The afermath

The walk to my front door never felt longer. I was walking at the slowest pace and panting simultaneously. So much so that I elicited some stares from people on the street, I guess they were wondering if I was okay. My legs were barely functional and the kind of pain I was feeling in my thighs I’ve never felt in my life. I opened the door, went upstairs, entered my room and basically collapsed on the bed. I wasn’t moving a muscle. Eventually I got up and decided this would be a good time to take a bath. We have a tub, but I’ve never used it before. It’s actually pretty useless, cause it’s too small, and with the average Dutch person being insanely tall, it’s a wonder how any native could fit in it. All the same, it was a nice half an hour to just lie there and let the skin feel the warm water. By the time I got out, my fingers were wrinkled. Struggling to put one foot in front of the other, I headed into the kitchen to remedy my state of famine.

I’d like to extend this tale of drama, but that’s all that actually happened. Damn.

From the top

This afternoon I was feeling a little restless, so I thought I would take the bike for a ride to Bunnik, since I’ve never been there before and some people said it was nice. Yes, I’m back on the horse. The road to Bunnik is quite nice, there’s a wide bikepad alongside the road and there’s a long road of houses by the road. Quite a lot of people were out there cycling or jogging, so the atmosphere of that bikepad was appropriate. Bunnik itself is one of those towns that stretches the longest along the main road through it and doesn’t have too many settlements deeper in. I found a little plaza with a church, but that was about it. Not really knowing what to do with myself, I noticed a sign for bicyclists that said “Zeist 3km”. Well, why not. Zeist is a lot bigger than Bunnik, it’s just about the biggest town of those that surround Utrecht. In Zeist, I first followed the signs to the Castle, which turned out to be a prosperous, old building surrounded by water. Then I just headed for the center, which landed me onto a very nice boulevard. I found Zeist a charming place, the boulevard stretches quite far, it was quite busy and on either side you have stores all lit up and there’s also the light from street decorations. By now I noticed darkness was approaching, it would be dark in an hour tops. So what to do, should I go back? Just then I saw another sign – “Amersfort 13km”. I was a little wary of going to Amersfort knowing it would be after dark and I wouldn’t see that much of it anyway. But hey, here I am in Zeist and it’s not that far away, why not.

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The other day I was talking to a friend about taking a road trip and we settled on something he had already picked out, a trip to Breukelen. Coincidentally, it is the same direction I went last week, only this time he picked out a different route. There were three of us, and we took off from the Uithof heading north to De Bilt. On the way we passed by the weather station in De Bilt – they had said it would be 15 degrees and sunny, it was neither. After De Bilt we headed westwards toward Groenekan. The road around these parts was very nice, fairly prosperous houses (by Dutch standards – the Dutch don’t like to flout prosperity), nice gardens, quiet neighborhoods. Much of the road that came next was outside any town, so we got to see our share of the countryside, which on a chilly Sunday morning wasn’t exceedingly interesting. Then we turned back into the city and arrived at city limits on the north side – Overvecht. Heading south we soon found the destination of the pursuit – river Vecht. The tour guide among us gave every assurance that staying with the river we would be right on track, which turned out to be right on all counts.

Just then I realized we had entered the riverboat-red-light-district (that I mentioned last time). As it turns out, there are about 20 or so boats, then it ends abruptly. From there on, there’s a little road by the river that makes for a perfect little trip. On either side there are lots of houses, boats, gardens, the architecture takes several turns in changing from one style to the next, it’s a very rich area in terms of the view. Lots of houses have boats, you’ll see trees leaning over the water, old wind mills, old buildings with lots of ornaments, even an old castle that now houses a university. You’ll also see a bunch of people fishing by the river. On the way to Maarssen there’s a village called Oud Zuilen, which has a little castle to see. Today entrance was free, but there were so many people in there that basically we couldn’t take the tour. Instead, we walked around the gardens and gazed upon the ivy covered walls of the monumental building.

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I used to joyride more often, now I rarely do it. Back in Trondheim I basically stopped cause after 12 years I felt I just about knew every street in the whole of town and there was nothing new to see. And outside town there is just nothing to see, so that’s pointless. Then I moved to Utrecht and I bought this crappy used bike that turned out to be a piece of junk. But now I have my trusted bike back and although it’s not in tip top shape, it’s a big improvement. Tonight I felt like taking a ride to explore some new parts of town up north, where I haven’t been much. It ended up a pretty long trip, just over two hours. I thought I would map it out so I knew exactly what area I covered. I also marked down some highlights on the map with dots (click map for full size).

As always with these things, when I start out I have nothing specific in mind, I don’t know where I’m going or how far I’m going. I was just out there to clear my head a bit, but I thought I would head north as I’ve seen most of south Utrecht already. I took the familiar road heading up to my old house, which is a ride I don’t really enjoy all that much normally, but tonight it was very nice out. It was 8 degrees, with a nice cool coming over me as I walked out the door. Very familiar Norwegian kind of weather, cool and quiet, I would take this weather every time over a windy day, which there are a lot of here. A light jacket and thin gloves, the perfect outfit. As I passed by my old house, I noticed there was a light on in the basement (which is a freak thing cause the basement was sealed off and looked like a bomb had gone off down there last time I looked). It’s not been torn down (as it was said so many times). I wonder if there are people living there now. I headed up north, the narrow little streets where I once took a shot at jogging (I did in all about 3-4 times before I realized it really doesn’t suit me).

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