Drugs, Hookers and.... bikes (April 14-15)

Ah... the final hurrah for the long train rides. This one was, of course, from Berlin to Amsterdam. Like other long train rides, it was primarily uneventful aside from a few seat hops when we were in someone's "reserved" seat. The seats we sat in weren't reserved at all, but a flock of elderly folk swore they had reserved them, even though on their receipt they didn't even pay for a reservation. Oh well.

At long last, we arrived at our final hotel in Haarlem, Netherlands. Well, the final hotel in which we would be staying for over one day. Par usual, we lugged our bags to our place of staying, about a km or so from the station. Once we were situated, we set out to get a peek of Amsterdam before it was too late.

Due to our skillful planning... well, OK. I admit it, my planning contribution was pretty much null. So here's the part where I give a slew of kudos and props to Ted who basically single handedly made this trip happen. As a whole he set out most of the days, and plotted out train courses due to his experience overseas, discussing every step with me, but I usually just agreed whole heartedly to his idea. Of course, I threw my two cents in for destination suggestions, where we should stay longer and so on. As a whole Ted's sagely knowledge shined though in the way of train times (to get as much out of the trip as possible) and hotels (managing to weigh out cheap/good deals with the distance from the train station). So, hats off to you buddy!

So now we set out into the city famed throughout the states for its bikes, prostitutes, and legalized marijuana. All of which of course, are quite apparent in the city.

There are literally thousands upon thousands of bicycles scattered everywhere. All of the bike lanes even have their own signal lights. One thing I had not counted on, was the fact that mopeds could go through bicycle lanes.
They like their bikes. Morso than cars. Of course, this also means that the bike riders start driving like automobile drivers, so you still have to watch out, you just don't die when you get hit by them.

We discovered this a little late, as one went screaming by us as we unwittingly tried to take quick jaunt across the bike streets. Now, I couldn't really fathom the point of this. Why would they allow motorized vehicles on a lane that was purely intended for bicycles? It seemed rather contradictory to this whole bike lane scheme, as any motorized bike could easily follow the standard speed limits throughout the city. To be fair, even the cyclers are almost like automobile drivers. They zoom past everyone as well, thinking that they even prioritize over pedestrians who are constantly forced to cross their lane as the sidewalks keep flip flopping to other sides of the roads. Many a time a fist was waved or a slurred curse word was thrown in our direction as we walked the roads along canals.

Ahhh the canals, this is why this city was compared to Venice. Rather than just you know, build the city around water, the Dutch loved these little boat ways so much that they just decided to incorporate them into the city when it was built. It makes it quite lovely, despite the complete lack of extra space for individuals to walk around.

One of the many canals
After crisscrossing a few of these canals, we finally made our way into the notorious red light district. We decided to meander over here first, as we didn't want to get pick pocketed, sold drugs, or attacked by prostitute bouncers in the midst of the night. That meant, of course we weren't able to see this section of town in it's absolute "splendor" but I was OK with that. There were still many ladies of the night out in their various booths, perhaps giving some sort of "early bird special" to their patrons. Whenever we took a side glance at these corpulent (yeah, with the high risk and everything on top of that they're not exactly eye candy... blergh) female forms, they would, of course, coax us to come closer. Alas (for their pockets), their wails were in vain.

I would have a picture here, but not only would the content probably displease some people, my lack of interest of photographing this, and there was the fact that if you try to take a picture of any of these females, their "pimps" would quite swiftly bring retribution. Either in the form of your film being taken, your camera broken, to your face being broken. Needless to say, we avoided these possible outcomes.

There was another thing that was quite apparent in this district, well it was quite apparent throughout the entire city in random intervals. Our noses would randomly catch a quite pungent herbal smell on various drafts. This would of course, be a part of the "coffee shops" that ran rampant throughout the city. Of course, the primary attraction was not the grotesque smell of tobacco, but the milder earthy aroma of the most commonly used illegal drug throughout the world.

Woe. It's late already, and we be o so tired. Especially when we have big plans on the morrow. So with that we headed back from the big city, wallets thankfully intact, and took an early night.

These plans, would be bicycle riding of course! Rather than coast through the city, we decided to rent out some bikes in Haarlem.

Now, for this entire trip, we have had the most fortuitous events as far as the weather situation has been concerned. Every single day it has been rainless, hardly dark, and quite lovely. This biking day was no exception, in fact, it was probably one of the nicest days we've had so far. Excellent stuff.

After waking, breakfast and a quick point in the right direction we went over to the local bike rental. After departing with two bikes for a mere 8 Euro per bike, (+50 dollar deposit in case we fall into a man made canal) we set out towards.... the sea. The Noordsee in fact (think german fish chain). As we headed over, we had to dodge various mopeds as they careened past us. Even other bikers would blast by at almost inhuman speeds... well, Ok to be fair I could have probably cruised my brains out giving in to my desire to surpass all other bi-wheeled "competitors", but Ted preferred a more leisurely expedition to the body of water to bask more thoroughly in the nice weather and countryside, which being the easy going fellow that I am, I willingly accepted.

Eventually, after zooming around confused trying to find our exact destination, we pulled a u turn and we made our way to the great body of water; where we partook in a leisurely expedition down to the beach. Well, after grabbing an immense portion of fried seafood from one of the stands that were scattered throughout this vast beach landscape.

Just think, these little guys grew so hard just to fill my belly. What pals!

Like any remotely masculine man would do, we decided to parade shirtless and try to soak up the sun into our ghostly forms. I suppose it kind of worked, but I'm sure it was a blinding site to the passerby, which there were a lot of, as everyone was just enjoying the beach. There were also lots of cool shells. I'm not really much of a shell collector, but I thought I'd pick them up as it took little to no effort and they were quite interesting... for shells

Bike Trail along the beach

Pasty whiteness glowing in the sunlight

As much as I would have liked to slothfully lay around the beach all day, we decided to get up and bike some more. I didn't have too much of an opinion on where we should go, but Ted had quite a bit of interest in going to the flower fields. After some more mutual travel buddy petty squabbling (this happens), we headed back into Haarlem where we asked our receptionist at the hotel of the best means to get over to see some of these bouquet plazas the Dutch were so famous for.

And so, we biked, and we biked, and we biked some more, maybe just a little more.. a smidgen perhaps. At last, we had arrived at these immense fields of greenery. Boy, were they immense... and apparently... everywhere! The smell of them was overwhelming.
Of course, the dutch flower field wouldn't be complete without a windmill in the distance

Upon gazing at these fields, we decided it was about time to head back... by our loose mathematical skills we estimated the whole journey was just a tad over 30 miles. Luckily, we were able to just barely check our bikes back in (the guy was putting everything away for the day, and was on his last several bikes) and regain our deposit.

We then went and had some delicious Indian food, which I foolishly forgot to take a picture of. It was great though..... mmmmmmm... and with that, we just sat around watched some hilarious sounding Dutch TV ( OK actually it was primarily in english with Dutch subs) and fell asleep shortly after the fair (right below us that was obnoxiously loud) had at last died down.