The Van Gogh museum had an excellent exhibit of his evening and nighttime scenes, reflecting his view of the dark hours as a time for reflection and creativity.  Among the many wonderful works was his famous Starry Night:

Amsterdam is an amazing place and we had a fabulous time wandering around the city.  There are an wonderful diversity of restaurants and we sampled some terrific food.  The coffee produced from the ubiquitous espresso machines was also incredible: thick and brown and a bit frothy on top.

One of the things that I noticed everywhere in the Netherlands was the architecture.  They seem to have achieved an ideal balance between preservation of historically interesting buildings and the integration of new modern architecture.  I suppose urban planning has long been an important facet of Dutch culture, especially given the nature of their relationship with the sea.  It was fascinating to see a map showing a cross-section of the Netherlands labeling the relative elevation of some landmarks.

The amalgamation of Baroque, Art Nouveau or Jugendstil, the Amsterdamse School of Art Deco, and modern buildings is particularly congenial.  I didn’t manage to take any particularly good photographs of the modern architectural gems, but I did find these photos on flickr which will give you a sense of some of the area.

The other aspect of Amsterdam which particularly fascinated me was transportation.  A network of canals forms a lattice running throughout the city.  There were a number of boats plying the waterways, including various craft to convey tourists.  I have been curious about canals since living so near one in England.  I imagine that the canals are now more valuable aestheically than as trade or transport routes, but they certainly lend a Venetian charm to the city.

The main form of transport in Amsterdam is the bicycle.  Bicycles are everywhere, some 465,000 of them.  These are serious bike people.   Apparently, about 30 percent of people regularly make their daily commute by bicycle and a further 40 percent occasionally cycle to work.  There are bicycle lanes on both sides of the road.  I don’t think you’ll find many car parks, but rows and rows of parked bicycles are everywhere.

Bicycle fashion amongst these bike people is quite different from that in the U.S. or the U.K.  There are no spandex shorts with logos plastered on the bum and helmets are verbotten, even for kids riding in the local version of the mini-van shown below:

Bicycles are such an important part of the fabric of life in Amsterdam.  After nearly getting run over a few times, we decided we had to try it for ourselves and we rented bicycles for the day.  How else to understand what is means to live in Amsterdam?  It turned out to be relatively easy to navigate the streets and we managed to see large parts of the city that would have been out of range of pedestrians.  I would highly recommend this to anyone visiting Amsterdam.

One advantage of being below sea level is that the area is essentially flat, making complicated gearing systems superfluous.  Almost all the bicycles in Amsterdam are variations on the same basic design, simple and functional:

I came across these observations on bike culture from a San Fransisco visitor and this video:

Overall, I got a sense of the culture in the Netherlands to be a unique combination of social responsibility and independent freethinking that has resulted in a particularly engaging city to visit.  Particular thanks are due to Gail for taking care of our new puppy while I was gone.

Riding in the mud in a nightgown – gotta love it!

We drove through the Dalby Forest where we discovered Pace Bike Park run by the Forestry Commission.  They have a course with table tops, berms, rhythm bumps and corkscrew bridge.  It looked pretty intimidating at first, but after the first run River seemed quite confident and couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she raced through the track.

Here she is coming underneath the corkscrew bridge.

There was a nice observation point at the top to watch the riders.  Sage went through once as well, though she needed some help getting over the bigger bumps.  I’m sure she’ll be ready for it soon, though.

This video shows a trick that River has been working on.

I came up with this solution:

We have a large stash of Queensland Collection Kathmandu Aran that I hope someday will turn into a sweater. So now I have a merino/silk/cashmere ankle strap. I’m not sure how it’ll stand up to the mud and rain it will eventually encounter, but it only took a few minutes to make and meantime I’m surely the most styling cyclist around!

The earthquake Wednesday night shook us awake. At first it seemed like it might be just an especially big gust of wind, but it soon became obvious that it was an earthquake. It wasn’t powerful enough here to do any damage, but it was another exciting occurrence in an already dynamic week.

Several people have asked me what I’m going to do now that I’m not home educating the kids anymore. The short answer is that I don’t know.

The longer answer is that in the short term, I’m planning to do things that I like to do. As any parent can tell you, there is never enough time to care for the kids and do things for yourself. So I’m thinking of indulging myself with some things I haven’t had time to pursue in the past seven and a half years.

On Tuesday, I rode my bike along the Trent and Mersey canal that runs near our house. The first section of the path is part of the National Cycle Trail and is quite smooth riding. After the cycle trail veers off towards Melbourne, it becomes more of a muddy footpath until you get to Shardlow about seven miles down the line. Shardlow is apparently a hive of canal boat activity; there is quite a marina there. The

path ends with the confluence of the Trent and Mersey canal, the River Trent, and the River Derwent. I saw a few water birds here, including some tufted ducks,

a couple of goosanders,

and a group of coots.

Paintings courtesy of the RSPB birdguide.

On my return trip, I noticed I was riding on my rims and I ended up walking the last 3 or 4 miles back. Yesterday, I found several very large thorns embedded in the tires and patched five punctures. Anway, when I got home I ate lunch and had an hours nap. Then I picked the kids up from school, made homemade pizzas for dinner which we ate with one of Molly’s co-workers and his friend from California. Finally, I went to capoeira.

I don’t expect every day will be as full as that one, but I am looking forward to having some time to myself!