For the first time I participated an organized tour. It was organized by a famous Dutch bikegirl who tries to get all Dutch female on a bike. Young, old, slim, fat, sick, healthy, fast, slow... everybody.  It was the kind of tour fanatic bikers seem to look down upon. It was mainly housewives and a small group op racers. I entered for that group, but it was only there that I heard helmets were required. So I got myself between the 'ordanairy' housewives, but I turned out not to be the only one with a fast bike there.
 
I had initial resistance to go there. I'm used to biking alone and I like that. I have no idea if I would like to join a biking company. I had never longed for it till now, it's only when I stop biking that I miss the company. When I reach my destination after hours of biking, or enter a strange cafe, gasstation or hostel, then my old fears creep up on me. The first time is the worst. That's one of the reasons I often go the same way and stay at the same place. I've been there before, so it is less frightening. With a back-up of being somewhere before -even for a short period of time- I can carefully push out frontiers. So this was strange to me too. First time in an organized tour, in a piece of Rotterdam I hardly ever come, between 5000 women I don't know... I feel very lonely and overwhelmed. It terrifies me. If I didn't love biking this much, I would have made up an excuse not to go. But I went. And I participated.
 
I had to search the startingpoint, because I couldn't find my map of Rotterdam. The tour began in Alexander, a piece of Rotterdam I'm not familiar with as I stated earlier. I didn't understand the organisation. Finally I let it go. I figured we would all be going the same way, regardless of the fact near which number I had parked my bike. I tried to pick up the goodybag. But it was free so you can probably imagine how crowded it was. There were more people pushing and jostling than between those 5000 bikes at the start of the tour. I went back when I started to get cold sweat. I knew if I had stayed longer I would go hyperventilate. Yeah I know, I'm a wuzzy, but I just can't handle crowds.
 
Then finally at 11 o'clock we were allowed to leave. I don't know if you can imagine 5000 woman to cross a startline at the same time, but even a snail would pass them with ease. So I started stepping, passing hundreds of woman. Then I crossed the line and I could just go biking. I still passed more women. Then I spotted three race ladies who were passing a lot of women too. So I begin to ride behind them. Unfortunately I was comfirmed in my prejudices. Racebikers aren't to happy if an unfamiliar persons joins their little company. They were looking down upon me. Very dirty looks and making nasty remarks. (And no, they were not my only experience during the tour.) So finally I passed those racers myself and they never gained on me.
 
After 35km we were being lead of the road for a lunchbreak. What? I came here to bike, not to eat! Piss off! I do not want to stand in line between strange women, eat lunch between strange women if I could sit in the sadle and step on the pedals. So I squeezed myself with bike between the fences and continued the route. There I was now biking between the group who had left first, the racers. All wearing helmets, except me.
 
The Lekdijk in western direction was a whole new experience. If you thought the hills of the Veluwe were a challenge, you might have underestimated the winds at the coast. They are tough and unpredictable. Biking in Gelderland is quite a task, but you know what you get and what you might expect out of it. But with the hard blasts of wind over the bold plains and the fall winds in the city with it's high buildings, you can even stagnate going down a steep hill. It was plodding and only just before I reached Rotterdam I got my pace of 26km/h back. Again behind a group of racebike ladies (I give shit about attitude sooo much!!!).
 
After 68km I reached the finish, and there were about 100 ladies who had gone before me. All on racebikes. I'm sooo good! |D I left immediately for a friend's birthday. I eat three cheesecakes and drank a lot of coffee. The ladies there thought it would be nice to participate next year. We shall see.
 
Facts:
official km: 65km
counted km: 68,88km
total km that day: 101,16km
repeatable: I don't know. Not overly enthousiastic

So after we had said goodbye for the last time I drove onto the A3 and I could drive some time, for about 10 minutes, and I drove into the well known gridlock on the A3.
So the drive took longer that it should, but didn't take as much time as driving to Kitzingen. After driving 600km I got home, unpacked the car and turned all the electricity and went to bed, because the next day I had to go into the office.
So we both had a great time in the surroundings of Wuerzburg and unfortunately it was too short.

