Day 44: The End is Near
Today was the final day on the bikes, and I think we're all ready for it. We woke up to pouring rain, but luckily we were in the hotel and it didn't bother us. We ate breakfast at the hotel and waited in the room for the rain to die down a little. It finally did, and so we took off from Leiden to Amsterdam.
The route Matt choose for the route was beautiful and fit well for the last day. We biked along canals, through the Dutch countryside, along lakes, and through small towns and villages. Almost the entire trip was down wind (accept for the last 10 km, queue "Oh my gosh, seriously?" from Nate), and we cruised the short distance to Schiphol.
At Schiphol, we rolled our bikes down to the baggage storage area, bought bike boxes (they were super expensive at 23 euros a pop) and packaged the bikes in the boxes. Luckily, these boxes were bigger than the boxes we had on the flight to Europe, so packing the bike was much easier. It still, however, took us a good 2 hours to get everything packed and in the boxes.
After that, we headed into Amsterdam. We were all pretty tired, so just took the train to Amsterdam Zuid, got some sandwiches to eat, and sat in the park. It was all very relaxing, and nice not to have to worry about the bikes.
We are staying again with the Schulte's relatives, thank you Maureen and Michiel! We got to their house in the afternoon, and talked with Michiel. He had just finished a bike trip himself in southern France, so we swapped stories about the places we'd been. We then took a little bit of a rest before dinner.
Before dinner Michiel and Maureen took us out to an Indonesian restaurant which was delicious. They then showed us around the city, (by car, which was great in the rain), and then we went to an Italian ice cream place for dessert. It was a great way to end the trip.
We headed back to their house, and immediately went to bed. We're all tired, and all looking forward to being back in the states. Tomorrow I'll try and post one last entry before we get on the plane.