Switching gears again.

Brian and I spent the last couple days in Groningen, then Arnhem and the Hoge Veluwe National Park, then to Den Haag (The Hague) where our friend Adam is living now.

It's been great fun! The Hoge Veluwe is awesome, one of the few national parks anywhere that I particularly dig.

And then it's been heck of fun in Den Haag. Adam, Beej, and I have been sightseeing and taking it easy in the Netherlands' third city. ("What's fun to do in Den Haag?" "Nothing. Go to Amsterdam." We've heard this a couple times. Not entirely true.)

Adam and Beej. We're at Madurodam, which sounds South Indian but is actually a mini Netherlands.

Tomorrow I'm going to this zen retreat at Zen Centrum Amsterdam. Oddly, it's not residential, but I'm still planning to go off the internet for about 4 days. See you in July!

Scooter data

Total cost for me to ride the scooter for 2 months: $1694. Yeah, I was unlucky, but even without an engine replacement (so, $500 cheaper) it would not be cheap.
Total distance traveled: 5278 km (3279 miles)
Total gas consumed: 174.2 liters (46 gallons)
Gas mileage: 27.8 km/liter (64.5 mpg)

Average daily distance traveled: 222 km (138 miles)
Average time on road: 6:41
Average speed: 33.3 km/hr (20 mph; pokin' along!)

Longest day, time-wise: April 23, Fussen to Zurich, 9.5 hrs. Probably the most climates too. Included a summer valley, ski resorts, a big city, and yaks. Sort of freezing. Maybe the biggest ups and downs day.

Longest day, distance-wise: June 12, Ceske Budejovice to Munich, 355km. The first half was fine, the second half was driving rain, but I was in a hurry to get back. Maybe the worst overall day.
Fastest day: May 12, Kecskemet to Miskolc (Hungary), 52.67 km/hr. This is the one where I ran out of gas and then had to get a battery jump. Started at 2pm, ended at 8pm with daylight running out fast.

Best day #1: Zurich to Savognin (Switzerland). Just alps. A lot of wind, high speed, good roads, good weather.

Best day #2: Split to Dubrovnik (Croatia). Mountains and coast.

Day I thought I was most likely to get lost in the wilderness: Mostar to Sarajevo. In an effort to find a more interesting road, I ended up on a dirt path for about a half hour.

Least favorite countries to ride in: Italy, Hungary, and Poland.

Favorites: Switzerland, Bosnia, and the Czech Republic.

The Netherlands, from bottom to top

From Amsterdam we went south to Maastricht, the southernmost biggish city (120k) in the Netherlands. I studied abroad in Maastricht in 2007. We met up with my friend Daniel who is still studying robots and AI and game theory there. Explored the city, ate Limburgish things like zuurvlees and vlaai, went to some caves. Shopped for shoes.

Maastricht's nice. It was only a little bit weird to go back there. Next we headed up to Groningen, the northernmost biggish city (190k) in the Netherlands. We planned to go wadlopen (hiking across mud flats), for which we did the aforementioned shoe-shopping, but all the wadlopen was canceled this weekend because of the weather. So now we're just hanging out here for a day or two.

Hup! Holland! Hup!

Two days ago I was in Heidelberg, visiting my friend Kemal. Great fun to catch up with him, as he's just started a PhD at the (old, famous, prestigious, impressive) university there. We talked about geeky computery things like Random Forests.

I'm the one without muscles.

It's a nice town. It's got a castle and stuff. (My friend Brian informs me that I've been saying that about pretty much every town.)

The castle is nicer than most. It's old and crumbley and has the world's biggest wine barrel. There's also a hill called Heiligenberg next to the city. We hiked a bit through a Random Forest and saw an old Nazi amphitheater and a ruined monastery.

Now I'm in the Netherlands. Brian (sometimes known as "Beej") arrived yesterday and we've been palling around Amsterdam, along with Guido and Joyce, who I met in India. Guido and Joyce have been super friendly and welcoming hosts, and it's great to see Beej again too.

Me, Beej, and Guido, paddleboatmen extraordinaire

Not a ton to tell. Went to the Van Gogh museum, saw the Boom Chicago improv troupe (their main show was meh but their late all-improv show was spot on), paddled around canals, watched the Dutch lose a lot at football. Soccer. You know.

