Wuppertal to Paris - Closing the loop

We have now made a complete circle through Europe, arriving again in Paris (actually, it looks more like a figure-eight).

Thanks again to Toby (as well as his brother Sascha and Anna!) for letting us crash at their house and showing us around Wuppertal. The schwebebahn was fascinating, and the ice cream was delicoius! We got to enjoy almost everything exciting that Wuppertal had to offer, beginning with their annual festival which had the streets packed with booths and people and music. We went to the stadium where we watched some capoeira demonstrations (capoeira is a Brazilian fighting dance that's pretty amazing to watch, sort of breakdancing combined with martial arts) and some judo and some model airplanes. We also spent a little bit of time hanging out on their fabulous IKEA couch, where we played (or rather, Toby & Will played) Grand Theft Auto IV, and Sing Star, which is competitive karaoke. We also got to eat a lot of nice food- döners and German sausages both. We got to go rock climbing at Toby's gym, which was really fun, as was celebrating his birthday a month late (his birthday was in August!) where we got to meet a bunch of his German friends! One final highlight was mini-golf, where Meghan got not one but TWO hole in ones!

One day trip that didn't turn out the way we planned was our visit to the castle. We set out a little bit late in the day, and by the time we arrived, the castle had been closed. Then, we miss read the bus schedule, and had to walk back to the car (maybe about 40 minutes through the woods) in the dark!

After a great visit with Toby in Wuppertal, we took a handful of trains and made our way back to Hotel Picard, in central Paris. Typical of our crazy schedule, we had a brief night of rest before we set out to meet Meghan's mom at the airport at 6:00am. It's much easier navigating a city the second time around, and much less stressful when you have a place to stay and at least a couple contacts. As soon as we had checked into our hotel, we got ahold of Marie (my roommate's brother's girlfriend who we met up with the first time in Paris)... but unfortunately we wont be able to meet up with her again. Maybe next time we're in Paris! Anyway, back to the airport: Atypical of air travel, Meghan's mom arrived almost an hour early... but typical of air travel, her bag did not follow her, and is somewhere in the lost baggage twilight zone. Hopefully the bag will be recovered and delivered to our hotel in Tours, where we'll be headed by rail this afternoon.

Bogs, frogs, fog, and sog...The authentic Harvæjen/Ochsenveg experience

Will and Toby enjoy pretzels in downtown Wuppertal

Well, we just completed another significant portion of our journey: cycling all the way from south-central Norway to north-west Germany, traversing the entirety of Denmark. We arrived Saturday in Wuppertal, Germany, where we are staying with Meghan's friend, Toby until Tuesday or Wednesday. Having crossed every line of latitude in Denmark, we saw quite a bit. The major downside of the last week of riding is that the weather has been terrible! It has rained every single day since we left Kristiansand, and most days have been significanly windy. We were following the Denmark national cycle route #1, which is Denmark's part of the North Sea Cycle Route (the path we originally followed from France northward). But in Denmark, cycle routes do not necessarily follow paved roads, and some of the "cycle paths" are more like horse trails, very loose and sandy, muddy and with large potholes.

The signposts we followed through Denmark

The weather forcast when we left Aalborg was overcast on the first day and then increasing sun with every passing day. The actual weather was quite the reverse. We left Aalborg in bright sunshine, and every passing day brought overcast skies, with rain almost every night. What is most surprising is that while it threatened rain almost the entire trip to Wuppertal, it primarily rained on us at night, so we never experienced another soaking like that first day in Denmark. But, by the same token, we never got very dry, either. All of our stuff: tent, sleeping bags, riding clothes, camp clothes just got more and more damp and soggy, and never got a chance to dry out properly. Yuck.

The #3 is a a national cycle route that follows an historic path between Viborg, Denmark, and Hamburg, Germany. We didn't know this when we started riding, but we quickly caught on because of all of the "sites of interest" along the way. There were a whole bunch of curious stone piles and hills and thatched roof buildings that we passed which had signs describing them, but we didn't to at many of them because the explanations were all in Danish, and a pile of rocks, however significant, is just a pile of rocks if you don't know why they are significant. The route did have less wind, although it was far from calm, and the rough roads were fewer than along the coast. While we had a roadmap of Denmark, we did not have a map of the cycle route, and so navigation depended primarily on the road signs. Sign posting all along the way was a bit varied- in some places it was overly marked, and in others very noticably under marked- and this caused some frustration. Deciding that we had plenty of time to spare, we made a brief excursion to a place that I've always wanted to go: Legoland!

Meghan at the entrance to Legoland, Billund

Despite a bit of rain (and hence, no water-park fun), it was a blast. We rode all of the rides and checked out all of the amazing lego models. Among other things, there was an enormous model of Mt. Rushmore, life-size people, dragons, and entire cities recreated in Lego. It was a great way to spend a day for a long time Lego fan.



