Amsterdam

 My prevailing impression of Amsterdam is crazy traffic. Buses, trams, cars, lorries, motorbikes...and bicycles. Crossing the road is an adventure. 

They really are very good at bikes there. Families use them, either with a kind of wheelbarrow attachment for the children, or on the back/crossbar/handlebars. Cross in front of a bike at your peril. They don't usually stop for you, even on a crossing. 

And the way they park on the canalside terrified me!

But I suppose you get used to it!

Tulips in Amsterdam

 I retired last year, and we wanted to do a trip to celebrate. However, what I really wanted to do was to go and see the tulip fields in Holland. Since the season is so short: from late March to mid May, we had to wait almost a year. It was worth it though!

We booked in advance: flights, hotel, tickets for Keukenhof Gardens (transport included) and for good measure, tickets for the Rijksmuseum. 

What we couldn't book was the weather. Amsterdam has its fair share of rain, and the day of the gardens it rained. Not all the time, but we didn't get dazzled by the sun either. The flowers themselves did the dazzling. 

There were a lot of people there; probably thousands. It really is an amazing place!

At the entrance

It's got a windmill and lots of tourists

I could post more photos of tulips.

Tulip fields

These won't show up so well, but surrounding the gardens are the fields; blocks of colour.

They let the tulips bloom then cut the flowers off son the strength goes into the bulb, which multiplies and grows bigger. We saw them from the plane on the way in but too far away to show much on a photo.

The best place to photograph the tulip fields is from the platform of the windmill, but there was a queue to go up when we came off the boat trip so we didn't bother; after 40 minutes on the canal we were a bit chilly and headed off to one of the pavilions to get coffee and Dutch apple pie (delicious)

More and more flowers!

And so on. More and more flowers, more and more tourists taking photos of flowers and/or self with flowers. It reminded me of Stonehenge; conpletely unique, completely overrun with tourists. I'm not complaining about the tourists, they are pare ogf the show really. An amazing experience all round.

A walk by the river Ebro

 We went to the Ebro this afternoon to see a monument we'd spotted from the tram. It was just before six o'clock and as we looked, the light came on. It'sa map of Zaragoza on the river Ebro, from the time of the sieges, 1808 and 1809, and it's a monument to the thousands of people who died because of the sieges and were buried on the left bank of the river, just out of the city. 

Then we walked along the left bank to the old stone bridge. The basilica of el Pilar made a spectacular reflection in the water. 

Zaragoza 2023 Women's race

 On Sunday 22nd of October, thousands of women, many of us wearing pink t-shirts, went to the starting place for a gigantic race/run/walk. There were 13,000 of us and we had all previously enrolled to take part. It was sponsored and publicised by lots of big companies; I'm not sure how much of the money for the fees we paid went to the good causes of cancer research and violence against women, but whatever we did we were together and showing solidarity.

I didn't enter out of solidarity, I entered because I wanted to run in a big race. One of my husband's nieces, Alicia, kindly offered to run with me-I say kindly, because she's much younger and stronger than I am so it wasn't the same kind of challenge for her as it was for me. Although I'd done 5km races (two) I hadn't run with another person, and I'd never run that distance (6.4km) without walking a bit of the time.

The day started off bright and breezy. I got to the place I was going to meet Alicia far too early, from nerves and because I needed to pick up a piece of kit from my sister-in-law; (can you run a race if you've forgotten your sports bra?) 

The street was full of women and girls of all ages in pink t-shirts. We flowed up the road to the starting place and found our places in the line; you could choose: aiming to finish in 35 minutes, 45 minutes and....I suppose all the rest who would be walking. We went into the 35 minute slot simply because we couldn't get anywhere else, although my estimate was 45 minutes. 

The noise was incredible: music thumping through p.a. system so loud it made my chest vibrate. There were speeches, presentations and announcements. We jumped up and down when told to. We passed a long white and pink banner along over our heads so the drone could take a photo of it. 

Here's a video from Youtube; you won't see me in it!

Well, off we went, the serious athletes at the front and the rest of the runners weaving our way through the women walking at the front of the pack. The first part was quite complicated, because there really were a lot of women. My sister-in-law and niece, who were walking, said it took them ages to get started because of the volume of participants further back. It's a problem, because if everyone goes to the front, as some of the walkers did, they slow the runners' start. There's a lesson of collaboration there, not to mention excellence and equal opportunities.

I ran. All the way, without stopping. Alicia went at my pace and stayed with me all the way; I wouldn't have done it on my own, I don't think. We took almost twice as long as the winner, Sara Benedí, who crossed the finish line in 21 minutes 34 seconds. We finished in under 40 minutes. 39.19 was on the clock when we reached the finish line. 

 

You can see that the crowds of participants had thinned by then. We were handed pink bottles of mineral water, and went off to have a coffee while we waited for my sister-in-law and other niece. They had a struggle with the masses and arrived 40 minutes later.

I was proud of myself for doing the whole course without stopping (thanks to Alicia) thrilled to be placed 523rd.

Later I was stunned to discover that I had won a (virtual) gold medal in my age group!

I know it's more important to take part than to win, but it's nice whe you do!