Arriving in Amsterdam!

As I had only 60 kilometres left, I did not feel like I had to be hasty about things. I ate breakfast with the others around ten or something, and as always, I love breakfast!

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After the breakfast I fixed the squeakiness in the doors at Annas place with my bike oil. It sounded much better afterwards – or should I say nothing?
After that it was time for Sam and Anna to go, and we took some good bye photos!

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As it rained outside, I took my time and did not leave before around 1200. I though it would only take about three hours to the next place, but so wrong I was!
I started with going by a scooter shop and pump my tire for real. Even though, after 35 kilometres it started to feel like a drag in the bike again, but I thought I was just paranoid.
When closing to Amsterdam, with 20 kilometres left, apparently they are reconstructing the roads everywhere, and I had to find a way around. When I after half an hour found the right re-routing road I started loosing more air in the wheel. I borrowed a cycle pump, but then, after 100 of metres, it was empty again. Not good!
I stopped and picked off all of my stuff. This time, I found what was making the punctures, as a small shard of glass had gone through the tire and made a small hole into the tube. I took the shard out and put a patch on the tube. So far so good.

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Then, while pumping the tire with my small bike pump, I managed to break the valve. I had enough air in, but I could not get the hose off of it, so I just used duct tape to fix it to the wheel so I could continue and arrive sometime.
Enough was not perfect, so it did not go as fast as it usually did, and also I had headwind. I arrived at 1715, which was two hours later than I had planned for… I am happy this was not an ordinary long biking day.
There, I met Kim at the house. This was also a community, with people from Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, plus some Dutch people.
Some were at their home countries or elsewhere but I got to meet Mira, the girl from Finland, as she were at home. I went with her to the store and we bought food to make dinner together. We made a nice pasta salad and drank my liquorice tea!

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I then broke loose the hose for my mini pump as it was still attached to the valve, and also unscrewed the remaining bits that were in the hose.
I also started organising my things as some of stuff will be brought home because they are not needed, some I am finished with and some will be put in the trash.
I ended the evening by eating of some of the liquorice I bought at the store and looked at “Into The Wild” as I had never seen it before, actually. I really hope I will never try something like what he did unprepared!

4 thoughts on “Arriving in Amsterdam!

  1. Då har du lärt dit att alltid kolla däcket när du får punka också 😛
    BTW, Into The Wild är så jävla bra. Fortsatt lycka Jackiie!

  2. Duct tape resolves all problems, again 😉
    Our foto is quite funny 😀
    “Into the wild” is such a beautiful film, I have seen it so often… Actually your Japan bicycle tour reminded me of Alex’s “Alaska Alaska” project. Altough you stay inside the borders of “civilization” and he didn’t.
    My question: Are YOU actually really prepared for what is waiting for you on the way? Alex also thought he was prepared 😛

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