We barely noticed that we had arrived in Germany by the time we rolled into Flensburg, where we picked up the "Ochsenveg" (A.K.A. The Old Oxen Trail) bike route. This route through the northern part of Germany from Flensburg to Wedel/Hamburg is an old trade route that has been signposted as a footpath and bike route. Turns out, it is a continuation of Denmark's national bike route number 3, the Harvæjen, which we had used to cross through most of the country. The route was composed partially of smooth paved surfaces and partially of surfaces lying somewhere on the continuum between stinky, knee-deep mud pits to steep, rocky inclines better suited for mountain goats than bikes. These questionable stretches, coupled with the frustrating effects of what appeared to be a phasing-out of the old route signs in favor of new, sometimes contradictory signage, leaves us with a somewhat negative experience with the Ochsenveg. However, it was very scenic, nearly car-less (tractors were more prevalent), and now we do indeed recognize the struggle that ox-herders went through before trucks and trains hauled their livestock, so that's something. When we had covered almost 9/10ths of the trail, in Rendsburg, Germany, we found a bookstore that had a map of the entire cycle route that we had just ridden. So for the two days of the trip we had a proper map, filled with insights about the sights to see along the way. Unfortunately, it was all in German! but we were still able to make use of the map.

Will shows Germany what's up by executing a
flawless one-footed backside saddlebag grind

By the time we reached the waterway that stretches into Hamburg from the coast, we had again come across the North Sea Cycle Route (the same one we followed up the coasts of France, Denmark and The Netherlands). The N.S.C.R. took us past some fancy waterfront Hamburg houses, into the center of the city, and almost to the front door of the Hamburg train station. By this time, we had cycled almost 10 hours straight covering 91 miles, which blew our previous record of 68 miles out of the water. It was 10:00 pm by the time we found the ticket office, which was too late for the normal trains to Wuppertal. So, we did what any reasonable young travelers would do... we found a vacant corner of the building and camped out on the floor of the station until 7:00 am the next morning!

Toby met us at the trainstation in his full bike messenger garb and escorted us through central Wuppertal toward his workplace and Greek food. Throughout the weekend, Wuppertal was host to a big celebration of the region of Germany in which it rests. There were musicians, model airplane shows, food, informational booths and sports demos all over downtown, and we spent most of the day wandering around in the sunshine, watching people and searching for the next cool drink or treat. I marvelled at Wuppertal's very interesting public transportation jewel: the Schwebebahn. It's basically a train that hangs instead of rests on the rails, and is elevated above the river that runs through town. It has a low footprint on the ground and is fun to watch because of its novelty.

As a capstone to the evening, we went to an ice cream shop near Toby's house, where we had our first taste of what is assuredly the most incredible ice cream dessert in the world: Spaghetti Ice. Spaghetti ice is vanilla ice cream pressed out through a pasta-maker like device into strands that look exactly like spaghetti pasta. It is topped with cherry sauce that looks like tomato sauce and grated white chocolate that looks like parmesean. Very convincing in appearance and very delicious in taste. Check out the pictures below. If at all possible (and affordable) we are going to acquire the device required to make this delicious treat.

Spaghetti Ice in Wuppertal, Germany... mmmm

Well, it's another reasonably sunny day, so we are headed out to do some biking, swinging on the giant swing, and slacklining!

The details of the last few weeks of the trip are starting to fall together, and we are excited to make our way back to France toward the end of this week.

A short stay in Nørresundby, Denmark

Goodbye Norway, Hello Denmark! (again) Arriving in Kristiansand about two days ahead of schedule (it really was all downhill from Hauggrend!), we shifted our ferry tickets up a day without much trouble and proceeded to find a camping spot near yet another abandoned military outpost. This one significantly less ominious than the German installation in France, due to the fact that the grounds on which it sits have been converted to a public park.



We left Kristiansand just in time, however. Immediately after leaving port aboard the Superspeed 1, the rain started coming down in sheets.


Arriving in Hirtshals, Denmark three hours later the weather wasn't much better... forcing us to spend most of our day hiding under the tarp, waiting for the rain to subside. One slightly damp forest camping spot later, we pedalled into Nørresundby/Aalborg to visit Asbjørn. We've had a great time here, catching up on Internet work, checking the results of the Olympics, eating good food, and deliberately watching terrible movies. It's now time to move our stinky bike bags and dirty shoes out of Asbjørn's apartment, heading southward on Denmark's National Bike Route #3. We're aiming to traverse the entirety of Denmark, arriving in Hamburg, Germany on the 28th, from which we will hop a train to Wuppertal (we'd bike it, but unfortunately there are some time restraints.) Look out Toby, here we come!


In the meantime, we probably wont see much Internet between here and there, so we will post again in Hamburg or Wuppertal next week. Take care.

Back on the road!

Today is our final day at Foldsae Farm. We are headed back south to Kristiansand, where we will catch the ferry across to Hirtshals, Denmark, for the next leg of our long journey back to Paris. The stay here has been great, and we are a bit sad to leave, especially to leave the kitten, whom we have become quite attached to. Or, perhaps he has become too attached to us with his little claws! Anyway, we say goodbye, and will post again when we reach Denmark, next Wednesday. Wish us good weather and a tailwind!

