Europe Day 34: 0 Miles

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Today was a great reminder of why I built in a few buffer days between arriving in Amsterdam and leaving. It was another beautiful day, but I spent much of the morning in search of a box for my bicycle. I would have thought Amsterdam would be the easiest place in the world to find a bicycle box. It turned out to be much more of a challenge than expected.

I left the apartment around 10:00 this morning and headed to the closest bicycle shop which was just down the street. Based on the number of bicycles in Amsterdam, I assumed every bike shop must have a spare box or two sitting around. When I left NYC, I stopped in at the bike shop closest to my apartment and was able to get a cardboard bicycle box free of charge. In Amsterdam I struck out on the first try, so I headed to another shop. The second shop also did not have a box and by the time I got to shop number 5 I was getting a little worried. The 6^th shop also did not have a box, but the guy gave me the name of a large hardware store that he said would have what I was looking for. By this time I had spent 1.5 hours on a task that I thought was going to take 15 minutes. My ticket for the Van Gogh museum was for noon, so I abandoned my search for a box, planning to go to the hardware store after the museum.

The Van Gogh Museum was one of the more enjoyable museums I stopped at during this trip. I sprung for the audio guide which did add a lot to the viewing of Van Gogh’s paintings. There have been two good movies that came out in the last year based on Van Gogh’s life which I had seen recently, so I was very familiar with Van Gogh’s life story. Loving Vincent is a stop motion film that was completely hand painted and At Eternity’s Gate starred Willem DaFoe who was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Van Gogh. It was neat to see many of Van Gogh’s paintings up close after being introduced to them in the films I had seen.

After the Van Gogh museum I caught a tram to the hardware store, but they also did not have boxes large enough to fit a bicycle. It was a huge store, so I was surprised that they didn’t have anything to help me out. One of the guys at the store told me they had just thrown away all the boxes they had earlier that morning. The only boxes they had for sale were small moving boxes. It seems they are so good at recycling in the Netherlands that no one holds onto their boxes long enough to be used a second time. Things are unpacked and the boxes immediately get thrown into recycling.

I left the store and did some more research and found out that they sell bicycle boxes at the airport. At this point I was so frustrated with wasting the day walking around in search of a box that I decided to hop on the train to the Airport. It only took 20 minutes to get there and I was easily able to find the location to purchase a box. I probably could have just ridden my bike to the airport and boxed it up when I leave on Wednesday. I really didn’t want to worry about taking my bike apart in the airport or having to deal with a scenario where the airport didn’t have any boxes available. Once I got the box, I bought a train ticket to get back to Amsterdam and got on the train. The box is large, but the train was fairly empty, and I wasn’t blocking anyone or the entrances. Of course, as soon as the train was ready to leave, I was kicked off by one of the conductors. He said I wasn’t allowed to bring something that large on the train. I had purchased my train ticket from a ticket counter, and the salesperson saw me with the large box. I don’t understand why they would sell me a ticket if I wasn’t allowed to bring the box on the train.

With the train option now ruled out I had to head to the taxi line and wait until a van large enough to fit the box showed up. By the time I got back to the apartment I had spent €23 on a box, €5 on a train ticket that I didn’t even get to use, and €45 for a taxi to get home. What I thought would be a 15 minute task to pickup a free box became an all day task that cost almost €75. At least I don’t have to worry about it tomorrow. The taxi driver also left me his card and said he would be happy to take me to the airport on Wednesday. That should make the airport trip much cheaper than the Uber Van I was planning to order. I got into the apartment and decided to pack the box up so I could fully move on from dealing with it. The box is much larger than the one I got in NYC which made packing much easier. On the way to Rome I had to take off the front and rear racks, front and rear fenders, seat, pedals, and handlebars. I was able to fit the bike into the new box by just taking the pedals and handlebars off. It will be much easier to reassemble the bike once I get to NYC.

By the time I was done dealing with the bike it was 4:30. I was exhausted from the busy morning and decided I would rest for a bit and then head out for dinner and maybe a couple of drinks later in the night. I ended up going to a food hall that was within walking distance of where I am staying. I didn’t have a huge need to go all the way into the downtown area.

I finished the day with a walk through Vondelpark which was still full of people sitting along the water at 9:30 PM. I got back to the apartment around 10:00, exhausted from the long day but ready for 1 more full day in Amsterdam tomorrow.

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Musings:

• In the process of packing up the bike box I decided not to pack my cycling shoes. With over 6,000 miles of riding in them, it was time for them to be retired. They had gotten wet a few too many times during this trip which had started to deteriorate the shoes and was causing a smell I didn’t want to deal with anymore. Thanks shoes! You did a good job!