Day 41 - Riding a bike really IS like riding a bike!

So today I got up super early (after a shit sleep because some fucking group of people walked in at 2am and turned ALL the lights on…) and I went on a bike tour! Oh! First I stopped off at a café and had an AWESOME coffee (first good one in ages, very satisfying)

Now, I’m not going to lie, I was kind of shitting myself about this bike tour, here’s why;

Bikes are EVERYWHERE, literally everywhere. They control the road, not cars. But on the other hand, cars don’t seem to like bikes very much, they don’t really get along, so a car will totally try to get take control. And pedestrians?? Well, if you’re a pedestrian I’m pretty sure you have no rights, and you will CONSTANTLY feel like you’re walking in the wrong place AT ALL TIMES.

Regardless of all this I sucked it up and hey presto, I discovered I can still ride a bike quite well. The tour was really good. This city is basically completely flat, so it wasn’t a real strain on your body, but it was still a 25km ride, and my butt and legs are quite tender right now.

So firstly, we stopped at a windmill. Exciting! Then we got rained on, not so exciting. And then we went tooooo……

A traditional cheese farm!! Dad you would have LOVED it. All the cheese is made by hand, and they showed you how (but I already knew, thanks to my Dad, the survivalist) And we got to taste all the cheeses they made. They sliced it right off the wheel, except the lady thought I seemed like a good sport, so she decided to grate it into my hand (to show the group how a cheese grater works…?) Not so easy to eat I’ll let you know, but this is me we’re talking about, I ate every little grated piece of that delicious stuff.

Then after this, at the same farm, we learnt how to make clogs! Well, they showed us how the machine works. They guy seemed pretty interested in me, and kept calling me ‘lady in red’ and asking me to touch his freshly lathed clog… Weirded me out…

THEN they took us to the obvious part of the farm, the room where you buy shit. The cheese!!! Ooohhhh so many cheeses. It was really cheap too. But it was made very clear to us, that these could NOT be taken back to Australia or New Zealand, as if I didn’t know?? I think they were just rubbing salt in the wound. So I then had the very difficult task of deciding if I could eat a whole wheel of cheese in a month and a half? I decided I most definitely could!! Buuuuuut it would just be too hard to carry around.

After this we biked back to the bike shop and I walked back to the hostel and had some food, left over’s from last night’s feast (I use that term loosely)

I then decided to do some washing and I died my hair. It was pretty difficult, but I did ok. I feel much better for having it fresh.

Then I met a girl called Holly in my room, she invited me along with her and her friend Fiona to go to the sex museum. So we first went to a coffee shop. There were lots of black people around, and we sat down to this one guy who was decked out in Armani and all these designer brands (I only know because he had bags and stuff next to him LOL) And he turned to Fiona and I and was like “he, do you girls like hip-hop music?” We were both like “Oh….. na, not really.” And he sort of went “oh.. ok” and turned away. Anyway, not long after this, heaps of people came into the shop, asking for his autograph and one guy was like “dude, I’ll be DJing your music across the road” I’m pretty sure he was kind of a big deal, like famous?? But I had NO idea who he was, and we totally shut him down by telling him we didn’t like hip hop?? LOL. I thought it was funny afterwards.

We then missioned to the sex museum, I’ve already been, but it was SOOOOOOO much funnier while I was stoned. Then we got frites. I had curry and onion sauce, SOOOO good. And then we walked down “skinny lane’ in the red light district. It’s a really skinny lane, but all the ‘best looking’ girls (I use that term loosely, they all look like giant fake barbie dolls) That was funny, but I have to say, it feels weird walking around there, because they all just look at you, for example, I wanted to turn around to the girls and have a laugh, but they can ALL see you, so it makes you feel really awkward.

After this we REALLY wanted to find dutch pancakes, but we had no luck and were told they are a morning thing, so we just settled for waffles..

After this we TRIED so hard to get back to the hostel, but we were all pretty stoned, and EVERYTHING here looks the same! So easy to get lost! So we just caught a taxi.

It ended up being a really cool day, I did LOTS.

Things that made me happy today; Learning that I might be a LITTLE bit more fit than I give myself credit for.

Things that made me sad today; Australia’s quarantine…..