Train Story - Boring

Left Berlin to head off to Amsterdam via train. This might be the only time I get some 'value' from the Eurail pass. Nothing interesting happened along the way - really uneventful and that is the 2nd train trip in a row that has happened - I think it might be building up to something.

Anyhow, the scenery along the way changed dramatically heading into the Netherlands. First up, dead flat. 50% of the Netherlands is below sea level and about 1/3 of the country has been reclaimed from the sea over the past many centuries. A lot of the Dutch landscape paintings made more sense - characterised by the top 2/3s of a painting being dramatic sky.

There was no snow on the ground and the land looks incredibly fertile - green and all. Not only that, looks like you can live comfortably as a farmer on a small amount of land. So use to old farm equipment rusty away in the place it was last used. Here, rusty farm equipment was neatly stacked suggesting that landspace was at a premium. Most farmers seemed to also be using relatively new tractors and so on.

The other thing, people riding bikes everywhere!! Even the old people. Look out the window of the train, in the country, wherever - people just riding bikes (albeit I have yet to see one with a helmet on). It is almost like half the paved surfaces are for cars, the rest are for bikes.

Now bikes themselves are usually these horrible things from the 60s/70s. I thought someone would make a killing opening up a trendy bike shop in the country. However, I think part of the thing of all the old bikes is that no one is really going to steal them.