Keith Wakeham's European Bike trip

Pictures

kwakeham — Sat, 16 May 2009 13:55:18 +0000

Or goto www.keithwakeham.com top link!

Pictures!!!

kwakeham — Sat, 16 May 2009 13:55:00 +0000

Pictures up at
http://www.keithwakeham.com/Europe/Europe.html

Awesome Tack You Lure!

Home

kwakeham — Fri, 15 May 2009 05:59:37 +0000

Just got home, very tired. My bags I left in london were at the st. john’s airport…. who knew!!!! amazing what happens when you leave things somewhere with tags on it. No cost! Which is good because it was expensive as about 1/3 of my bike to just fly it home.

Hopefully I will put up the pictures in a next couple of days and some links. Thanks to all who viewed and supported me!

Leaving Düsseldorf

kwakeham — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:33:32 +0000

It’s currently 7:30 here and I am getting everything ready to go. I’m going to grab breakfast when it opens at 8 and then head to the airport. Flight is at 12:20 but who knows how long it would take me to get there with the getting lost I am familiar with and then the bike dissassembly. I’ll be much less nervous when I am on a plane.

Lots of english speaking people yesterday around which was great. To bad I have to leave so soon.

Hoping to see everyone back home sortly.

Düsseldorf

kwakeham — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:06:37 +0000

Just made it to Düsseldorf. Hostel seems nice, which I was staying here a bit longer. Düsseldorf seems quite different from Köln, more modern from the looks yet still silly street setups which remind me of home.

Going to try and get food, take a few pictures, get a few more souvienieriererers (speeling is my strong suite!). Go to bed fairly early and get up fairly ealy for my flights.

RSS Feed

kwakeham — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:14:27 +0000

I just realized I have an RSS feed. Pointless post!

Stuff in general

kwakeham — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:12:26 +0000

So email back, apparently a recommendation has been forwarded to grad studies from the engineering office. It’s politics school style. At least I’ll be home soon to figure things out in person.

Finding gifts is hard work. Still no luck on a few peoples fronts. Hopefully Düsseldorf yields a better… yield???

Köln

kwakeham — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:19:08 +0000

So I think I have every thing figured out. Many phone calls and running around Köln and trying to find a system with skype to call Air Canada and after a 3€ call to Luthansa I think I can get my bike home!!!! which makes me happy.

What doesn’t is that I wanted to check out some stuff in Köln now and it starts to rain. Argh.

Dusseldorf via train tomorrow, look around, one night in a hostel, bike to airport, dissassemble bike, put in bag I picked up here in Köln which wasn’t cheap or easy to find and won’t provide as much protection as I would like it too. Oh WELL! better than nothing or 700 dollars CAD on a new bike.

Can’t wait to see everyone and subject them to stories and slideshows and stuff.

Picking up stuff for people here since its my longest stopover before I leave.

köln is all rainy

kwakeham — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:56:51 +0000

Got up today thinking I would cycle around Köln but turns out I am wrong. It’s raining for the next few days. Oh well. The 13th is nice though for here and Dusseldorf so I might cycle that.

I have plenty of pictures. Just no way to put them up YET!

I get home at 12:12am on the 15th of May (which means just after midnight on the 14th). Air Canada Flight 1198. My flight to Toronto is with Lufthansa Flight 472 from Dusseldorf.

Still debating how to go to Dusseldorf though but today I am going to go around and look for some stuff for people to take home with me now that I am not 300km of biking away from an airport or a train ride to mainland europe.

Koln

kwakeham — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:33:10 +0000

2nd Day in Maastricht I spent in guesthouse de sempre which was amazingly nice and I ruined the feel a little by having to do laundry in my room because the laundry place closed at 4. Oh well.

Met Adnan and his friend (which I won’t try and spell his name because I will just make a mess of it). They were amazing and so very kind to me. We got to talk about chassis design and his plans over her in Europe.

Cycling to Aachen was uneventful and went fairly well. As I get futher into Germany it unfortunately becomes less cycle friendly on main motorways compared to Belgium but the cities are very good. Koln is especially good but getting here proved difficult. 30km out the cycle lane dissappeared and I had to go on the N264 which wasn’t a problem until I think I got to a point where it sped up to 100km-hr rather than 70 and had a red circle with a bicycle in it. I think that means don’t cycle but little choice. I did the same going to Cambridge. The Problem I have is there is also Red triangles with cycles in it (I cycle there all the time). WHICH CAN’T I CYCLE ON!? (I cycle on both anyway but won’t have to any more)

I tried to play it safe getting here which meant getting lost in some cities which was painful. I left Aachen going the wrong way but it had a cycle sign to Düren which was exactly where I wanted to go to join up on the N264.

I got to see some giant wind turbines in action (which meant the wind was blowing in my face directly) and it makes you very concise of energy usage.

Black Sheep Hostel is nice and I’m sooooooo glad to be in a hostel and not a hotel. It is so boring without someone to talk to but I was also mainly just cycling so I was burnt out anyway.

This keyboard has the placement of the y an z key switched. Better than the Brussels one but not quite normal for me.

3 nights in Koln, debating how to get to Duseldorf.