Woke up with some really freaky dreams. Also freaky is the fact that I recalled them – for years I’ve been listening to people recount dreams whilst I never seem to have any. Apparently everyone has dreams but not everyone recalls them..

Had a ham & cheese croissant and some yoghurt for breakfast at the Camp Winkel (shop). Netted up for a couple of hours because it was raining. Around lunchtime I gave in – Sod it! I can’t sit around here all day! (I should’ve).

I was aiming to explore the Weerribben National Park, but I only made it 7 kilometres short of Giethoorn before I gave up and turned around. Watching the Tour in a warm, dry pub should’ve been my daily goal from the start!

The rain sucked but I put on my rainjacket and headwarmer and lived with it. The wind was something else though! Weerribben National Park was supposed to be earie due to the “silence, interrupted only by animal noises”. I couldn’t hear anything except wind rush – and that was while I was stationary! It was a boring ride (well, one highlight) and I was low on energy – my legs still feeling weak – so I turned into even worse wind and headed back to Zwolle. It still ended up being a 70k+ ride, which surprised me.

I rushed into a small pub in full cycling kit, ordered a coffee and tosti (toasted ham & cheese sandwich – their only food) and watched the Tour. Ended up talking to a guy (his name sounded like “eye anne”) who had just retired, aged 43, from his job at an aluminium smelter where they make custom aluminium components (no, not bike parts). I spent five hours in there talking to him! It wasn’t just the fact that he insisted on buying me drinks (“yeah right”, you’re all saying!) he was actually interesting. Chatted about darts and the upcoming competition(s) in the pub, politics, the UK bombings, the Tour, his job, all sorts of shit.

Tried one of the “digestive” spirits they had too – he insisted – it was made from herbs or something and tasted like scented vodka? I think he was lonely because none of his mates were able to make his ‘last day’ celebrations.

He was saying how his wife had worked the same job for 23 years but hated the last 6 of them. Apparently, if you are over 40 here you just don’t throw in a job because there’s too many young people who will step up and learn it (sidenote: The Dutch seem to breed a lot, there’s babies all over the place!). He kept insisting she leave. Eventually she wrote an application letter to a job and got it! Didn’t even go to second round interviews! Just like that. Guess experience still counts for something?

He was also telling me how he’d love to holiday in Australia (doesn’t everyone!) because 1) he’s the outdoors type and 2) he wants to be totally alone (with his wife) somewhere. In NL, you can’t go anywhere and not see someone else within the hour!

He also suggested I get a camp stove and as he explained it (and the cooking of the pasta meals I’ve been craving!) I thought to myself “I can’t believe I dismissed the idea of carrying cooking gear so quickly!!”.

But! Camping sucks when it’s raining (and it still is). Can’t dry clothes, so can’t wash clothes, can’t take a piss, can’t go into town and I finished reading “Hard Questions” so being in the tent is boring. Lucky the rain is on and off so I don’t really spend too long stuck in.

Went to “Sofra”, across the road, for a donner schotel dinner around 11pm. I relented on my “kebab ban” because “eye anne” said it was the best in NL. It cost 10 euro with another coffee and I ordered rice instead of frickin’ frites! I don’t know about it being the best but it was pretty good.

Showered, finally! Frickin electronic shower ate a euro of mine as I tried in vain to get it to spit out hot water. I love technology. Bed. Sleep. Rain.

The song with the lyric “Later you can sing to me like a shining star, but I’d rather do you on the back seat of my car” just came on. It’s pretty popular and I wonder if it’s playing much/at all in Australia?

Just a quick post to use up my net credit and to let y’all know it has stopped raining so I can finally leave Zwolle and head for Groningen!! Yay!! Just called a hostel there and beds should not be a problem which is good coz I want a break from the tent.. although I must say, these last two days have been SUPER COMFY in the tent. Maybe my spine has formed a match with the ground underneath? Maybe I’m just too tired to care? I dunno, but I’ve slept really well.. I even managed to pack everything without cracking the shits! I’m now an expert! hahahah!

Big market on this morning and there’s people everywhere! Bands playing as well. Local radio dj interviewing people, etc.

Doesn’t anyone have a job to be at? School to attend?! How can so many people attend an all-day market mid-week???

Mmm.. large serve of poffertjes (small pancakes) with butter and icing sugar for brekkie (3.50euro) YUM!

How are the Dutch not all fat?! Well..

They don’t then go into a HEMA cafe and eat apple pie (appeltart) with whipped cream (slagroom) washed down with an Amaretto Iced Coffee (3.85ish) right afterwards! That’s how they are not all fat!

Sometimes I love being a fat crunt! Skinny bastards don’t know what they’re missing! (other than the heart disease and diabetes I mean..)

