Welcome to Nijmegen! 

A new week rolled around, and it was time to depart from Denmark and travel to the Netherlands! We were excited, but first we had a 12-hour car ride to get there. It was honestly pretty brutal and boring to be in the car for that long, but we got to stop in the random countryside of Germany, and I had one of the best sandwiches I’d ever had. That was the highlight. On our long ride, we also discovered that the gummy bears in Europe are much better. We finally arrived at our luxurious little cabins on a lake about a 45-minute bike ride (on a beautiful cycling highway route I may add) outside of Nijmegen. We ended the day of driving with some wine, beer, and a home-cooked meal. Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands and is now a lively university city, which we noticed very quickly! This leads to an extremely unique city, with bustling nightlife, historic sites, cool museums, great shops; Nijmegen has a lot to offer. 

Though our time in Nijmegen was filled with lots of relaxation and enjoying the Dutch countryside, we did go on a tour of the city with Sjors van Duren of Royal Hskoning DHV, a consulting agency which has worked on Nijmegen’s city planning and engineering. We biked with Sjors from our hostel cabins to the city of Nijmegen, taking the cycling highways that Sjors worked on. I was very in shock at these astounding highways. Sjors gave us some insight on the design of the bike highways and infrastructure, but we honestly mostly discussed how he pushed for the implementation and practicality of the infrastructure. Like the Danish, the Dutch also seem to focus on planning for the people who will be using the infrastructure. Sjors mentioned that he would frame the proposed project in different lights and ways depending on the stakeholder group (check out my blog post about communicating to different stakeholders for more). Particularly, we saw a major bridge that Sjors worked on that allows a quick cycling route to Nijmegen for those who live in the smaller communities outside of the bigger city. This bridge and cycling highway were both easy to ride on and well planned. Not to mention, the route itself was beautiful, going through a beautiful forest and putting you out right on the edge of the city of Nijmegen (more to come on this incorporation of nature and cycling/city planning). We also went into the city center and saw the busiest roundabout ever as well as a MAJOR cycling bridge!  

After the tour, we were exhausted and went to a delicious coffee shop where I got the best chai latte ever and Viv and I played a round of cards. After an hour of chill, we walked through a busy shopping street, where I spent even more money thrifting (someone stop me seriously, please take away my debit card). We then sat down at a bar café for 3 hours and had some delicious dinner and drinks. We really enjoyed the cheaper prices here in the Netherlands. Abby, Viv, and I then began our 45-minute bike ride back to our cabins (a wee bit tipsy). We watched the sunset and enjoyed the bike lanes, which were not so busy anymore at 10:30 pm on a Tuesday. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Nijmegen, not only because it was rejuvenating, but because I found it such a livable city. Staying outside of the city center really gave me a feel for how the citizens of this area of the Netherlands commute to work and gather in the city centers so easily! The size of the city was not too overwhelming, and we all felt relaxed even while enjoying the city and nightlife. It was also a great chance to see what cycling is like in the Netherlands before jumping straight into Utrecht and Amsterdam (a post about this is upcoming)!  

A series of funny images from our tipsy ride home. I’m sorry, I just had to include these.

I think that is all for now! But next, you should go check out my next post about communicating new projects and ideas with stakeholders! Here’s the link: https://blogs.uoregon.edu/macypatel/2022/07/10/communication/ 😉  

Yours, 

Macy