Rockin' it in 2016

The next time I go for a bike ride, I will have broken my record for the most miles ridden in a year. I find this remarkable considering that I only went on short rides in August and October (months in which I had three work trips), and essentially took September off due to our trip to Europe.

The rides I've gone on in October have featured some lovely foliage along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, a muddy attempt with Matt to ride road bikes down in the too-flooded river valley, rain beautifully illuminated in my headlamp, coyote scat, turkeys, an Oktoberfest fest, and hitting the same semi-hidden, jarring pothole two weeks in a row.

As the bandana I wear under my helmet in 32-45 degree temps might suggest, I maybe have figured out how to rockit.

Brussels

Brussels was the last city we explored as part of our 2016 European adventure. I liked it a lot more than I expected. On second thought, I didn't know what to expect. While I still prefer the more Dutch-influenced part of Belgium, there is something rather cosmopolitan about the French-influenced part of Belgium. Perhaps it is because Brussels is the headquarters of the EU.

In any event, I have some decent photos to share.

We stayed in a lovely apartment in a cute neighborhood close to the train station, the Grand Place (town square where the city hall is located), and the oddly famous (and sometimes dressed) Manneken-Pis statue.

View from our living room. My dad spent a lot of time
watching the comings and goings.

Self-explanatory, eh?

We weren't far from the royal palace, which faces the main park in Brussels. Dan and I liked the palace, but thought that the park wasn't photo-worthy.

We met my parents for lunch in the Saint Catherine's neighborhood where we saw a fountain with cool animal-themed fountains within it, and then a very ornate iron train sculpture thing.

Mussels in Brussels. Not as good as the ones I had in Bruges,
but c'mon, mussels in Brussels.

Zoom in to see the animals.

Dan and I went on a very fabulous chocolate and beer tour of Brussels, led by the very knowledgeable and witty Marie. There are a lot of adjectives in that sentence for good reason. It was the highlight of visiting Brussels, in my mind. If you go to Brussels, you must do this tour. I have a lot of photos of the various chocolate shops and little pubs we visited, as well as nearly every type of beer that Dan drank there and throughout our trip. I am happy to share the link to my photo album, if you want to see them.

I liked this chocolatier the best, and went back
the next day to buy gifts.

After consuming high alcohol beers elsewhere,
we were happy to eat some bread, cheese, and salami
with the beer we got at this deli/store/bar.

Like Bruges and Ghent, there were
little alleyways in Brussels... with bars.

The next day, while Dan and I lounged, my parents went to the Atomium, from the 1958 Worlds' Fair. There are crazy steep escalators connecting those little spheres.

Purported view from the Atomium

Part of our lounging consisted making a repeat trip to Toone, one of the bars we visited on our tour. It is a weird little place where they also do puppet shows. With marionettes, not hand puppets. The old marionettes can be found throughout the bar.

The next day we took a train back to Amsterdam, where my Dad proceeded to eat a lunch of leftover salami and crackers, stinking up the train and getting cracker crumbs everywhere. He was cracking me up. He's such a good sport.

We spent the night at a hotel in Amsterdam - the only hotel of the trip and the place where I suspect the fraud on our credit card began. Other than that, it was a lovely hotel and the food we had for dinner was rather good. Plus, they had good instant cocoa and nice bathtubs in the guest rooms. 

Reflecting on another international trip gone well.

Ghent

When we were planning our vacation and deciding where to travel within Belgium, my dad threw Ghent into the mix. I don't know why Ghent prevailed over Antwerp, but, boy, am I glad it did. I loved Ghent! I think it was my favorite part of Belgium, although everything in Belgium was great.

Ghent, which is halfway between Bruges and Brussels, is just a short train ride from either city. It has a lot of the old beauty and charm of Bruges, but instead of a museum feel, it has a college town vibe. I stopped taking photos and am still waiting to get some from my parents' cameras, but still had some good ones to share here.  

This is the airbnb houseboat where we stayed, which was rather large on the inside, musty, quiet, and spider-laden.

The first day we were there, we looked for a taproom that Dan had read about in the guidebook. It no longer exists, so we walked up the street to this neighborhood where we found the most lovely vegetarian restaurant. In a meat-and-potatoes country, I felt quite a strong kinship with the nice man who made my delicious meal, served with a nicely brewed pot of puerh tea. I lingered. I did not want to leave this haven. 

While my dinner that night, also near this neighborhood, consisted of very few vegetables, the french fries I had were probably the best fries I've ever had. (All of our meals in Ghent were actually really tasty and well done. At dinner the next night, Dan was only willing to share one small potato wedge with my parents and me, insisting that we cut it into thirds.)