Norway's newest acting talent and cows in the onion patch

Well, three weeks down and about one more week to go here on the farm (we are also approaching 2/3rds completion of the trip!) There have been some additions and subtractions to the WWOOF house, and a new WWOOFer house entirely. After proving that Norwegian whole wheat flour cannot be used to make Czech dumplings (a.k.a. "dooompleengs"), Ivo is making his way back to the Czech Republic. We will miss his creative use of unfamiliar english words and his alcohol thievery. In his place, we have been endowed with a tiny kitten from the barn, whom we are acclimating to our human presence so he doesn't remain a crazed barn cat. We actually started with two kittens, but one of them was taken away as a birthday present for a snotty child (good luck, kitten!). The remaining one, whose name lies somewhere between his original given name, Nugatti, and "KITTEN! STOP CHEWING ON THAT ELECTRICAL CORD!", is a source of endless entertainment around the house. He goes through different stages during the day, from relaxed and cuddly to crazy racing around the floor chasing little potatoes, to biting everything in sight.





Late last week we were displaced from our first dormitory in order to make space for the guests of a wedding hosted on the farm. The downside is that we are further away from the milking parlor, so the milk isn't quite as fresh when it hits the table, but the upside is that we have a normal-sized kitchen and a better view (of the lake).

Aside from the kittens and moving, there has been a fair amount of fun and excitement around here since the last update. First and foremost, Meghan and Will(and Peter and Ginny and Ivo) have become famous Norwegian actors. Let me explain: every year, during the summer, the town of Fyresdal (30 minutes by car from the farm) hosts a festival that celebrates Norwegian history and Norsk folk heritage. The capstone of this celebration is a theatrical production that combines Norwegian folk tales, history, religion, and politics. Finding the play alarmingly short of Vikings, lawyers and slaves unpaid domestic workers, one of the local actors approached the WWOOFers about filling in the gaps. It was an offer we couldn't refuse! So after two days of rehearsing, we hit the stage gesturing, grunting, laughing, weaving, and responding in any other number of ways to the Norwegian dialogue that none of us understood. Obviously, we didn't have any speaking roles. The story went something like this: The time is the 13th century, the place is the Telemark region, Norway (although the story applies across most of Norway). It's set in the period during which Norway was Christianized. A village chietan, his two eldest sons and their hairy gang (of which Will and the other two male WWOOFers were a part) return from a 7-year raiding trip to Ireland. Part of their plunder is a beautiful slave girl and a Christian monk. The two elder brothers think the girl will be given to one of them, and everyone is suprised when the girl is given to the chieftan's youngest son, who happens to be a bastard son, Magnus. This son was too young to go on the raid, but has grown up in the interim. The girl is given to him so that he can gain some "experience" before he is married (an arranged marriage) to the daughter of a neighboring chieftan. This really galls the older brothers, who give him a sound beating, but Magnus doesn't mind too much, because he's fallen in love with the girl, who is Christian, and to prove his love, he also becomes Christian. The girl runs away, aided by the monk, but returns because she's had a dream telling her to go back. The two fall in love, and Magnus tells his father that he will not marry the girl he is arranged to. The chieftan also has a dream after hearing this news, in which he is told by a nature spirit (intended as a sort of spirit bridging the gap between the ancient Viking gods and the Christian god) that the times are changing, and he should give his blessing to the lovers. So he does, and the neighboring chief brings the lawyers (the second cameo role for the WWOOF men) to decide a punishment. In thanks, Magnus says that he will go on a pigrimage to Jerusalem to pray for his father's sin to be forgiven. He dies while on pilgrimage, and his wife dies giving birth to their son. The story gets a bit muddy after this- we never did recieve a satisfactory explaination of the end of the play, except that the times did indeed change, and Norway became Christian. And where were the female WWOOFers in all this? Well they were slaves, and popped in and out of different scenes a bit randomly, with food and beer (yes, there was real beer in this play!) a bit like a silent Greek chorus. It was a great experience, especially to rub shoulders with more of the local people (mostly Dutch), and some professional Norwegian actors.





Although not among the acquiantances we made during the play, we have become friends with a family living on the school property as "prakticants," which is to say they live a life resembling what the school is supposed to direct one toward. Claudio and Louisa, along with their two little boys Kenai and Alén, occupy a house that used to belong to the owner of a fishery that the school now owns. They are both involved with permaculture and "eco-villages," having lived in Colombian rainforest for ten years, and operating an organization called Change the World which effectively makes links between groups of people using appropriate technology, sustainable agriculture, green energy and so on. Claudio is currently working on converting the twenty something ex-fish production ponds into a nature preserve and education center. He is a very interesting and dynamic individual, and we have shared some of our experiences from Engineers Without Borders.

