Afsluitdijk

Today is March 27. A little history, first--one year ago today, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the halls of Minute Maid R&D, where the predicted 10% layoffs (which would have been bad enough) turned out to be more like 40%. Hey, I was leaving anyway, and glad I did--there is way too much wailing and gnashing of teeth there still, a year later. Today, I ride the Afsluitdijk, glad I'm not still in Florida.

So, Afsluitdijk is the sort of word that struck fear in me when I first moved to the Netherlands. No longer...but the real thing, the huge earthworks, did this morning strike real fear in me and my bicycle. 100 meters wide and over 30 km straight across the Zuider Zee. In fact, the dike that put and end to the Zuider Zee--it's now called the IJsselmeer, and the water is more or less fresh. The dike is one of the very few man-made objects that can be seen from the MOON. Today I rode from North Holland to Friesland, which is a wide cultural difference in Dutch terms--rather like an American riding from Virginia to Montana, or maybe Jupiter.

By the way, this ride is so long that it carries me right off the top end of my bike map. The new NL bike map is HERE (100 kB). As always, the week's new rides in red.

In Amsterdam Centraal station (pictured) a strange thing happened. I was watching my bicycle and really concentrating on getting this photograph and a few more like it. The light was low and the shadows very difficult. A young man stepped in front of me and asked for money in Dutch, with some Slavic accent. I was hugely irritated at his blocking me, I missed my shot of train pulling out, and told him no. I captured what shots remained, and packed away the camera--and only then realized that this guy actually did look hungry. I popped up the kick stand and went looking for him, but he was gone. I'd still rather he hadn't been so rude as to step directly in front of a concentrating photographer, but if I really were hungry I can't be perfectly sure what I'd have done.
 

Yes, that blue-and-white tile at top really does say "2b or not 2b". You see, 2b is the number of the trackside directly under the tile.

I ride the train way north, farther and farther from Amsterdam, and disembark at station Anna Paulowna, which must translate to "Middle of Freaking Nowhere".
 

Just east of Van Ewijcksluis.
 

So, OK: this is the about last chance to turn back. After this, it's gruesome hours back into the strong wind if I chicken out, get winded...or have a flat tire, etc. Leeuwarden is well beyond the far (east) end of the Afsluitdijk. It is in the next state, Friesland. It is 72 km away, if I make no wrong turns. But I resolve: Leeuwarden it is. Leeuwarden or bust.
 

Just as I pass off North Holland and onto the Afsluitdijk, I stop to pay homage to, er, Nature, and confront 6 extremely well-armed guys. I give them a wide berth, and when I pass beyond some trees, their target practice resumes. I was pretty far away by that time, but still, the sound was definitely that of automatic, large-caliber rifles (assault weapons to you Americans). Very strange. I ride on. Quickly.

The avid cyclists at work had been right: there is not much to the Afsluitdijk but the dike itself. You don't really get a sense of how amazing this structure is when you're right on top of it. (By the way...forgive the slightly odd color cast of some of the next few photos. I hit a wrong button on my digital camera, and everything came out green-blue for fluorescent. I did my best to fix them in Photoshop; some came out better than others.
 

Ignore this guy's terrible ergonomic habits for a moment. The Afsluitdijk was constructed pretty much by hand, that is, by a lot of guys stooping over and hefting (a Dutch word) big rocks day after day for about 10 years. Not much machinery: this was during the Depression, and Amsterdam couldn't stand another storm surge off the North Sea. This life-size statue is a memorial to the tens of thousands of ruptured discs and millions of nights of aching and worse.
 

The wind is helpful. I get to the other side in good shape--on to Leeuwarden, no need to stop off at Harlingen. Ah yes, Harlingen.

The only woman I ever lived with, many, many years ago, just off a Gulf (of Mexico) bayou, was from Harlingen. I had forgotten that until now. Of course, her Harlingen was the one in South Texas, but still, just the name did take me back. Well, today is the closest I've been to either one.

This stone step lies at the end of the Afsluitdijk. It is how you get over the fence to watch the North Sea. No other entrance as far as you can see. If you want to see it, you have to be agile. The Netherlands are laid out in a way that expects you to be agile. My American prejudices still pop out once in a while--I don't mind this hopping over stuff at all, it's kind of fun, but, but...this would be a terrible place to be handicapped.
 

I sat on that near stone for lunch and to put away the North Holland map for a Friesland one. A local fellow walked over and pointed out the various church steeples, which he must have know is how bikers find their way around the Netherlands (church steeples are tall, and everything else is flat). I couldn't really understand him all that well, which frustrated me--it just didn't sound like Dutch. One thing in particular, which I finally got--"Pingjum", a nearby town. Aha--it didn't sound like Dutch because it wasn't quite Dutch. Welcome to Friesland.

I'm not kidding about this. Look at this sign marking a small town--it's in both Dutch and Frisian. They all are. Many of the company names and advertisements are in Frisian, too, which looks like a cross between Dutch and either Danish or Norwegian (for good reason, I'm assured). I had no idea this was going on up here. Well, not that they needed my permission or anything.
 

Wait! Don't go away. The sexy part of this post awaits!

Ahem. I do make it to Leeuwarden. The train leaves right on time, a nice Intercity, with a nice bike-holding place where you can even sit (a luxury) for the 2 1/2 hours home to Bussum. I sit and hold my bike steady, a posture I'm very accustomed to by now. At Steenwijk, a woman gets on board, and I stand and offer the seat--"Alstublieft". Being Dutch, she is surprised, and when she learns that I am American she can't believe it. A polite American?--this is a new experience. Sigh. I hear that a lot, unfortunately. We chat in Dutch until I tire, then switch to English. She is vegetarian. She is socialist. She is kind and curious. And as we step off the train in Zwolle, she waves back good-bye, and I realize she is very attractive.

So OK, sue me, I'm a little slow after 100 kilometers in the cold.