I need to get this in writing, so it’s out of my head.
About 2:30 today, I was standing at Holy Corner bus-stop, mutually moaning with an older white human about the lack of buses. This person asked me where I was going: to a LeithChooses meeting at McDonald Rd library. I can’t remember how this led to the person saying that foreigners ‘should be sent back where they came from’ – the person’s actual words. The person then ‘clarified’ that her ire was against foreign beggars, who ‘the government’ was aiding to come to the UK – I would know if I watched TV.
My sister has a friend who lives in northwest London and had a significant birthday on Saturday 6 April. My sister can’t travel that far on on her own, so I went south to take her to the birthday party. Our travel should have been
Our first visit was to the Stadsarchief (city archives). It’s very worth visiting, not least because it appears to be on ‘Weasel Street’. (Here’s the tram-journey.). Then we took another tram as far east as we could get (IJburg) and watched boat-traffic along the IJ. Then Elly took me to a wonderful place. (here’s how we got there and back.)
Amsterdam was filled with LGBT+ flags. Gemeentearchief buildingThe building is a former bank HQ.Maria Austria institute?pink elephantarchitecturemore architecturealong the IJIJ-IJ sailorwhere we wereground-level diversitypropagandamore propagandaYou must do this!my spiritual home, says Elly
tram terminusThere’s a familiar name.Where it isuntranslatableopen-air gymShe blows!I wonder what they sell here?We went in for a drink, and they place was lovely.Elephants are everywhere.Yes!ready to leave – and ready to go back.Why is this boat taking in water?land’s endwhere we wereaquatics
Berlin baby! Here’s how we got here. First, a train from Zaandam to Amsterdam Centraal; next, a train from Amsterdam Centraal to Berlin Haupbahnhof. (I have no idea why Cyclometer stopped recording before we even got to Hanover.) We arrived in the late evening, so don’t do any more than install ourselves in a hotel, then go back to the Haupbahnhof to eat at Hans im Glück. (Eating at Hans im Glück is one of the Deutsche Heilige Dreifaltigkeit: the others are shopping at a DM and doing laundry at an Eco-Express Waschsalon.)
Well we’re off again, this time without bikes, to revisit the scenes of some of our triumphs de Loreans. Both of us are a little shop-soiled at the moment. I can’t walk more than a mile without my calves starting to seize up, and cycling up any kind of hill is taxing. (Yes, there are hills in the Netherlands.) Elly may speak about her own issues – it’s not my place to do so, at least not here.
Here’s all the cyclemeter maps from our recent holiday. A few of them show ferry and train journeys – I’m obsessive like that! Over the next few days I’ll upload the rest of my photos to ‘Bruce and Elly get passed by Dutchies on the left-hand side …‘
I’ll add photos later: this is just to show my follower I’m still here. Or at least that someone can post to my WordPress and Twitter accounts. How can you be sure it’s me doing so? Tot ziens!
What Elly said. Picture to be added later. I have been in so many hotel rooms and lifts in artificial twilight I hardly know where I am!
I know I’m on a DFDS boat that will take us to North Shields, arriving tomorrow morning. My issue is I have yet another cabin number to remember, another route to it to learn, and my brain cell refuses to hold onto any detail at this level of granularity. And why does it feel like twighlight at 16:21 in August? Mein Gehirnzelle is verrucht!
Day 17: arrival in Kiel, trains to Hamburg, Osnabrück and Amsterdam
passing the entrance to the Nord-Ostsee-KanalOh no! We’ve crashed into Kiel!You can’t lean bikes here, but scooters are OK.The bikes are cramped.Outside Osnabrück station – integrated transport!You can’t park bikes outside Hamburg station either.Deutsche bahn, Deutsche Bahn, über alles!Hamburg Hauptbahnhofbikes on the train to Amsterdam
We decided to cycle to Geversduin, to see the location of the hobbit house we’ll stay in some day. (One of Elly’s birthday presents years ago was a stay there. However, plans were scuppered by COVID.)
what to do with old bikesThe Netherlands has a ski-centre!I think this is a water-tower.glow-in-the-dark mini-golf! Who’s been smoking, and where can I get some?I have no idea why I took this photo of a plant.
Day 20: around Zaandam
No cycling – we travelled by bus. We spent our last full day in the Netherlands visiting a windmill museum! That might sound tratsch but it’s actually pretty and informative.
Digital evidence that Bruce might have a life 