The farm work has been a bit exciting lately. A few days ago, just as we were returning home from a birthday party at Claudio's house, we found half of the herd of cows had made their way into the onion patch. Now, onions grow very close to the surface of the soil, so you might imagine that a half-ton animal tromping around atop them is a very bad thing. Indeed it is! Because of the minimalist approach to pasture fencing that's very common around here (not to mention the weak-sauce amperage in the electric fences), roughly a thousand red and yellow onions were crushed, crapped-on and uprooted. The situation could have been worse in a few ways, however. First of all, these cows wont eat onions, so we wont have to suffer with onion-flavored milk. Secondly, and most importantly, I think, is that because this farm is operated under the auspices of the school, there really isn't any lost income... only a few of the onions are sold in the CSA boxes and at market, while most of them go to the school cafeteria. This is perhaps the reason that the weekly cow escapes aren't taken as seriously as on a more sales-oriented farm. Some of the onions were suitable for drying, but the humidity might prevent successful preservation in that respect. One this is certain: we have been eating alot of onions lately! (Meghan and Ginny make a delicious french onion soup, by the way!)

Though the weather has turned away from the brilliant sunny days of last week, we managed to fit in a hike to the top of Mt. Roan from which most of Telemark can be seen (1190 meters high), and jumping from the rocks into the small river near Claudio's house. Until next time... check out the pictures and send some comments to let us know you're reading!

Four days riding and seven days working

Well, one week on the farm so far, and things are going great! It took us four days to pedal from Oslo to Hauggrend, and it was quite a change from the flatness that is most of coastal Belgium and Holland. In Norway, we have had to battle a few steeeep switchback mountain passes and a few greulling multi-mile uphills. On the whole, however, the ride was great, and visiting with Cato in Drammen was nice. Now that we are here on the farm, we are living with other W.W.O.O.F.er's in a building that is almost entirely reserved for farm workers like ourselves. When we arrived, the only other WWOOF person was a wonderful girl from France named Marie. She left yesterday after about two weeks of work here. Since we arrived, there have been a bunch of new additions. The new WWOOFers are a couple from England arrived (Peter and Ginnie), as well as a fellow from the Czech Republic named Ivo. English is the common language here, so there isn't much trouble with communication. As a matter of fact, there just aren't many Norwegians in this area to speak of. Apparently what has happened is that all of the young Norwegian people want to move away from the countryside into bigger cities (or other countries), leaving alot of vacant farms and older people. There has been an effort to fill the void with other Europeans, and in particulary, the area has been re-populated by many Dutch and German people. The result is a funny jumble of Dutch, German, English and Norwegian. Many of the Dutch people who live in the immediate area have some connection the the school that our farm is a part of.

The farm itself operates as part of the Foldsae Steinerskole, which is a school attended in place of what we might call "high school" in the U.S. It's located near the town of Hauggrend, in the area of Norway called Telemark. The Steinerschool teaches things like farming, gardening, milking, handicrafts, forestry and other things related to nature, and is in many cases backed up by philosophy and fancy pedagogy. The school has history going back to 1923, but the Stienerskole is fairly recent. The community around Foldsae donated the land, about 6,000 acres, most of which are forest and rocky wilderness, as well as the buildings. So the vegetable gardens, the cows, the sheep are sort of teaching tools for when the school is in session. The school term begins about the time we are leaving, so we will not have the opportunity to see it all in action, but we have learned quite a bit from the teachers and others who work here. The gardens provide some food for the school when in session, but the majority of it is sold in markets nearby and through a C.S.A. type of program. The farm is run essentially by three young Dutch people: Paul, Elina, and Matthias (Paul is Elina's brother, and Matthias is her boyfriend). They began work here about two years ago, and they live on the school property in their own houses. It's really a very diverse place with people coming and going all the time, so we have a hard time keeping up with everyone. There are some other families living on the property who help with the school, including a Chilean family who are working to recreate wetlands surrounding the creek.

The arrangement for WWOOFers here is 4-5 hours of work every day, beginning at 9:00, with a break for lunch. So far we have done a fair bit of weeding: in the flower gardens, the vegetable gardens and even a pasture, where we pulled out a tall, very tough weed they called "dogs," which not even the sheep will eat. In addition, we have learned the basics of milking, and how to muck out a barn. The rest of the time we have free to relax, go walking, anything we like. Meghan has made friends with some of the women around, and gone for a walk around the lake that is situated just below the farm. The same group of ladies also went to the sauna on Tuesday. It was her first trip to a proper sauna, and while she's not so sure the sauna makes sense in the summer time, the location was beautiful, so probably she will go again, and maybe Will, too.





The weather has been beautiful, if not uncharacteristically warm and spastic. One wouldn't think it was Norway at all when the temperatures are reaching perhaps 80 degrees. Our first few days here had cool mornings and cloudy, rainy afternoons, but summer has finally arrived. Yesterday the farm workers all walked down the hill to the lake where we frolicked in the comfortably cold water. Every day here is something new, so we will try our best to remember all the things we have been doing, and relay them on to you!

Hello, Oslo...Goodbye, Oslo!

