Lance Armstrong, along with anyone who does cycling for fun, deserves a lot of credit!! They get on these light weight bikes, with extremely tiny seats that leave you with a sore butt for the next three days, and just peddle!!!
In the Netherlands, the bike is a major means of transportation. I think people here learn to bike before they can walk. People just weave in and out of streets, around cars and passing by pedestrians at ease, but don’t be fooled!!! In the US, we have an expression that I’m sure you’ve all heard… It’s just like riding a bike, well its not!!! I’m not gonna lie, biking is not one of my better talents, but I did enjoy taking my pink beach cruiser out around mission bay for a little joy ride…
While participating in my own Tour de France around town, I crashed!!! I was riding along when a bus pulled up on my left only about two feet away from me. If I stuck my hand out, I would have been touching the bus. Apparently, I spook easily because as I saw the bus out of the corner of my eye, I swerved and ran into a pole, flipped over, landed on my back with the bike falling on top of me!!! I’m sure it was a site to see because everyone stopped to stare… I laughed it off and luckily survived with some minor bumps and bruises!!!
On a lighter note, I was quite the tourist this week!!! On Wednesday, my roommate, a teammate and I headed back to Den Haag to check Madurodam. Madurodam is a miniature city, that has models of Dutch buildings and landmarks scaled down to 1:25 of their actual size. I felt like a giant, or King Kong!
On Friday, the Aussies (Chris and Alice) and I took the train to Amsterdam. It was a long day of walking around, but I had three must sees on my agenda: Anne Frank House, Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. We started with the Anne Frank House, which is a museum dedicated to the Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building. I can’t believe they lived in such a tiny space for about two years until they were betrayed and sent to concentration camps!!! Throughout the museum they had quotes from Anne’s diary posted all over the walls.
From there we headed toe Rijksmuseum, which is the Dutch national museum. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts and historty. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian Art. My personal favorite was the pirate ship replica. To our disappointment, a large portion of the museum was not open because of construction! 
After having lunch at the best sandwich stop in Amsterdam, I got in touch with my artistic side at the Van Gogh Museum! It was quite the educational experience as I was unaware of his tragic death (I’ll refrain from the details)… Some of his artwork was quite pleasant to look at, while others were just depressing.
All in all, I enjoyed each museum minus the one that wasn’t on my list of must sees. Chris and Alice wanted to go through the sex museum! It was only 3€, and I figured going in would be better than sitting outside by myself… Let’s just say I should have waited outside!
Last, but not least, who goes to Amsterdam without seeing what the city is known for… The Red Light District!!! I was not that impressed, but that’s not my scene!!!
On Saturday, our team had its last set of home games before the summer break. I’m hesitant to share the results because we dropped two again. Maybe this break will be good for us, I know I’m taking full advantage of it… I got to Venice on Sunday, and will be here until Friday morning then taking a ferry to the Croatian coast. From there, the plan is to travel by train to Budapest, Prague and Vienna!!!
The internet access is limited (the reason for the lack of pictures), but I will try to get on and keep you all updated as much as possible!!!
