Adventure Lady

Yesterday was lost to jet lag. I tried to make sure it would be minimal by sleeping on the plane but I ended up not sleeping until 0500 and not waking up until 1730. The day was shot! I had planned to do so much that day like get a bike, eat something for the first time in a while, kill all the misquitoes in my room (the ceiling and floors are now covered with murder marks), and maybe even have my first beer here.

I attribute my falling asleep to two things, outside of jetlag. Mostly, it was the mosquitoes buzzing around my head. When I would hear one I would quickly flick on the table lamp and peer around, quite owl-like, and look for the bug. Once you catch sight you can't break eye contact, otherwise it flies away! So I would fumble around for my rolled up, blood stained, introduction-to-Leiden booklet while honing in on the bug, and then 60% of the time it would fly away before you could get it. This happened all night until I was too tired to care (at 0500).

The dishes and cutlery from IKEA that the
place comes "furnished" with, had to be washed.

The other annoying thing that kept me up was an unnerving amount of missing people back home. I knew it was inevitable in such an adventure that one would think these things, and I was happy to have them out of the way so soon. So when I finally woke up, and got over my immediate anger, I weeded my mental garden of ill thoughts and summoned up the courage to go exploring in the remaining daylight.

The first thing I did, upon finding the bike stores closed was start walking the 35 minute walk to Leiden Centrum to look for a SIM-kaart kiosk. It was easy to find and along the way I took a few pictures. I purchased the wrong SIM which I realized later that night and rectified earlier today! I got some food in the train station, and picked up a rookwoorst and vorkoopig kase (smoked sausage, and cheap cheese).

Horses, part of a larger farm with Koetjes and
Kalfje. Situated out front the Observatory.

I finally returned home via the 57 Lisse bus. I tidied up, washed some dishes, and snacked on my meat and cheese while I fiddled with my phone and SIM (at which point I realized it was the wrong SIM), etc. until 2am where I fell asleep with considerably less bugs in my room than the night before.

Today thus became a normal day of exploration started at 0700 with a 10km run into the country side, where I discovered the network of trails that criss-cross the Netherlands for bikers and runners.


Now here comes the motivation for the title of this post. Adventure Lady found me in the second second-hand bike store I visited. She's a Koga Miyata probably from the 80's from the looks of her. She drives like a charm and we did some exploring today.

For 95EUR I convinced the shop owner to throw in a pump (for the french valve tires), and the green strap on the German made rack ;)

Now it's time for some adventure time with my Adventure Lady!

A major thing I was on the lookout for were incense sticks, and citronella candels. A mosquitoe net would be a good investment. I found a few odds and ends like shishkabob sticks, a spice dispenser, some candles, and my first beer!

A few things about beer in Europe: tasty, strong, diverse, and inexpensive to boot! I said to hell with looking for the "authentic Dutch beer" and settled for one that caught my eye. The store by the way was situated next to a flower shop and I almost bought Adventure Lady some roses.