The report on the coffee bar: very expensive! In fact, everything on the ferry was for sale, and everything was expensive! There we tax-free Legos, but even without tax, they were still extremely spendy. Back in our tiny "economy cabin" we marvelled over the priceless artwork adorning the wall, which we both agreed belonged aside The Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum (oh, yeah, we forgot to mention that we went there in Amsterdam to see some Rembrandt!). I've attached a picture of this painting below... just imagine how this work of art would help you if you were, by chance, seasick. We missed the chance to watch our arrival in Norway from the deck, because we were sound alseep in our cabin, and the ship-wide wakeup call was a bit late. Oops! We will surely see much of Norway and will be able to pass on a better impression of it throughout the coming month, but if the area surrounding Oslo is any indication, we are in for a lot of trees, hills and water. It's very green, sunny, and beautiful here.

But I digress. Our first task when we pedalled off the ship was to find a telephone and call Meghan's friend John Krahn. John is a Canadian who had visited Plow Creek many years ago (14 to be exact, when Meghan was 10 years old!) and then moved to Norway, where he lives now with his wife Hilde, and their three (beautiful and charming) daughters: Katinka, Tiril, and Frieda. We reached John on a payphone at the ferry terminal where he gave us directions to their home, in a close suburb to Oslo. The bicycle routes in Norway are not as organized as those in Holland and Belgium, but they exist nonetheless. Once we figured out the route, we had only to ride to their house, and we were immediately made to feel like part of the family.

Shortly after arriving, we accompanied John, Tiril and Frieda on a trip to the grocery store, and learned first hand that Norway is a very expensive place to live (especially if you subsist on maple syrup, which was sold in a smallish bottle for roughly 15 US dollars.) For lunch we were introduced to a typical (and delicious) Nowegian meal/snack. I would call it shrimp on toast, except the bread was just buttered, not toasted. The shrimp were cooked slightly before we bought them at the store- scalded, I think- and then frozen. We just let them unthaw, and then we learned to dismantle them to get at the meat inside. It was the first time Meghan had eaten shrimp with a head on, but we learned the technique quickly, even though we moved quite a bit slower than John. Anyway, the process was quite simple- shell enough shrimp to cover a small slice of baguette or bread. Then spread butter on the bread, place the shrimp on top, squeeze a small dab of mayonnaise on the shrimp, and a drizzle of lemon juice on top, and eat it! Meghan adds: I must confess that the eyes of the shrimp were a bit disconcerting, but it tasted delicious! Lunch time reminded me very much of lunch with Grandpa Tore and Grandma Kay, with open faced sandwiches topped with butter, mayo, thin meat and goat cheese. The goat cheese here is the real deal... the dark, sweet kind! Among the small cultural differences we have been delighted by during this trip, we found out that because the Norwegians take open faced sandwiches in their lunch, an important kitchen item is a small square of wax paper that is used to separate the top of one sandwich from the bottom of another when stacked. John told us a hilarious story about his first sighting of these papers, when his burgeoning Norwegian language skills caused him to misread the label on the box, making them appear to be some sort of "beetween the leg papers". Land of the vikings indeed, he thought!




In addition to eating, which it seems we have done a lot of the last two days, we played with the family's rabbits, jumped on the trampoline (practicing my front-flips), got tickled many times, played tic-tac-toe, and picked cherries. LOTS of cherries. The Krahns have a neighbor with a very productive cherry tree. The neighbors went on vacation just when all the cherries became ripe, so we went out with a ladder and the Norwegian equivalent of ice cream buckets- they're more like ice cream boxes- and picked cherries. They are so tasty and delicious! Today has been more of the same- playing all kinds of games, learning some Norwegian from Tiril, picking more cherries, and scouring the road maps for an acceptable bike routes for the road ahead. The capstone of the evening was watching Mr. Bean's Holiday with Norwegian subtitles. If you have ever seen a Mr. Bean movie, you know why it is a highlight. If you have never seen a Mr. Bean movie, you should watch one immediately!

Basically, we have done a lot of playing and relaxing in the last two days, and it has been wonderful! Actually, all the playing has been interspersed with really interesting conversations with John & Hilde. John has all kinds of insights about the differences between America (meaning the US and Canada combined) and Norway, and we were enthusiastic listeners. While everyone here at the Krahn's speaks english, they don't generally speak it amonst themselves, so we have had a great time listening in. Just as Thijs in Amsterdam corrected our pronunciation of Brugge ( It's pronounced "broo-hugh", with a gutteral gh at the end, not "brooj"), the girls corrected our understanding of Copenhagen (which we say "co-pen-hay-gen") to reflect the spelling and pronunciation they use, which is København (pronounced "sho-bn-ha-vn"). Meghan adds: Word of the PAPA Festival people (including the Psalters) has spread here, and John is looking forward to seeing Shane Claiborne speak at a festival here in Norway later this summer! I've also left my copy of Shane's new book for John to read then perhaps pass on.

The Krahns are leaving on vacation tomorrow morning, and we will leave also. We will go southwest to Drammen, where Uncle Cato lives, and from there to our WWOOF farm in Hauggrend.

