Running some errands on a cycle highway...

 Hey All! 

To travel in a foreign country is to continual humble yourself. In other words, we tried to send packages home. Delaney and I went to 4 different places, and finally found a DHL that would send stuff internationally. Our clerk, who spoke no English (and I no Dutch), attempted to coach me on how to say the name of the city we were in, Nijmegen. I had been pronouncing it terribly wrong, apparently horridly awfully wrong. We spent a hilarious few minutes exploring my inability to pronounce the Dutch sounds. While I try to be outgoing and open to whatever is happening, there’s some part of me that constantly feels outside of my comfort zone while traveling: trying to communicate across a language barrier, figure out how to run errands, get groceries, order food... I’m so thankful for all the people who help me in their country. 

Nijmegen is also similar sized to Eugene, and honestly felt more normal to me than Odense. Odense felt so dense, the area that we were mostly in had a lot of 6 story apartment buildings. Nijmegen was full of 2 and 3 story connected townhouses, a little set back from the street so every home had a fenced in garden. This level of density felt more normal and easy to navigate to me. I know I keep talking about density, but it’s a critical part of creating an accessible city. Dense means that there are enough people to support smaller businesses integrated into neighborhoods. This is your neighborhood coffee shop, your local grocery store. The Netherlands really takes mixed use to the next level, while biking we saw so many adorable cafes and small shops. 

Funnily enough, there was a huge metal concert (60,000 attendees) in Nijmegen during our time there. We ended up staying 50 minutes outside the city (by bike of course). Lucky for us, the planners here have somewhat recently opened a cycle highway, called the “Keep on Going” way. Throughout our 40 minutes riding on this cycle way, we didn’t have to stop at all. Let me say that again, we were prioritized at every single intersection for about 5 miles. That was 5 miles where I didn’t have to stop once. It was magical. Most of the route was though a forested area. We kept wondering, if this was your commute how much would you benefit from the calming effects of being in a forest 40 minutes a day?

We saw an incredible range of ages riding the “Keep on Going” way, babies attached to parents bikes, toddlers on scoot bikes, to older elders. I saw many more adaptive bikes than I saw in Denmark. There were also so many more E-bikes. Many people used them as range extenders, to be able to travel longer distances. We saw a whole group of elders biking together through the countryside on E-bikes. 

While I would have loved to spend more time in Nijmegen, it was time to head to Utrecht!