BikerThomas.com

Thursday 31st of July 2008

A canal tour boat full of tourists in Amsterdam city

I woke up to excellent weather this Thursday. I was tired after riding from Hamburg the day before so I was planning a whole day of not riding my bike. The showers on Camp Zeeburg were broken, there were barely enough water coming out of the shower to get clean, but I was’t going to let that ruin my day! I packed my GPS and headed for Amsterdam city! My motorcycle GPS has 3 hours of battery life which is great for walks around new cities, whenever I’m not sure where I am or where I’m heading I just turn on the GPS and BAMM! I know exactly where I am and what direction my destination is – excellent!

I decided to do as many of tourist attractions as possible on my first day. I started with The Amsterdam Dungeon which was awesome. Without ruining the experience for you if you’re planning on going there sometime, I can tell you that it’s a guided tour that’s both scary and educational at the same time. You learn a lot about life in Amsterdam in the past – it wasn’t quite as pleasant as today, that’s for sure! I can highly recommend this tour, it was a lot of fun.

I did a lot of walking this day. You can really get to know the entire city centre in one day if you’re determined. Vondelpark is situated in the north of the city centre as is quite large and has a great vibe and lots of people. It’s a great place to relax and people seemed very laid-back.

Next tourist attraction was the erotic museum. Needless to say, a very popular attraction. Entrance is €5 which is quite cheap. It was actually quite interesting seeing all the history preserved in the museum, everything from chastity belts made out of iron to old drawings. It’s all very well laid out and I’d recommend anyone to visit it.

Next up is the marijuana museum… when in Rome at least pretend like you’re interested, right. Although it’s not completely legal, Marijuana consumption is generally accepted in Amsterdam. Entrance is €5 and you get to learn the history of hemp and marijuana, their many uses and health benefits/problems. It’s actually quite educational. I didn’t try the weed, but obviously alot of people do and I guess you could ask the staff a lot of questions if you wanted to learn more about a specific topic. I’d recommend a visit to anyone who has an open mind and want to expand their knowledge about the many uses of the marijuana plant (hey, they even make sweaters out of that stuff!)

So, what else could I do this day to piss off any priests reading my blog? It was time to head up to Holland Casino! Entrance is once again €5… see a pattern here? I only spent 10 minutes there and left €10 richer… It was at this point I was reminded how incredibly boring gambling is. I played roulette, it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry. I was getting hungry…

What could I eat that was typically Dutch? Pancakes of course! I stopped by a little restaurant that served all kinds of pancakes. I chose the Hawaiian pancake and got one huge pancake with cheese, pineapple and capsicum. I took a photo of it and the locals around me started laughing… they obviously understood that I was a tourist.

It started to get late and it started raining and there was thunder and lightning too! I took the bus back to camp.

 
One of Amsterdam’s many canals (left), A huge pillar in the City centre (right)

City centre (left), An awesome looking house boat with a terrace and everything! (right)

 
A wooden shoe boat! (left), Hawaiian pancake (right)

Marijuana plant at museum (left), Entrance to Vondel Park (right)

Vondel park is a nice and laid-back place, a great place to relax.

Make sure you bookmark www.BikerThomas.com so that you can come back and read about the rest of the trip. Day 6 of the trip will be out real soon!

Sunday 27th of July 2008

I had 3 weeks off work and I intended on using most of that time on two wheels! My girlfriend was working her ass off all summer so I was on my own – just me and my newly washed black Kawasaki VN900 Classic.

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I had planned my trip for weeks. I was going to ride to Hamburg in Germany, Amsterdam in Holland and finish off with Brügge in Belgium. I figured the trip would take about 2 weeks. I didn’t plan the route in detail and I wasn’t sure which way to take home – I figured I’d find out while on the road. I guess I like it that way; I don’t like planning every detail of my trips, that sort of takes the fun out of being free and on the road. If I was to meet someone who said that I absolutely had to go to Düsseldorf  or someplace else I’d be free to do so and being on my own meant that I didn’t have to consider other peoples opinions – perfect!

I started my trip in my home town Kristiansand in Norway. My girlfriend had arranged free ferry tickets to Hirtshals in Denmark. The ferry left at 8pm and arrived in Denmark at 11.15pm. I topped up my tank to the maximum limit and headed for Århus. The speed limit is mostly 110km/h and the roads are good. For those of you who don’t know, Denmark is extremely flat so the roads can be built very straight. It’s not a very fun ride, but the weather was nice and I was very excited to finally be on my way on my first international trip with my motorcycle.

I had a quick stop in Aalborg to log on to some random people’s unsecured wireless network… so that I could find myself a place to pitch my tent… I also had a quick stop in Århus to… well for no reason really, just because I could! Oh and I could plot in my camping site on my new Garmin Zumo 500 Deluxe GPS. The GPS, by the way, was the perfect companion on this trip. I never had to buy a road map or anything like that, I could rely completely on the GPS alone!

I guess most people ride through Denmark in one day as it’s a fairly small country and not awfully exciting. I could have had my first stop in Hamburg but I started to get tired so I stopped closed to the border of Germany. The camping site was called Lærkelunden Camping. I parked my bike, pitched my brand new tent (took a while to figure it out…) and went hunting for food late at night. I ended up finding a pizza restaurant that had opened on that very night! A brand new pizza shop, if I remember correctly I think the owner was from Turkey. He was super friendly and the pizza was awesome!

In Denmark they were promoting lead free 95 octane petrol with 5% bio-ethanol. The sticker explains that there’s no real difference, that it won’t harm your engine and that it’s environmentally friendly. 

 
Lærkelunden Camping in Denmark (left), What my bike looked like when fully packed (right)

Rinkenæs Church (Rinkenæs Korskirke) in Gråsten

Here’s what I brought with me on my trip (at least what I can still remember):

• Ultra compact 2-person tent
• Tiny sleeping bag
• Compact inflatable camping mattress
• A knife (which turned out to be very useful a few days later…)
• Toothbrush, toothpaste, some soap and other necessities
• A compact emergency kit (band aids, pressure bands, anti-burn gel etc.)
• DSLR camera (Canon EOS450D 12,2mp) with a standard 18-55mm lens
• Compact camera – Casio Exilim 5 megapixels
• My good old lightweight laptop (Dell Latitude X1) with an extra battery
• Garmin Zumo 500 Deluxe GPS crammed with maps of most of Europe.
• Pen and paper (a must)
• My mobile phone
• T-shirts, underwear, socks, a jumper and jeans
• And of course standard riding gear (helmet, jacket, boots, gloves)

What I SHOULD have brought but didn’t…:

• Water proof riding pants!
• A pair of extra gloves for colder weather
• A pair of comfortable sneakers
• A bunch of those vicer protectors that you can stick on and peel off after the vicer had been bombarded with Danish bugs from hell.
• Mosquito repellant!
• Sandals
• A better backpack (the one I brought sucked…)
• A lock for the tent
• A mobile phone charger that uses AA-batteries

Make sure you bookmark www.BikerThomas.com so that you can come back and read about the rest of the trip. Day 2 of the trip will be out real soon!