We Made It!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we have arrived at the farm! After four gruelling days of cycling (mostly uphill), we made it to Hauggrend, Norway, where we will be spend the next month of our journey. There have been many very good adventures since we left the ferry-cruise, which we will post here shortly, (including pictures of the food, just to make you jealous!) but we wanted to let you know that we are well. Our legs are a little sore, but everything is in good working order. Now we must go finish washing our very stinky clothes!

Bikes, trains, and boats oh my!

Our stay in Amsterdam was extended by one extra day, because of the busy train schedule. We intended to leave Amsterdam on Tuesday, but there was no room left in the bicycle car to Copenhagen. Fortunately Thijs, our magic Dutchman, didn't mind us staying an extra day. Amsterdam is by my estimation the most bicycle friendly city I have ever experienced. By this I mean that in Amsterdam, the bicycle is equivalent to the car. Everyone who lives in Amsterdam uses them to get to work, to go out in the evening, to pick up their groceries... everything people use cars for in the US. In addition, the majority of the streets in the downtown area are only single lane and brick or stone paved. On these, bikes and cars have equal right of way, and because the speeds are so slow, there is little danger of getting run over. On larger streets, almost without exception, there are separate bicycle lanes, and often these are divided from the car traffic by a curb or barrier of some sort. There are bicycle signals at all intersections, and there are bicycle street signs as well. I was really impressed by these- because it is one of the things missing from Seattle's bicycle network. Only regular, local cyclists know the most bike-friendly routes from point A to point B in Seattle. We made it all the way to the Amsterdam Central Train Station from the coast (a ride of about 20 miles) just by following the signs!

There was a bit of a surpising downside to all of this bicycling heaven, and that was that we kept getting in th way of local bikers! We would pause at an intersection to try and get our bearings, and the cyclist behind us would shout at us for stopping suddenly in the middle of the bike lane. Our host laughed at us and said you can always tell who is local on a bike, because they are going somewhere as fast as they can (safely, of course), and the tourists are riding slowly, staring left and right! Our last afternoon in Amsterdam, he took us on a little bike tour to his favorite neighborhoods, so I can assume we were not too embarassing. He also took us to another squatter bar, where his friend (also named Thijs) was playing music. It was quite nice, sort of Norah Jones/Jamie Cullem style jazz with humourous Dutch lyrics. Afterward we went to another Jazz club that also had live music, this time with 5 person a latin/samba combo packed into a very tiny back corner stage.



Our train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen was uneventful. We took one of the famous night trains- it left the station shortly after 7:00 PM, and arrived in Copenhagen at about 10:00 the next morning. Our first task in Copenhagen was to book our ferry to Oslo. We tried to get a train, but, according to the station clerk "is not possible!" Fortunately, we had researched the ferry that also travels from Copenhagen to Oslo, so we tried to book for that day (this was Thursday, July 10) but again there was nothing available for that day. So we booked ourselves a spot on the Friday ferry, and set about seeing Copenhagen. We first rode to the ferry terminal, to try and get on the waiting list, but even that was full, despite the fact that the ferry is not a simple car ferry, like those that leave from the docks in Seattle. No, this ferry is nothing short of a cruise ship with cars in the hold. The rest of Copenhagen was reminscent of Amsterdam, but a little more spread out.


We rode around Copenhagen a bit more, and then found ourselves a campsite at a bonafide European campground. We definitely stuck out like a sore thumb! There were no trees in our assigned camping site, so we rigged what I call our "low-rider" shelter. We simply lay one of the housses on the ground for a ground cloth, and turning our bikes upside down to use as braces, stretch the rainfly from one of the hammocks across as a "tent," The end result is quite low to the ground, but large enough to cover both of us in our sleeping bags, and because our bike bags are waterproof, that's all we need to stay dry. Our set up, however, did not exactly blend in with the locals. In the words one stranger muttered in amazement (and a French accent) as he walked by our set-up, "minimalist extreme!" Surrounding us in the campsite were tents the size of garden sheds, RV's, and barbeques the size of small dining tables. In the morning, I even saw a couple staying in the next tent over using their electric kettle!

I have been told that Europeans think of camping as a very different experience than Americans. First of all, camping is not something done in the wilderness, because there is not wilderness in Europe. The whole countryside is too densly populated. Instead, camping is done with style and luxury in these sort of camping parks, often times near a beach or lake. The Europeas value their luxuries while on holiday, even when engaging in something so rustic as "camping," and so they bring their cheese graters, pepper grinders and wine coolers with them in large of accomodations as possible. Families will return to the same campgrounds every summer and stay for a number of weeks, and the campground becomes one big party. One-night campers such as ourselves are a bit anomalous, and the fact that we barely had a tent increased our alienness. The crowning jewel in our bizarre stay was that it POURED rain, almost all night. Fortunately, we didn't get wet, but our shelter looked a bit worse for wear when we packed up in the morning (while all our neighbors ate breakfasts of bacon & eggs & coffee from their cafe tables!).

When we finally escaped the nightmare campground, we dropped our bags in the luggage lockers at the ferry terminal, and went to the Danish Resistance Museum. It was a very interesting (and free!) museum of the Danish Resistance to Nazi occupation during the second World War, and we spent most of our day there. (We also ate Danish corndogs... yum?)

