Amsterdam: Bonus Day
Posted by Cassie, September 7th, 2009
We were planning to head out on our bike tour on Sunday, but we had some bad luck when putting our bikes back together on Saturday night. I have a bolt that is holding the seat on and the bike rack. Unfortunately, the bolt got completely stripped when I was trying to tighten it after putting my seat back up. Since everything is closed on Sunday, we were not able to get a replacement bolt until Monday. Plus, we don’t even have the tools to get the stripped bolt off my bike to replace it. Fortunately, we were able to stay at the Bicycle Hotel one more night, and we just had to move to another room. With another stroke of good luck, our savior, Clemens, was working at the bike garage for the Bicycle Hotel on Sunday morning when we went to drop off some of our bike stuff. Clemens let us use his tools to get off the stripped bolt. We couldn’t get it off with pliers, so we ended up sawing it off with a small file saw. Then, Clemens also had a replacement bolt that worked perfectly on my bike. We were so relieved to have our bikes ready for our bike tour!
Since we had an extra day, we decided to go to the Rijksmuseum. It was really neat to see the amazing paintings done by the Dutch masters, and the painstaking detail in their paintings. The paintings were so realistic that they looked like photographs. However, after three hours of looking at paintings, we couldn’t stand seeing another painting of a vase of flowers or a portrait of a formally posed person dressed in black. 🙂
Also, since our bikes were finally in working order, we went for our first bike ride around Amsterdam. It is awesome to ride around Amsterdam with the dedicated bike lanes and stop lights just for bikes. It can also be a little terrifying because the cars drive so fast and so close to you when you are riding in the bike lane. The trams also go right next to the bike lanes. It is a great city for biking, but it is also very fast-paced and chaotic. Monday, we head out of Amsterdam into the countryside, and we’re ready to the leave hustle and bustle of Amsterdam.
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3 Responses to “Amsterdam: Bonus Day”
September 21st, 2009
How much stuff are you packing? Do you plan in advance where you will stop? What kind of raingear do you have?
September 25th, 2009
How much stuff are you packing?
We both have two 40 liter capacity Ortlieb panniers. We only have two changes of clothes, so we wash clothes every night. We also have all our camping gear: sleeping bag and pad and tent, stove, dishes, etc.
Do you plan in advance where you will stop?
We´re following a bike route from a bike book we got, so we usually stop at the next town on the route. We have to stop at places with campgrounds, so that limits where we stop.
What kind of raingear do you have?
Our panniers are waterproof, and we have Gore-tex rain jackets. We have been really lucky with the weather so far, so we haven´t had to use our rain gear much at all.
April 3rd, 2015
Dear sirs,
I would like to use your photos of “How to move your furniture in Amsterdam” for a Japanese TV show.
Can we use it? Is there any credits that we can put?
Please write to ester.pervesi@gmail.com
thank you
Ester Perversi