Fietsen - the ultimate form of transportation

When one is going to stay in the Netherlands for an extended period of time, it's not a question of if you are going to purchase a bike, more of a how soon are you going to purchase a bike. Now I have done some biking in Canada - the odd summer trek up the old railway trail - perhaps use it to make it time for an 8:30am class at UW - but I was never dependent on a bicycle. Me and Ol' Blue (left)

Here - there is entire transportation routes designed for the use of the bicycle. People ride it to work, to school, to go grocery shopping, to run errands and everything else we would use a car for. There is a lot of bicycle shops in Tilburg - many of my flatmates found some bikes in such shops but I was lucky enough not to deal with shady characters who claim there is one bike left than put another one out as soon as you leave. My first night, a desparate Spanish student rushed into our door asking if anyone would like to buy his bike. I went down to the bike locks - rode around in it for a circle and decided to buy it for 60 euro - 10 less than what he had asked for because the front wheel was a little loose.

The next morning I went down to have a look at my bike in the daylight and was impressed with my purchase - a lot of students had paid over 60 euro for their bikes and mine actually included the lights and the lock (the lights are illegal not to have and the lock is necessay if you want to keep your bike around) Some other friends managed to find bikes for 20 euro - then with the cost of lights and locks it added another 30 euro. It is really a luck of the draw.

But seriously - I was very intimidated to ride it the first time - all the bikeways have their own stoplights and rules and so much to think about - plus - i have not seen one person wear a helmet and you ride like less than a foot away from moving car traffic. I guess you could say I was being cautious that first time out - there certainly was a few elderly men passing me - but now I am pretty much fitting in with all the other Dutch bikers. These is more parking spaces for bikes than there are for cars - by the central train station - I think there must be AT LEAST 2,000 bikes parked there at any time of the day. This is on campus - the non-busy time! Notice all the bikes

Florence and I tried to be really Dutch and attempt to ride with one of us on the back one night after one of the socials. You often see friends ride with one sitting side-saddle behind the peddler. We weren't quite ready to try the running start - but we were able to pull off a pretty decent still start with me as the peddler. I was so impressed with ourselves.

One of the funniest things was trying to ride back home after a huge shopping trip. I had decided I needed a chair for my room and got this great deal on a nice fold-out comfy chair at the Blokker (an everything store). The problem was getting it home. Cheryl and I each had our backpacks and groceries bags in addition to this chair. After trying to strap my backpack to the back of my bike and nearly losing it to oncoming traffic, we managed to find a good system where Cheryl put on both backpacks and I straped the chair to my back and had the grocery bags on the handles.

Silly enough... we did not look out of place!
My room, Danni, Florence and Una (Ireland) sitting, notice the chair I biked home with