And now, we write to you from the 10th deck of the M.s. Pearl of Scandinavia, our cruise shi- er- ferry. I say cruise ship, because it's the most elaborate ferry I've ever been on. It has two decks of pure entertainment (in their words, "an ocean of entertainment"), including 9 restaurants, 3 music clubs, duty free "sea shops," 3 family friendly venues, a cinema, and a conference center! All for additional cost, of course. We're of to explore the coffee bar! Ciao for now!

The dunes of Holland and Amsterdam

The way from Brugge to Amsterdam has been filled with many things: police, rain, and sand would be primary among them. Our route took us along the more industrial coastal sections of the Netherlands beginning with the huge (and when I say huge, I mean HUUUUUUGE) ships that we saw passing through some of the canals. There don't seem to be any locks here, like canals in Seattle or Illinois, but there are a lot of bridges, and these huge (did I mention that these were HUUUUUUGE?) ships have to pass under them, so we were stopped to let them through the draw bridges. We also were privledged to witness Holland's finest as they practiced rescuing survivors from a simulated shipwreck. This was in the evening of our second day after leaving Brugge. We rode into a "camping" park where we laid out our housses (the big bags Meghan made for our bikes that have been multi-purpose picnic blankets and ground tarps) and our picnic food. While we set up, below us in the marina area a medium sized ship dropped anchor smack dab in the center of the channel. Shortly afterwards, police vehicles began pulling into the camping park, and stopping at the far end. After a while, it ceased to be just police vehicles, and cars full of people began arriving. People came on bikes and by foot. As the crowd assembled, we watched through our binocculars as the small police boats zipped back and forth from shore to the stopped ship. The ship dropped one of its life rafts into the water, and the crowd of people on the deck began to don orange survival suits. About this time, we deduced that this must be some sort of training exercise, not a real emergency. Sure enough, the people on deck jumped overboard in twos and threes, and the police boats (all four of them!) zoomed about (rather inefficiently from our persepective) picking them up.



When the excitement wound down, all of the bystanders left, but the police remained, and we decided to put up our rain fly and sleep. After only an hour or so, we were awakened by none other than a man in an official uniform who informed us that we were not allowed to sleep here in the "camping park," and in fact there was nowhere we could camp on the entire island. So what to do? We packed our bags back up, rode across the sea wall leading off the island, where, after several hours of searching for another appropriate site, we just plopped down at the edge of a farmers field and dozed uncomfortably until morning.

The next days of travel were less eventful. Although we have had rain almost every day (or night) we have stayed completely dry, except for getting wet deliberately on Holland's finest public beaches. The downside to these luxurious days at the shore is that we are still full of sand- in our ears, our hair, and our belongings.



Departing the coast and passing through Haarlem, we arrived in Amsterdam... twice. Let me explain: we were making great progress on the bikes, exceeding our goal of 50 miles per day, arriving in Katwijk two days before our expected arrival in Amsterdam. We didn't want to bother our couchsurfing host by calling a day early, but we were so excited to make it into the city (which would mark the completion of the first major leg of our trip). Our deal was to spend a day at the beach then decide what to do from there... camp another night or head in. So, we ended up lounging on the beach in Noordwijk until the weather turned, then we pedalled into Amsterdam, optimistic that we might be able to sleep in the train station until noon on Sunday, when our host was expecting us. As we arrived at the train station (the Centraal Station), it was pretty clear that we wouldn't be sleeping there. This venture did award us with our first view of the magnitude of bike-centricity that Amsterdam boasts. The Centraal Station has a three-story bike garage, literally jam packed with what must have been ten thousand bikes. And this is only the free garage... surrounding the station are a number of enormous bike stations with 24 hour security and mini bike repair stands. We will be going back to the station while we are staying, so hopefully I can get a picture of the sea of bicycles (called fiets in dutch).

Having been rejected by the station, and not wanting to pay for a hostel or hotel, we traced our steps back out of town (waaaay back out of town), and found another campsite near a community garden ("People's Patch").

Finding our way back into town the next day, we had breakfast in a nice park then checked in to our first successful couchsurfing spot. We are staying with a great guy named Thijs, who is very friendly and fun to talk to. He's very knowledgeable about the history of Amsterdam, and he explained the enormous sea walls that line the coast of the the Netherlands. These mechanical beasts were erected to prevent flooding of the lowlands during storm surges, and having taken our bikes across a number of them, I can assure you they are very large and impressive.




Thijs is writing his master's thesis now, but he took the time last night to take us out to a few favorite night spots. One of the places we went to was a bar in central Amsterdam that operates in an abandoned building. Apparently in Amsterdam, if a property is left vacant for more than one year anyone can claim it by changing the locks and putting stuff inside so that it looks like you live there. Today we hope to get out on the town again and perhap visit the Van Gogh museum and a few of the parks. (I'm a little bit disappointed that we missed out on the M.C. Escher museum in The Hague a few days ago).