Into the library (biblioteek?) to email STA about my expired travel insurance.

Yeah.

Whoops.

Whatever.

Missed Tam while replying to one of Ant’s long-winded emails.. and he gets bored reading the shit I type.. sheesh! (Jokin’ man.. but if you ever diss my blog again you’ll find your chillum in another orrifice.. :P)

Explain to me why the public library and some old-timer cafe (Stapp’s Inn) plays dance music, but when I go to a pub to watch the Tour, they’re playing “In the navy, you can sail the seven seas!”.. no, it wasn’t that kind of pub. How do I know? None of the guys were wearing black-leather chaps of course! 😛 Sunk a few coffees (I was avoiding beer) at Stapp’s Inn while watching the Tour.

I grabbed the umbrella from my bike because it was raining outside (this would prove to be a trend for Zwolle). Spent some more time on the ‘net (I’m addicted – BACK OFF!) and then had beef stroganoff and a hot chocomel (chocolate milk frothed with coffee machine) at the Flying Horse. I know why this meal was cheap – there must’ve been two pieces of beef in it! A storm is rolling in and I can’t find any supermarkets. 🙁 I can’t remember what I did that night – must’ve been really exciting. 16k at 13.9kph, so a really big day for riding.. we’ll call today a rest day 😛

Tuesday 19th:

Leaving Deventer it pissed down! Just AFTER I’d brought down the tent but BEFORE I’d packed anything! Crunt! The weather was ace up until now. I left Deventer wet and mad, aiming for Kampen, near Zwolle. I quickly realised my legs were totalled from the day before. My speed was sitting around 17kph. I was STUFFED! It took 2.5hrs to get to Zwolle (narrowly missing a frog on the way). I did Deventer to Zwolle quicker than that the day before, including being lost for an hour!

For some reason, the route this day was 40k and not 30k though? WTF?!

DEVENTER to ZWOLLE STATS (including around town):

57.6k, 9h 44m (not all riding), 5.9kph avg. spd. ahahaha!

Crawled into the tourist office (VVV) and asked for a B&B booking. Sitting down must’ve rested me up because I turned down the 40euro/night B&B and decided I would camp again, but not in Kampen, I’d stay in Zwolle at “De Agnietenberg” camp ground. It was about 4k from the Centrum (following the map from VVV) and costs $9.85 per night for 1-man/1-tent in spot W9. Showers were operated with an electronic tag. $20 deposit for the tag and then you charge it up at reception – 50c per 6min of shower time.

Into town I stopped at the first pub I saw – Sally O’Briens Irish pub. Irish pubs tend to attract English speakers which is good because I was too tired to repeat everything three times. I think I speak too fast and too much like an Aussie?

Right about now I’m thinking I’d like to be in London with some mates, a regular job, regular bed, regular food, etc. Oh, and my FUCK TERRORISTS t-shirt.

Anyway, guy behind the bar was cool and turned the TdF on the projector. He’d lived and worked in Oz and was a good chat. I grabbed some Bitterballs ($3.60 for a bunch), a few pints of Kilkenny ($4ea) and a Chilli Con Carne baked spud ($5.70).

Ended up chatting to one of the staff, Eva (pronounced Eba) who was from Catalonia, Spain. Her boyfriend rocked up and turned out to be a super-friendly Dutch guy, who was straight away offering his dryer because he knows how much putting on wet clothes sucks! 🙂

Ended up hanging out with a whole bunch of people from Sally O’s: Mark, the Dutch boyfriend of Eva, the Spanish chick. A really nice girl from California (I forget your name!) who was over here because her Dad was Dutch and she wanted some insight into her heritage. She inspired me to think about Scotland and my heritage some more. Last year I paid a short visit to Peterhead (where my family has a lot of history) but more time in Scotland would give me a chance to dig deeper. Also Jill, the nutty Irish girl, who ended up quite wasted as far as I could tell.

We finished drinking at SO’s and headed to the Flying Horse (‘cept the name is written in Dutch so I don’t know it) near the Melkmart. It was a cool student cafe with cheap food and drink. Eg. I thought I’d just bought the first round of drinks where I’d actually paid for the drinks and the meals! Told you it was cheap! I think the lasagne was $3.50 a pop?

Mark spoke to the people there who opened up the internet cafe up-stairs for me to use. The coin-op machine was broken so Internet use was free. In fact, it was better than free – repeatedly inserting a coin clocked up my online time but it also spat out about 4 euro in other coins. Thankyou! 😀

Back to Sally O’s (getting lost and doing about four return trips to the Flying Horse!) and then on to Eva’s house for more beers. I met her flatmates Dan and someone else who’s name I forget.

After some mobile phone/people hassles we made it to “De Joffer” a packed out club that has 50c beers from 11-12!!

