I am I little behind on my blogging right now, but it is not because I haven’t been busy. This was our first full day in the AmsterDAM. We had an early morning meeting with Marjolein de Lange, who is a mobility expert in walking, cycling, and road safety. This was the beginning of a three-day heat wave. The high temperature this day was 96 degrees. Everyone seemed to be struggling a little in the heat during our lecture in a small stuffy room, especially after a long ride from Utrecht the day before, but fortunately for us, Marjolein had some amazing information to keep it interesting. We learned about the bottom-up movement for safer roads and better bike infrastructure that sparked the movement that has gotten Amsterdam where it is now, with a city center where 66% of all trips are made by bike. This has been a common theme at all the cities we have visited. There was a rich bicycle culture here before WWII and then, as the country’s economy grew, more and more people could afford cars. This caused the city to be taken over by cars and car parking. This was a safety hazard and, just like in Copenhagen and Utrecht, the “stop de kindermoord” (stop the children murder) movements happened. Today, I read an article talking about how many children die in cars today in America. It is the number one killer of children 2 to 14 and I thought maybe if more people understood how dangerous cars are for children, we could get some bottom-up movements for safer roads and bicycle infrastructure back home. Anyways, I will be doing my final assignment around topics like that, so I will save that for later. After a bike tour with Marjolein, we ended at a lake where we took a well needed swim. Later, in the evening, some of us went to the park and had some beer and wine and enjoyed the cooler evening. Then, Wally, Micah, and I went on another one of our “get lost” bike rides and boy did we get lost. We just let the wind take us wherever, and then when we started getting hungry, we tried making it back to our hotel. This was an hour to an hour to an hour and a half event. Then after seeing the Heineken building four times, we went one direction and finally found our hotel. These night rides, not using a map, have become one of my favorite things to do. It helps me get to know the city and helps me find my way around later.