around the world. These pirate ship looking boats were HUGE. Later we of course went to a "coffee shop" that didnt sell coffee. Pretty cool place. Then after getting a little twisted we hit up the red light district. Crazy crazy place.

Today (Sunday) Janine, her brother, his friend and I went to a small town that has been nicknamed the Dutch Venice. We rented a boat and cruised the little canals that ran through the village. It was fairly crowded with boats bumping into eachother at low speeds. Pretty entertaining.

Holland has been awesome! its a beautifiul country with very nice people. Most speak English so it is easy to communicate...............

Dinner time... later