Off from Sheffield

It's hard to believe it's been 10 months already, but it has and we have left Sheffield. Rather than go straight home, we are continuing this year of travel by taking a month to get home. We had one final meal at our favorite 17th century pub with good friends and then went north to visit Hadrian's Wall. We took a great walk along part of this 2,000 year old structure that marked the northern edge of the Roman empire.

Here is Mindy with her good friend Yael.


Here is Hadrian's Wall - it stretches for 73 miles from east to west across the narrowest part of Great Britain. The countryside is stunningly beautiful, especially so because the sun was out!


A rest and snack break - we walked about 4 of the 73 miles.


Here is Noah doing his best Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kostner from the Robin Hood movie (the terrible version) - if you've seen the movie, you'll recognize this location.


Here is Tala looking down on one of the immigration control stations along the wall. The wall had some defensive properties, but mostly it served as a border control for the Roman empire.


And Mindy thoroughly soaking up the sun with a smile!


After a couple of days, we left England via overnight ferry to Amsterdam. It is a lovely city built on canals with the oldest section dating to the 1600s.


We rented an apartment and it wasn't until we were looking for our apartment that we realized it was in the middle of the Red Light district. For the uninitiated, both marijuana and prostitution are legal and the Red Light District is the place to find both. So as we walked from the central train station to our apartment, here were some of the educational opportunities that required some explanations.



Across the canal from our apartment...


The Marijuana Museum - right next door to our apartment...


Amsterdam is also filled with bikes - a lot of bikes. More bikes than you can imagine. Cycling is the dominant way of getting around and it is just incredible to see all sorts of people riding all types of bikes. Naturally we had to take our own ride, which we all loved. We chose to get out of the city.

Our ride to a neighboring city, complete with passing a real windmill.


Here is some double decker bike parking - just on a normal street in front of some shops. All bike parking is full everywhere and many people just lock their bikes to themselves and leave it on the sidewalk, next to a building, or in a plaza. The typical Dutch bike is upright (no need to take on a racing position over the handlebars), has 1-3 gears (it is flat in Amsterdam), have lights built in, have a chain and dress guard to keep clothes out of the bike, have front and rear racks, and have a back tire lock that makes it so the back tire cannot roll (with a heavy chain connecting the front tire to the frame, no one can ride off with the bike). Basically, the bikes are designed for practical use, and in general, there was nothing particularly fancy about most bikes.


Here is a larger bike parking facility near the central train station. This is all bike parking and it is always full!


Next stop...Copenhagen.