It was our last day in Amsterdam and our train didn't leave until 3:11p so I got up early and rented a bike from our hotel. $9 Euro for 3 hours was a good price for the convenience of walking out of our hotel and hopping on a bike. It took a bit to get used to the single gear. There were actually two gears but it was geared much tougher than I'm used to so I kept it in first gear most of the time. The bike also had pedal backwards braking which I haven't had since I had a BMX when I was 10. Travel was easy until about 8:00a when bike rush hour really got going. I didn't have a destination and just drove really far and then came back.
I did have one destination for my ride. I wanted to find the 3D printed bridge. It was made by robotic welders and it was much lighter weight then I was expecting. Where there was structure it was hollow. They 3D printed it off site and then had it lifted into place. It looks somewhat temporary so I'm not sure if they move it around or not. It's sitting on top of the two sides of the canal. This was an early version of 3D printing with steel and I think they've advanced since this. Pretty amazing that they can do this sort of thing with metal.
After my morning ride we got packed, checked our bags with the front desk and then started walking towards breakfast. I stopped by the local hardware store. Most of the businesses in the area we are in are not big box in any way. They are local businesses with just the things that locals need. The hardware had an old style feel to it and the two guys working immediately came to ask what I was looking for. I was only browsing and took a quick walk down stairs where they had the lumber section. Different continent but the same lumber I work with.
Carter had wanted to have a real breakfast so we stopped at Mama Pancakes and had a mixture of English and Dutch breakfasts. I had a Dutch pancake with bacon. They cooked the bacon right into the pancake which I was expecting since they described the bacon as a topping rather than a side. It was bacon but I guess not Canadian bacon which I'm still trying to understand. It was the same cut but not smoked and not cooked very crispy. Pancake was good and I had the 'Caramel' syrup which was okay but definitely not Maple syrup.
We still had a bit of time until our train so I looked up the local coin store. My goal was simply to come back from Europe with some random coinage from all the countries we were visiting. I realize the Euro was in three of the countries but they still have their own versions and coins can end up in any of the other countries. I walked into the sore and asked if I could see a tray he had with random coins. He muttered something about typically only selling by the pound and I started perusing. I pulled out $20 Euro and asked how many coins I could get for that. He said I could take the lot. It was definitely worth more than that, just in the effort it would take me to ever collect that many coins from that many years from that many countries so I gave him $30. So far I've found coins from the 1700's and a silver dollar from the US. It's probably not worth much more than the $30 I paid but It will be a lot of fun inspecting them all.
We got to the train station about an hour before hand knowing that it wasn't going to take us long to check in. Once again, our train wasn't even listed yet. We eventually figured out which platform to go to and as we were waiting, the sign switched to indicate that our train had been cancelled due to logistical issues. There were many very confused passengers looking for answers. Several attendants soon arrived including the stewardesses for our train and said the train was stuck at the airport so we had to get it from there. They said 'stick with us because it won't leave without us'. We took a train to the airport and found our train. All was well.
We attempted to figure out the Metro to get to our hotel in Paris but there was only one out of six ticket machines working and we didn't really even understand which line we were going to take. We decided it would be easier to catch a cab. This wasn't a horrible decision except for the fact that it was Bastille Day and roads were closed everywhere. The recommended route was about 8k but we ended up on a route that was more like 15k. We also were stuck in traffic for about twice what it probably should have taken us. We eventually got to about 10 blocks from our hotel and used our poor French to ask the driver to let us out.
Our hotel room isn't as nice as what we had in Amsterdam but it's relatively new and bigger than I think we were expecting. Separate rooms for shower and toilet and bunk beds. It's also got USB charging everywhere which is handy. It was 8:00p already so we went to the store to get a few things to eat and then went back to our room. At 11:00p the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower started. We didn't really feel like getting too close so we walked down the street a bit to see it from the side. I had gone down on my own and watched the first half before going back to the hotel lobby to watch it on the 8 foot by 12 foot screen made up of 9 TV's. A great view without the hassle of all the people.
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