Belgium!

Belgium is far and away the best place in Europe, according to Meghan. Even their most popular tourist destination, Brugge (prounounced Brooj), where I am writing from, is the friendliest, cutest, sunniest, most delicious place on the planet. All that and we have only been here one day. Let me explain...

We left Paris by train four days ago. After a short ride, we arrived in Bologne sur Mer, where it was overcast and very windy. Fortunately the wind was at our backs, and gave us a little help as we rode along the hilliest section of the coast we had seen so far. It was very "North Sea" with the steel gray skies and little white caps out to see, and the coastline full of rocks and tall, coarse grasses. That first day we rode through three or four tiny villages- hamlets, really- each one with red tile roofs, a boulongerie (bakery), and a boucherie (butcher shop) as well as a hotel. Our evenings were spent finding a place to camp. The "Camp Sites" in Europe are actually RV parks... not exacly what we want. So, we end up camping "sauvage", or "wild", which means just hiding in the trees between towns. Possibly illegal, but no one really cares.

Navigating in France was a bit diffiult, because there are no marked bike routes as far as we could tell. We simply hugged the coast the entire time, getting lost only a couple of times in the larger towns (Curse you, Calais and Dunkerque!!!).

We met up along the boardwalk in Dunkerque with four Belgians who were in France for a weekend getaway on their bicycles. After chatting a bit, they guided us quickly into Belgium, which, compared to France, is a bicycle wonderland. All the way through Belgium there are well-labelled bike routes that are very scenic and calm. We made our way into Brugge, which is possibly the most beautiful town we have ever seen. Highly recommended. The "old town" is preseved somewhat as a Unesco World Heritage site. To give that some meanaing, other Unesco sites are usually just buildings... this is the ENTIRE TOWN! The buildings are beautiful, and the cobblestone streets are filled with people on bicycles, young and old.

When we arrived in Brugge, we immediately came across a hostel offering Internet access. As I was checking my email and couchsurfing requests, Meghan made friends with two awesome old ladies at the bar, who proceeded to chat in that adorable old lady way. When they learned that we didn't have a place to stay, they jumped on their mobile phones (and their telephone books!) and called up a friend who runs a "pensioner" or a guestroom. This woman was just as adorable and chatty, and we got a whole apartment for just 50 Euros per night! Breakfast was extra, but well worth it, because Monique was a great story teller, and knew lots about Brugge, travelling and language, three of our favorite topics.

After two days fo exploring this beautiful city by foot, bike and boat, we've packed our bags with Belgian cherries and waffles from the market, and we're headed toward Amsterdam. We've met a few more riders headed south who say the way ahead is beautiful and relaxed, so we're excited to be back on the bikes! It may be a few days before we post again, but be sure we'll have lots of stories!

And please leave us some comments- we're eager to hear from you guys too- we miss you, Mom(s) & and Dad(s)!

P.S. In no particular order, here are some photos from Belgium (and Brugge in particular... just ask if you would like to know more about them!)

Around and out of Paris (late post)

(So we actually left paris a few days ago, but the Internet situation makes things a bit difficult, so here's what we wrote while there)

Our time here in Paris was short and a bit hectic, but we managed to see quite a bit of the central area, including a few of the required Paris sights. Of course, we visited the Eiffel Tower, which is amazing not only because of its size, but the elegance of the metalwork. We also went past the Arc de Triomphe. Granted, it's very interesting in and of itself, but what we were more entertained by was the traffic circling the Arc. We have found during our time here that traffic in Paris borders on chaos, and near the arch there are hundreds of cars, motorcycles, scooters and bicycles entering and leaving with no apparent lane markings or signalling. One just pushes their way into the crowd and is quick on the brake (and gas) pedals. Remarkably, there is not as much horn-honking as one might expect, and I haven't yet seen any fender benders, although we have heard plenty of sirens.



Down the road a little ways, we entered the garden that greets the Louvre, and proceeded to amuse a waiter at a small outdoor cafe by ordering a single Perrier to share (to our defense, we had four litres of water in our camelbaks, so we didn't need any more water). We also shared a savory crepe (with ham, cheese and mushrooms) and ganache (chocolate and toasted almonds) which were both delicious. Exploration of the Louvre itself will wait until our second pass through Paris, with Meghan's mom in September.

The highlight of Paris, for us, came Thursday night when we met up with Marie, who is the girlfriend of Zach's brother, Jacob. The other night when we were unable to find a hostel online, Marie came through and found us a spot in a small hotel for about the same price as a shared room in a hostel. (about 50 Euros per night) (Marie is the Best!) Although we could not stay with her, because she had other guests at the time, we were able to have dinner together at a brasserie, which is a like a bar/cafe that serves simple French cuisine. Meghan ate confit du canard, which is duck, and Will ate calamar, which looked like onion rings, but had some sort of seafood in the center. It was a delicious and wonderful evening, sitting on the terrace, talking about traveling, language, food, and laughing at our pathetic attempts at French pronounciation.

We will get to see Marie again, when we return to Paris in September at the end of our trip.