My pets over the years.  I had many more, but don't have pictures of all of them. Over the years me and my family had 9 guinea-pigs, 4 parakeets, 1 dog, a lot of fish and 1 rabbit. 

I've been coming here for some time. An acquaintance works here, so sometimes I come over for a cup of coffee. Also it's at the edge of the centre and right next to the market on Saturdays and Tuesdays. When ordering a cup of tea or coffee latte (or like we call it translated: coffee wrong) you get a big bowl. I like my consumptions large for an average price. I used to eat here too, but I found lately that the meals were dissatisfying. I guess they lost their old chef. But the tea is good (many kinds), the coffee is good, the service is good and when the weather gets nice, they open the terrace and you can get a nice view of Rotterdam-centre. The cafe is inside the librarybuilding with an external and internal entree. They got a readingtable too. For the real geeks: This is an OBCP: Official BookCrossing Point

Actually this is a bookstore for spiritual, esoteric and theological books. They have a little cafe where you can get something to eat and drink, while reading some books you might or might not want to buy, look at some art, chat or just enjoy the peace and quiet. The atmosphere is wonderful, the people working there are very nice, the food is tasty,... There was a time I came there once or twice a week. Now I don't have that much time, I come there once or twice a month. The drinks aren't that extraordanairy, although they have a wide variety of herbal tea. They have a couple of pies and cakes, good but common. But if you'd ever be around for lunch be sure to have a bite here! Their breadrolls are best in town (as far as I'm concerned).

Just getting up costs €8,30 which in my opinion is just too expensive. Admitted: the views are spectacular when the sky is clear, and you'll find yourself on top of the tallest building in the country. You can also abseil from the Euromast, play minigolf next to it, have a drink, lunch or dinner or even sleep there (you'll have the place for yourself after closing time!). Tip: if you buy a Rotterdamcard (€55, students €10, loads of discounts, most museums are free) admittance is free once, or you can buy a Euromastcard for €5 (normal price €16) which gives you admittance for a whole year. You could also reserve for dinner, you woný have to pay the admittance then. Overall: nice views, but at a cost. http://www.euromast.nl/english/index.html

The night before I left it was very busy in the office, finally when I got home I still had to do laundry and therefore could only start packing my luggage the morning before departure. I actually wanted to leave very early, and I cleaned the house before I left and I needed to pick up a few things. Eventually, after picking up a Disney collectible at Royal TNT Post and drive to DHL to pickup my newly aquired mobile phone, but eventually I was on the road around 10:00 o'clock.
Around 11:00 o'clock I passed Arnhem and the whole drive went okay, untill I got to Würzburg. Every time I have to pass Würzburg it is a great time to think varying from half an hour up to two hours. This time it was a delay of two hours. Finally I got the exit before the exit I needed to take, so here I got off the 3.

Just wanted to add some pictures of my home town, and second largest city of the Netherlands: Rotterdam. Feel free to ask anything, I love to share my knowledge of the city.

The world harbour days in Rotterdam are an annual event honouring Rotterdam and its harbour. Three days of pleasure in the centre of the city, with excursions to the harbour. There are also demonstrations being given by the marine.
Along the river lie special ships with all sorts of purposes. Examples are historic sailboats, the Dutch marineship the 'Rotterdam', and freighters.

As it was my dad's birthday a couple of days ago, my mom and I decided to give him a scenic flight above Rotterdam as a present. My dad was born and raised here and always reads books about the city. As such we arrived at Rotterdam Airport yesterday. This small airport is a perfect starting point for a scenic flight. After going through customs we boarded the aircraft. It was a small plane, placing a maximum of 4 people. With the wings above the cabin we had a clear view of Rotterdam. Well, we were lucky with the weather too. The forecast was cloudy with occasional rain, but the whole day it was sunny.
After some taxiing we took flight. First we flew to Delft, the Westland, Hoek van Holland and Spijkenisse. Finally we arrived at Rotterdam. It was fantastic to see the city from above. Everything looked so tiny. After circleling above the city centre, we made our way to Kralingen and then back to the airport. Half of me was happy that we were landing, because there was so much turbulence. The other half was disappointed that the flight was over. But however you may put it, this was an experience to remember!

