Day 7

Today was quite a busy day. Me and dad got up to rent a bike, then we cycled through the industrial district out to the AFAC, which is a bicycle yard for stolen or illegally parked bikes. The place that we were invited to 2 days ago. Since Amsterdam has about 600 000 bikes, it is obvious that many are stolen or illegally parked. At the AFAC yard, there were almost 12 000 bicycles which were stolen or illegally parked. People would go to AFAC to reclaim their bike, which is usually easy if they know their bike ID. In Amsterdam, almost all bikes have an ID code, so that it is easy to reclaim the bike if you know the code. Even if you do not know the code, you can just describe your bike's colour, brand, defining features, etc. All info about the bike is put into a computer, so that it is easy to locate the bike. (The AFAC is divided into rows, and those rows are also subdivided)

So anyways, with bikes that don't get claimed after about 3 months, they either scrap 'em (If thery're in horrible conditoin) or sell them for auctions (If they're in great condition) or donate them to developing countries or other places. (If they're in useable/OK condition)

It's truly amazing how many bikes end up in this yard. However, these guys seem to know what they're doing, so it's not too bad.

After the tour, we departed to the town Haarlem, which was a little like Amsterdam, except with less bikes and way less canals. We stopped there for donairs, and then continued to Haarlemmerhout, a park near Haarlem. Haarlemmerhout consists of sand dunes with forest growing over it in some areas, shrubbery in others. Some areas were pretty desert-like, I almost expected to see a cactus there. We eventually reached the town of Zandvoort, a small beach town. At the time the beach was very, very foggy and it was kind of cold, so there weren't a lot of people. Actually, it was kind of hard to tell because the fog was too thick to see anywhere down the beach. We took the train back (The beach wasn't exactly exciting) to Amsterdam, which took no time at all. Then I stayed home updating my blog. :)

Fortunately, I brought my camera, so I took tons of pictures. I'll put them up tomorrow.