RatN – A Blur but Coming into Focus

Tuesday -> Wednesday

A brief rundown of events:

• O’Hare was chill, we were so very early!
• We watched our bikes load onto the plane
• Our flight left on time, but spent an extra hour on the ground waiting to take off
• We completely missed our connection to Amsterdam, but caught another flight shortly thereafter with the help of an Amazing Race-quality sprint through the Rejkjavik airport (and short passport control lines!)
• We arrived in Amsterdam unsure of whether our bikes had made the journey with us, but they had! Hooray 🎉 🎉
• Corey arrived to pick us up about three minutes after we left baggage claim. All was good! Excellent in fact.

It was great to see Corey and Jennie again! They’ve been in the Netherlands for five years, but this is our first visit to them in that time. Just in time, it turns out, because they’re moving back to Doha this summer! We joked a lot that we would never be visiting them there again, but perhaps meeting in Jordan or Oman would be fun!

After just a few moments of light dozing on the planes, I still had enough energy (fueled by a strong sense of dread) to start building the bikes. I was anxious to see if anything had been lost or broken. Thankfully, everything held up amazingly well and we were able to assuage our fears of needing some last minute repairs or parts. Corey helped, mostly by cracking wise and drinking beer. Very much like our brewing days!

For Dinner, mushroom and roasted broccoli tacos alla Corey, where I ate all of the food. So good!

We went to bed at around 11pm after lots of catching up with our old friends, and slept hard through to 7am. Pretty good job adjusting to the new time zone!

Thursday

Today we would finish kitting out the bikes and take them into Leiden on a shakedown ride with our full packs. We stopped by a bike shop to get a few last minute sundries but also just as a place to go. It was fun to meet the owner, Jan, who knew Corey, but was helpful and welcoming anyways.

Overall a relaxing day capped by a drive over to Amerongen, where the Race Around the Netherlands starts on Saturday. Corey and Jennie were kind enough to give us a lift, so we had time to enjoy a delicious meal with them after checking into our Airbnb. Then bon voyage to them and Bliz is ready for race checkin tomorrow!