All's well! Having a good time in the Netherlands. I like this place.

Times five. Six.

5. The engine kind of stalled out. This happened once before, in Switzerland, on another windy day when I was going fast. Both times, it just started back up again. Along with my heart.

6. I didn't get hypothermia. Seriously, Europe? It's June 13. Chilly temperatures, driving rain (NPI), and a distance of 355km to cover made for the worst day of the whole trip. Good note to end on, I guess; now I'm relieved to get the bike back to John (its owner) and move on.

But man, it's been fun. Goodbye, little Igel, and thanks for the memories. And thanks John for making this all possible! It's been the trip of a lifetime, and I couldn't have done it without you.

In which I'm the kind of the luckiest person ever, times four

1. Tenuous situation: my health. I can't seem to stop eating white bread, cheese, and beer. The occasional red meat. Went for dinner with my CS host, we ended up getting tartare (raw ground beef) served with fried bread. Today at lunch I just pointed to something on the menu; it ended up being a jar (a jar!) of marinated cheese, with bread. Tonight for dinner I thought, I will finally get some good healthy food, and I picked something from the "salatka" section... it was a pasta salad.
Luckily: my stomach is made of friggin' titanium? I don't know. Thanks again, genes!

2. Tenuous situation: my cash. If I get $100 poorer, stuff like buying food gets dire. I'm almost out of Poland, making good time, when a cop on a motorcycle waves me over. Shit! I was speeding! I've never been pulled over speeding in my life! I guess I blew through a god damn two-bit burgh without noticing the sign that said I was officially in a "city", which means the speed limit drops from 90kph to 50. So he has me doing 90 in a 50. (Kilometers, but still.) Yikes. We talk in German because ya nie rozumiem Polski. He looks at my papers. He asks: "Alkohol?" Stunned, I reply "Me? Nie!" He looks at my papers some more.
Luckily: he returns with one German word: "Langsam!" ("Slow") and lets me go. Whew, good thing I passed the sobriety test!

3. Tenuous situation: my bike. It just had its engine replaced, a veritable heart transplant, and now I'm riding it over 1000km at max speed in 4 days. Something's bound to go wrong, right? In the middle of day 1, I am driving down the road, when all of a sudden I lose steering control. Ever have a blowout on your back bicycle tire? It felt like that. I pull over, drive a few more feet to make sure I'm not imagining things, and pull into a gas station. It is 3:02pm on Saturday in the middle of nowhere in Poland. Everything is closed until Monday. You may note that a 2+ day delay would really ruin all sorts of stuff right now.
Luckily, part 1: this gas station has an attached diagnostic unit- for car exhaust or something? Like an E-Check booth? I don't know. There is one guy working there, just about to leave, and he has some wrenches and stuff. He's by no means a motorcycle mechanic, but he's able to look at my bike and figure out what's wrong. There's one particular nut missing. Zakrętka. You can get one from a mechanic, or a hardware store, but everything is closed. Also there is a bit of hose that has come undone and is kind of just flapping around.
Luckily, part 2: the hose doesn't seem to matter. What?! I still don't know what it does. It's been disconnected for 2 days now and everything still works. ... okay.
Luckily, part 3: the guy's friend, who lives next door, just stops by. He thinks he has something. He comes back with a zakrętka that just happens to fit exactly. These two guardian angels vanish into the... mid-afternoon... without even letting me pay them. Two days later, the nut is still attached perfectly.

4. Nothing tenuous about this: I'm in the Czech Republic, and stuff's pretty again. I like this country. Here is a bit of Czech humor; my dad will be confused, and Brian Gray will think it's great.

One more day to Munich! In the words of Han Solo, "Hear me, baby? Hold together."

On the road!

I've got a functional bike (knock on wood), a helmet, 450 zloty ($130), 80 USD, 40 Euro, and 300 Czech koruna ($15). It's a lot of cash, but I have really completely no way to get more until I get to Munich in 3 1/2 days. Still, lodging is the only major expense, and credit cards and Couchsurfing will see me through.

A lot of stuff going wrong puts you in the mindset that things will continue to go wrong. Here's hoping that's not the case. Tonight I'm heading to Czestochowa, Poland; tomorrow to Olomouc, Czech; the next day to Ceske Budejovice (aka Budweis), Czech; and then Munich. Let's rock!