The next day was our only full day in Ghent. We walked to the historic area, home to some huge old churches and a belltower and old market squares. After strategizing in a bar with an insane amount of varieties of beer, we went on a self-guided tour of an old castle, located at the confluence of two rivers. You know me and confluences. Add the bonus feature of some old weaponry and a small torture museum within the castle, and it should be pretty clear how great this afternoon was.

After the castle, we split off from my parents. Dan and I checked out this place called Velootje that was essentially described as an interesting bike museum where you can have a beer. I'm kind of glad that I didn't see this description of it until tonight, when looking up the name of the place. Terrifying and amazing is right. 

We walked down a little non-descript cobblestone alleyway-like street and found some people sitting at a table with an umbrella. There was a bike sticker on a drainpipe and that's essentially what clued us into the fact that we found the right place. The owner barely greeted us (but his English was a little rough), and asked if we wanted a beer. He grabbed a big bottle of something with high alcohol content, and handed us two glasses, while a cat walked on the table. A young couple with a child, their friend, and an older women were there. After we sat their awkwardly for about 10 minutes, the two younger guys kindly started talking with us. They confirmed that they also think Velootje is really weird, but that they like it, so they go there. 

After drinking our beer, we asked to see "the museum." It's a garage full of an odd assortment of dusty old bikes. We then paid the guy, said our goodbyes, and tried to process it all on the way home.

It was so weird and awesome.

The next day, we headed to Brussels, after I snapped these two photos of the bike parking area at the train station. Ghent had some really good bike infrastructure, and a ton of kids riding bikes for transportation.

Bruges

The last time I was in Bruges, I had just turned 20 and was traveling on a tight budget with a guy who had been my boyfriend when we left Edinburgh and London, but wasn't my boyfriend by the time we left Venice or visited Vienna and Bruges. (I don't recall his status when we were in Paris.) Bruges hadn't been part of our planned itinerary, but we went there when we got frustrated trying to figure out the bus in Frankfort. It was lovely - like a postcard - despite the circumstances, and has always been a place I wanted to visit again.

I'm happy to report that Bruges is still like a postcard (but with the Internet).

We:

• spent a fair amount of time in and around the market square, 

• did a Rick Steves self-guided walking tour of the city, saw some old buildings and canals and ruins, learned about the Begijnofs as well as the great housing services for old people, went on a cobblestone-laden bike tour, 

This was the most tasty of all the Belgian waffles I ate on the trip.
I don't think it was due to the added love from my Dad, but maybe.

• went up the famous bell tower, and 

• visited the french fry museum. Yes, the french fry (well, friet) museum. 

My Dad was always game to be in
a photo, which made me happy.

This was funny and disgusting.

We walked a ton in this beautiful little town. The highlights for me from Bruges were visiting a tiny little bar down a dark, tiny alley, going on a tour of the brewery that is sending its beer - via an underground pipeline - to its bottling plant on the outskirts of the city, and having a really fantastic mussels dinner with my husband and parents at a dark, tiny restaurant called the Habit (located across the street from the Hobbit (seriously)). I guess I'm a nooks and crannies kind of gal.

Amsterdam

Perhaps if I had visited a coffee shop in Amsterdam, I would be inspired to have a more creative title for this post. We learned rather quickly that you go to a cafe for coffee. You go to a coffee shop for pot. There are a hell of a lot of tourists walking through the touristy and red light districts of Amsterdam who seem to have spent too much time in coffee shops, and too little time drinking coffee.

There really is only one word to describe Amsterdam: bikes.

As soon as we walked out of the train station, we saw bike parking.

When we looked across the street, and along the canal, we saw more bike parking.

Zoom in - behind all that fencing are tons and tons and tons of bikes.

When we walked throughout the city, there were bikes whizzing by at every moment, on little paths adjacent to the sidewalks, in protected and unprotected bike lanes, and on all other streets. We were in Amsterdam for three nights, and had an apartment in a quiet, mostly residential area about a 10-minute train ride from the Amsterdam Centraal train station. Out there, we saw people commuting and transporting their kids (often multiple kids) - - all by cruiser bike. I believe that I saw two bike helmets in all of Amsterdam, and don't recall seeing any spandex.

