Den Haag and Scheveningen

I've been in Den Haag a couple of days ago. Destination: Belastingdienst!!! Haha, dutch is strange, even to hear. Impossible to speak!!! Anyway, I now have a tax numbre, called "sofinummer". And there was enough time to explore the city. I can tell you, Den Haag is much worth seeing than Rotterdam. Neat and tiny street, cafés and restaurants everywhere, they served chips to nearly everything they find in their kitchen. A dutch problem! :) Better cooking by oneself.

I found my new city chopper. Perfect supplement to my green racing machine, I reckon.

I was surprised finding a China Town in Den Haag. The big chinese gate welcomes everybody warmly.

I spent the day in Scheveningen, right next to thousands of others. Hotels and tourism everywhere, as you'd find it in Greece or Spain. Amazing. But a beautiful atmosphere at the dusky beach.

And the final football game of the world cup 2010, public viewing in Rotterdam. I realised that Oranje fans became more and more nervous when the Spanish team pushed forward their offence. This led to the 1:0, and I was happy not beeing in the centre anymore. Quite offensive fans, the Oranjes.

Working right next to the 'Noordzee'

I don't wanna convey the impression that I'm not working over here. As proof you'll find some live web cam pictures by clicking on the link below:

http://www.maasvlakte-cam.nl

You may see me walking through the AC Yard, if you're lucky (hint: I will surely wear an orange life west!). Keep on checkin' lol

Tour de France in Rotterdam

One thing was for sure - I cannot miss the Tour de France in Rotterdam and passing by Brielle. So I found my way back to the megacity. The weather wasn't that good, but that didn't bother anyone on the Erasmus Bridge watching the cyclists race against time.

I found my new chopper. From now on I leave my MTB in the garage, use this instead.

Unfortunately, the quarter final world cup football game was at the same time on Saturday, so I had to make a decision. I don't have to tell you - patriotism won :) And it was worth it!!!

Haha all the people (me included) were waiting the hours in the midday sun for the cyclists to arrive, just to see them for a couple of seconds. Kinda weird!

Prologue in Rotterdam

I don't know how I do this, but I am always lucky with certain things. Example: My colleague Hagen had to move from one hotel to an other one. I helped him moving and checking in again. I barely noticed, when passing by, the green truck in the corner of the yard. I walked towards it to get a closer look. Team Liquigas was preparing their racing machines for the prologue of the Tour the France. Simply fascinating!!! These aren't bycicles anymore, these are real machines. I should have taken one ^^

Liquigas technicians at work.

There it is - Ivan Basso's racing machine. I did some changes to it (some might call it sabotage) so he wasn't able to win the prologue ... :) lol

Rotterdam City

I almost have no time to get you up to date. There was so much to do within the last days - football - and gathering all the new impressions. I've been to Rotterdam a couple of times, the biggest city here nearby. Beautiful wouldn't describe it, Rotterdam's just an industrial harbour city. That makes it special anyhow, but you must get used to it, and that does surely not happen from one day to another.

However, it was the place where the Tour de France 2010 started - that forced me to walk there around regularly, trying to get some good shots of the cyclists and the massive spectacle (You'll find something written about it in one of the next posts). An awesome thing happened before that ... ;-)

New hometown Brielle

Brielle, a small village 30 km to the west of Rotterdam, is my new hometown. Surrounded by water, it is very cosy and I've got everything I need. My appartement is right next to the restaurant tagged with hundreds of those orange flags (behind the first green tree). Seems to be a party is going on the whole night - thats just an illusion. Football is not that popular here, I reckon.

The appartement itself is cool and nice in a kind of retro style. It is well-equipped and comfy. I think I will survive the 8 months easily, there is nothing to worry about ;-)

Queen's stage

This was a real Tour de France stage that demands everything from us. Respectively, I was almost dead after 8:41h of cycling...


After crossing those 5 passes in 173km and 4000 metre of altitude:
Col du Lautaret (2057m)
Col du Galibier (2645m)
Col du Télégraphe (1570m)
Col de la Croix de Fer (2067m)
Col du Glandon (1924m)

Following the Tour de France

This summer, a dream came true. I always wanted to climb up some mountains of the Tour de France with the racing machine. So did I, with Tobi on a 2 weeks riding adventure ...

We've been lucky with the weather all the time. The sun followed us up the hills, like on the Col des Aravis. Beautiful blue sky.

Col des Saisies, second pass on this day. I got sunburned after cycling without any protection. I didn't learn from the years before :)

French Speciality: Galettes - a savoury crepes.

The way up to the Col de la Madeleine on the hottest day of our tour. And, hehe, there are just 18 more kilometres to go ;-)

Pure wildlife. A snake, I couldn't figure it out what kind it is, right next to the street. At first I didn't even realise, not before it moved.