Utrecht

We didn't race out of town, but we were on a train by noon, heading north to the bigger cities.  Jon got us some nice sandwiches from a supermarket that was right in the train station (so civilized) -- obviously the prices were very reasonable or we would have had to wait for other opportunities for lunch. 

The train uses the same travel card as the bus uses, so Rebecca organized our fare (thanks Mom) and got us a discount because she long ago decided to pay the big bucks to get a 40% discount.  We are helping her to recover her money.  And then when we got to Utrecht, she was delighted to find that the exact same cards work on the buses here.  This is the height of civilization.

Two hours of quiet, smooth travel past gardens and farms and canals and villages and extremely cute little ponies. Lots of leeks growing, some kale type stuff, some kind of mustardy cover crop. It was a cloudy, grey day so it didn't look idyllic, but everything was organized and FLAT and tidy.

Utrecht is about three times the size of Maastricht, with taller buildings and many more people on bikes (the population of Rotterdam (double Utrecht), Utrecht and Maastricht is less than the total population of Fairfax County, just for perspective).  When the traffic light changes, the bikes come charging across the intersection.  Many more bicycles than vehicles, it seems.  Children are behind parents in little seats, or in front in little seats between the handlebars, friends ride on the back luggage rack, multiple children ride in these nicely constructed wooden boxes that are built onto the front of the bike.  No helmets, no bike clothes, just regular skirts and dresses and street shoes and down jackets.  The bike lanes are much smoother than the pedestrian lanes but it would be foolish to walk in the bike lane. As R. points out, you can't hear them coming.

We walked through the shopping areas, the old city, saw the ancient tower, peeked into the tiny cathedral (and read later that it used to be much bigger but they ran out of money in the 1400s before they got the flying buttresses up and the nave collapsed, so the tower is now a separate structure with a square around it, instead of being part of the church). 

Stopped for a snack of hot fries with some kind of peppery herbal mayonnaise (R. says to remember that the place is called Mannekenpis and you can just infer what the sauce was made of).





There are big canals running through the city but it is too warm for them to freeze right now. It started to get dark and cold and I had used up my walking time so we got back on the bus and headed back to our Airbnb.

This one is an entire apartment, with a train track just across the way.  At first this seemed a little unfortunate, but in fact we cannot hear a sound when the trains go by. They are going by all the time but they must not be squeaking and rumbling and our windows must be very good. The host met us at the door and gave us a tour and then left to go stay with a friend while we occupied her whole house. This seems a little weird to me, but this is her system and this income is important to her, we surmise. We have tons of space.  As soon as we came in, R. and Jon fell asleep on the couch for so long that I started to get hungry.  Eventually they got up to go in search of dinner, either shopping or take-out, while I stayed home in this very quiet space.

We had a simple dinner of pasta and vegetables and schnitzel and we have to go to bed early because our plans are more ambitious than usual for tomorrow. We actually have to wake up and leave the house by 7:48 in the morning. Yikes. R. has our route all planned to get us to our first destination by 8:55.