Yesterday, the 18th, I was in three countries in one day. We started the day off early, 5:30am, to pack all our checked luggage into the van because we had to walk to the train station. We took the train from Malmo to the Copenhagen Airport and from their we flew into Amsterdam. Once in Amsterdam, we took a train to Utrecht. I slept on each leg of this journey because I was up a little too late on Wednesday/Thursday morning. When we got to our hostel at 11:30am, we found out our rooms wouldn’t be ready until check-in time at 2:00pm so even though I was extremely tired, I went and picked up my bike and got some lunch. I haven’t had a lot of time to get out and bike around the city, but after a nice 2hour nap, I went out to get some falafel with a few of the guys and walked around the canals near our hostel. This city, from what I have seen so far, is a beautiful city with a deep history. The city was founded in 70 AD by the Romans, which is hard for me to even fathom growing up in Oregon, which was founded in 1859. Some of the students have had the opportunity to travel and see historical places, but for me this is something I have never experience since I have never left the west coast. I have heard some students say they don’t want to hike or bike to a castle just to see a bunch of bricks, but for me, there is some type of magic being in an area or building that has so much history. I feel like I talk about it every time I post a blog, but this trip continues to be such an amazing experience and opportunity for me that not very many people get, I mean there is only 16 other students with me on this trip. Hopefully on my next blog I will be able to talk more about my experience biking and exploring Utrecht, but right now I am currently sitting in a laundry mat, doing all my laundry that I haven’t been able to do because, until I got into Malmo, I couldn’t find any stain remover, and if you know me, I stain everything I wear.
On another note, however, we did get to go meet up with Ronald today, the 20th, who is a traffic engineer here in Utrecht, but after his presentation, it seemed like he was more of a social engineer because of how they plan around the people, not cars. For me, this was really one of the most interesting professional meetings we have been in. Ronald gave us some history of The Netherlands, which really helped me understand how they have gotten to where they are now, the second-best city in the world for cycling. The part that interested me the most though was about the biking culture here. He really focused on the behavioral and social aspect of biking, especially for the children, who are the potential, future car drivers. Here, the children learn how to bike at a very young age and, on top of that, parents bike with them on their bike at an even younger age. This makes biking, not driving, the normal thing to do here. Biking opens the world for kids and teenagers, and you can’t even get a driver’s licenses until you are 18 years old. This really made me think of my childhood. When I was a kid, I use to bike around all over the place and it gave me a sense of independence and freedom, but what really opened my world was when I turned 16 years old and got my driver licenses. Living in a suburb with low-density, there wasn’t a whole lot of places I could bike to, but when I got my car, I was able to do so much more. Biking here also is a has a social aspect to it. You meet more people and, with less cars, there is more space for outdoor plazas and places to hangout. You can also bike with your friends and meet new people when you are biking and walking. The public spaces in the cities we have visited are always so full of people and it really shows that cities aren’t just a place to live, they provide much more than that. We also visited a parking structure that had parking for 4,200 bikes and it was full of bikes and we visited one that, once completed, will have over 12,000 parking spots. I’m excited to get out and bike this city more. This city is completely planned around bikes and I have never seen so many people biking. I’ll report back later!
Canal right by the hostel.
Cool tunnel to down to the canal.
This was the bike parking structure that had 4,200 bike parking spots.
Ronald said that, “it’s not just a roof, it it’s an icon” about this covering between the central station and the mall.