After the flight we went to the city centre to take a look at the hustle and bustle. We've visited the World Harbour Days many times before, but it has never led us down. We arrived at the metro station 'Kralingse Zoom' to take the metro to the centre. My mom and I were glad that the car ride was over, because we were still nauseous from the turbulence.
We started our walk at the Leuvenhaven. We made our way through the historic boats, cars and trucks to the Eramusbridge. The beauty of that bridge never seizes to amaze me. We walked along the pier to the Euromast. We passed many boats, including a submarine and two freightships. As is happens, people were abseiling from the Euromast. With a height of 100 metres it must be a terrifying experience.
At the euromast too, ended our day. We went home with this great day forever in our memories.

We met with Laura in Amsterdam and took a bus and a train to Rotterdam. The weather wasn't bad, quite windy though but at least it didn't rain. We were going to Finland's Seaman church in Rotterdam for a BBQ party in the evening but before that we wanted to see the city. We didn't have any plans, just going to walk and see what comes along. First we came to this square that looked like there had been or will be something happening. We looked at the guys there with cables and came to a solution that they were building up. Then we saw the program and damn, we were one day too early for that. Ou well, maybe there's something else in this city too.

We continued to walk and came to a shopping street. We weren't going to buy anything but it was nice to look. During the day we wandered to many other shopping streets too. Or at least that's how it seemed. We also wandered to these market streets and once again, it was nice to look and be amazed how cheap everything was! I introduced Laura to Dutch stroopwafels and how good where those when they were warm and fresh!

In some point we walked to a harbor and there was something happening! There were ships and people, and the sun was shining! We ate some really good smoked fish and enjoyed the relaxing day.

Later on we went to the Seaman church where the party would be. It wasn't like a church, nice cozy place. We met other Finnish people that lived somewhere in the Netherlands. There were many au pairs like Laura and they shared their experiences. We ate well and chatted with people. There was a possibility to go to sauna but even though I'm Finnish, I don't like sauna so we didn't go. Then the night was getting darker and it was time to head back to Amsterdam.

Erasmus Bridge goes across the Nieuwe Maas river to link the North and the South part of Rotterdam. Rotterdam is well known for its recent architecture, the bridge was built in 1996. It is 808m long and 139m high. The port of Rotterdam is very famous as it is one of the busiest port of the world. I did not cross the bridge, but I had opportunities to see it from the boat while touring the port.

Vandaag komen ze filmen voor de eerste aflevering
Over een half uur om precies te zijn en ik sterf van de zenuwen
Eerste aflevering is een soort introductie dus we blijven geowon hier in Rotje

We zien t allemaal wel,

byex

Cozy cafe which also offers some meals for in between. You can sit outside just in front of the Maas and the huge Erasmus bridge. The inside looks modern and pure but still comfortable.

So Nat drove with her friend Lucas and myself all the way to Dortmund, Germany to attend a show about copyrights and intellectual property, mostly so in the form of new media getups.

Nat wondering why she would ever get a speeding ticket. While driving.


Outside the exhibition space.

Inka who I first saw back in Alexandria during Cleotronica's very well put together symposium by ACAF. Funny yeah. Here she explains how this once industrial neighborhood is now being transformed into a vocal point of information technology industries and related cultural activities.

Very nice and cozy restaurant Inka pointed us towards with a very dedicated menu to about 4 very nice dishes. Lovely. The name alone was enough to convince us "Sissi Kingkong"

Nat being... well, very Nat.

I'm really not sure what to say about this one.

Me and Nat walking out of the restaurant. You can totally tell how good the food was. Ha ha.

The setup for the shoot in my studio in Rotterdam.