That night I was “one of Sally O’s staff”.

“How do you know we work for Sally O’s?”

“You speak english. There’s some more of you lot inside.” 😀

Did the usual nightclub things and left around 2.30am. Now, where the fsck is my bike?! I walked around for a while before I found it and then took off towards tent city, stopping for “Anti-hangover chips” and a drink. It took me an hour to get home!

Did I mention riding to Arnhem? The Hoge Veluwe Nat Park with the sand dunes? The 33 German cylo-tourists? The ride from Arnhem to Zutphen on to Deventer? There were hills!

Deventer was really cool. Good place to wind down. Chilled but not dead. It was funny seeing a red-light district in such a small town!

Camped by the Ijssel river across from town. Went to the cinema and saw War of the Worlds (english with Dutch subtitles) for 8euro. Camping there only cost 7.50euro for three nights! (he actually miscalculated: 1.25 x 3 does not = 3.25!). Nice, very basic campsite anyway with some friendly residents. Spent the money I saved camping on ice-cream treats from “Talamanis Ijs Salon”. They reckon they’ve been dealing in ice cream since 1892! Did ice-cream exist back then? Did freezing?!

Foud a nice telescopic fishing rod on the bridge. Normal hippy would’ve taken it. Touring hippy doesn’t have room so it was left there – doh!

Watched the tour in “Stads-stamcafe DE WAAGSCHAAL”. One of the locals shouted me a beer! Tried some other beers I’d never had before. Ate “Snee brood met gehaktbal” or was it “Zelf gemaakte gehaktbal”?? Basically an open hamburger minus some of the key Aussie ingredients. The Eiskoffie (Iced Coffee) here was awesome! Read some of my book in the sun and had a shitty kebab dinner from “Donerix” in the Brink. Washed it away with some ice-cream from Talamani. Vowed to avoid kebabs for a while.. and frites. Read some more by torchlight in the tent – the book was getting really interesting! No pillow is perhaps causing me some back pain?

Monday 18th:

The supermarkets were finally open today so no expensive cafe brekkie. “Rozijen Punten” (raison buns), “Yoghurtontbijt” (breakfast yoghurt – normal strawberry yoghurt with cereal grains added to it). To wash it down? “Returnity – Nutritional drink, coffee appeal”. Iced coffee with added vitamins or some shit? Apart from the caffeine, it also contains 7.2mg of “Nicotinamide”. Mmm.. sounds real nutritious that does..

Did quite a bit of riding here, like the 140k “adventure” to Zwolle and back and then to Apeldoorn and back (plus the first hour, which was spent lost), bonking (not the fun kind) at the 125k mark and getting lost again in my sugar-deprived, semi-deluded state. Found my way back with some help from locals. I was feeling awesome at 120k, thinking how fast I’d be with some speed work if I was training back home and then BAM! I went all vague and it felt like my muscles had disappeared from my body, leaving only pathetic tendons to try and haul me home. Lucky I had the sense to stop and turn back to look at the sign. The sign was no help, but the motorist I delayed was! Thanks!

Just a quick “fsck you” to the woman at Zwolle’s “Bakkerij Bart” who wouldn’t fill a bidon with frickin’ tap water. Sure, she doesn’t have to, but that’s still frickin’ tight! Oh, their coffee is totally shithouse too! I vowed to avoid this chain store in the future.

Saw a guy skiing on the road! He had what I assume are training skis – skis with wheels on ’em! I was impressed and he was obviously happy I was impressed. We shared “a moment” haha

Saw the aftermath of a scooter vs. bicycle accident on the bridge near “home”. Looked like both were okay, but cops were on the scene taking photos of a bent bike.

Although the LPG suggested riding along the river, I preferred the non-Ijssel route. I guess I like quiet, tree-lined paths.

“Huzaren Schotel” for dinner (mixed with tinned tuna) and “Boterkoek Los Bo”, an obviously very unhealthy “butter cake”.

Big thanks to the nearby bowling alley who’s “frontal toilet location” allowed me to take a dump without 1) having to ride back into town or 2) having to pay for the use of the loo! Ahh.. (that was a turd-related story for Anthony).

Beer needs consuming, gotta dash. Apologies to all those I neglected the last few days..

Love yaz all!

hip

P.S. I’m camping in Zwolle after camping in Deventer. Soon to be in Germany methinks.

I smashed myself yesterday.. 140 kays, quite fast. Today it took me 2.5hrs to do what I did yesterday in 1hr (the ride from Deventer to Zwolle). I’m fscked. I bailed on camping in Kampen and decided to camp in Zwolle instead. Camping in Deventer was very cool until it pissed down this morning, just AFTER ?’d packed my tent but before packing everything else.. slow, soggy hippy.