Dan and I remarked the first day that we didn't know how it worked, but some how, it worked. When we went on our bike tour of Amsterdam (which, hands down, was my favorite part of visiting Amsterdam), we learned how. In short (?), all kids are required to learn how to ride and learn the rules of the road. All drivers (who learned to bike as children) are required, to pass their licensing exam, to know the rules of the road and certain safe driving measures. At all unmarked intersections, any person, bike, or car yields to the right, unless there are painted triangles on the street pointing at you, in which event you yield to all cross traffic. Everyone stops for a pedestrian in zebra-stripe crosswalks. These were measures that were implemented in the 1970s after a ton of cycling deaths in the late 1960s. How novel. How civilized.

The hipster bike dude-led tour was excellent for other reasons, too. We learned a lot about architecture, history, geography, etc. For example, we learned about Amsterdam arising from development along the Amstel River, it being situated below sea level and concerns about climate change.

We learned about plans to put car parking ramps under the canals.

We learned about how super old buildings, like this now-restaurant on the canal, were warehouses into which cargo was loaded through the central doors. We learned about the visible wall anchors, the still-active pulleys for moving furniture in and out, and the decrease of window height as you look up, making buildings look taller than they are.

We learned about these weird, green, only semi-private spiral urinals on the streets. 

We did a lot of other things in Amsterdam, including seeking out beer on Dan's bucket list, visiting a lovely little brewery powered by a windmill, finding out that the Dutch suggest heating Stroopwafels (the European equivalent to those delicious Honey Stinger things sold in the U.S.) over a mug (great idea!), and, on a very somber note, toured the Anne Frank house, which felt very relevant given recent discourse in the U.S. and internationally.

The building with the dark doors
to the right of the one with
the red awnings is the Anne Frank house.

It was a brief, but lovely, visit. I think it would be interesting to visit other parts of the Netherlands, to see how they compare.

Iceland

People have been asking what was my favorite part of our trip to Europe. You can't really compare Iceland (Ísland) to Amsterdam. Well, you can, but that's like comparing apples to oranges. (Or maybe sea bass to marijuana?)

Iceland was cold and grey when we spent time there, and beautifully sunny when we had a layover on our way back to the U.S. It is smaller than Minnesota and has a total population not much greater than Minneapolis. 

Iceland's energy is sustainable, since the ground essentially is dried lava on top of molten earth and hot springs. Houses don't have hot water heaters. They just have hot water, piped directly from its boiling source, which is also used for heating buildings and keeping the sidewalks from getting icy. As you drive through the countryside, you see wisps of steam coming out of the ground, lava fields, glaciers, and cool rock formations. 

It's a super tourist-friendly place to travel, other than being rather expensive. It was beautiful and amazing, and I hope to go back.

Here are a few photos as we wandered around Reykjavik our first jetlagged day. (I have more photos from our trip that I can share privately, if you need to see more.)

Lutheran Church with statute of Leif Erikkson

(or, if you prefer, Leifur Eiríksson). I guess I cut off the cross.

Some of the more historic, prettier buildings with the harbor behind my parents.
To the right of my dad is a bike lane.

On our second day in Iceland, we took a bus tour to see some of the countryside. We learned a lot about geology, volcanoes, and the history of Iceland. One of our stops on the Circle Tour was to this massive waterfall. It was way more impressive than any other waterfall I've ever seen, and is so much prettier and deadly than Niagara Falls. You can get a sense for how huge it is, when you see the people I included in the photo to better demonstrate the scale.

Looking upriver

Looking downriver into the deep gorge. The little dots on the right side
are people on the path and, a bit beyond, on top of the cliff.

After the waterfall, we went to see some geysers. I was lucky to catch one on video (below). From there, we went to our first hot spring (Fontana), where we ate bread cooked in the earth and I jumped in a glacial lake. I hope I will never forget the look on my Dad's face when he realized that he followed me into the women's dressing room. 

We then went to a big park with cool lava formations, spending our time looking at the area where the Viking settlers gathered for all of their important meetings as they established the government and laws of the land. 

I can totally pronounce these names, can't you?

In the late 800s, the Vikings used the little grassy green area
to the left of this woman, between lava formations,
as a corral for their horses.

That night, we had delicious, ridiculously expensive pizza and beer for dinner at a cozy little pub. It was a highlight of the trip.

The next day, we went to some great museums, had an amazing lunch with fish served family style in cast iron frying pans, and then went to our second hot spring, the infamous Blue Lagoon, with its eerie opaque blue water and Disney-esque queues to get into the facility. While the Blue Lagoon was striking and I'm glad we saw it, I don't need to go back.

As we drove up, I heard someone on the bus ask about the nearby factories.
All the steam is just that: steam. There isn't a factory out there.
Instead, the facility is in the business of keeping people from boiling to death
after paying an admission fee to sit in water together.