click for details
There are 17 million people in the Netherlands. And 25 million bicycles…
This gentleman was riding his bike on a dike near the sea.
Check out the other entries at Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge! 😀
CBW: Bicycle
Tag: bicycle
CB&W: Dutch Bike
Silent Sunday
Travel theme: Transport
Travel theme: Sport
The Bicycle
My entry in the Six Word Story Challenge: Transport
~
DESTINATION REACHED… BUT NOT DISCARDED YET!
~ click the photo for a larger image ~
—
Please take a look at the other Transport stories.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban
Today we are challenged by Terence S. Jones of A Guy With a Camera to share a photo that means URBAN.
The idea behind urban photography is to photograph your city and the streets where you grew up as they are. Unlike the photoshopped pictures to which we are accustomed nowadays, urban photography presents a more direct, unaltered view of life. It is about documenting urban living space and how people adapt their environment to certain needs and vice versa. Urban photography shots provide cultural, social, economical, and ecological context all at once, and can capture social tension.
Seeing is the key here: focus on what you see, what objects you find—discarded belongings on the street, satellite dishes on a building, shoes on a wire—and what they suggest about the people living there.
And if there’s something I normally do not take pictures of, it is urban scenes – preferring nature photos. Still I found one:
~ click on the photo for a larger image ~
For me, this is an urban photo pure sang.
________________________________________________________________
At the Daily Post you will find more Urban challenges.
Nine million bicycles… and more in the Netherlands
Dutch people cycle. They cycle to school, to the supermarket. They climb on a bike to go on holiday and go to work. Every household has at least one bicycle, mostly more.
The fact that our country is flat, might be a big reason for this mass transportation. There is a huge network of well maintained and well lit cycle paths. In fact they are so good that foreign car drivers often mistake them for normal roads!
Urban areas are frequently designed into residential areas, where bicycles and other slow traffic have priority over cars.
All these photos were taken in Breda this afternoon, in one district. Welcome to our street view 🙂
ID on a broken bike
February 18th, 2010. What a day this turned out to be!
Any thoughts of going to work dissolved into thin air when I felt the cold on my skin this morning. Vman left early and I turned around, searching for his warm spot in bed. Nope, the uni would have to wait another day. Since nobody else is at our academy, I had already doubts if I would make it this week. Carnival in the south of the Netherlands.
Around noon I asked my eldest son to function as wake-up call for youngest one. Of course he obliged happily. Nothing more fun than teasing a younger brother. Whacking poor sleeping Sean over the head, he stamped upwards to the attic, leaving a slightly rumpled young man who was trying to open his eyes. A shower helped.
After his breakfast and my lunch we set out to first take Sean’s bike for repairs to the bicycle shop. It was better to say what still worked than what did not. Then we would order a new passport plus ID, after which Sean was due at the hairdresser’s. His wild manes reached halfway his nose. Plus I had fullfilled my earlier threat of making him a pony tail. Then he suddenly agreed to the hair cutting operation.
We were nearing the shop, when suddenly I thought of the paperwork needed for the new identification documents. We had taken the necessary snapshots, but totally forgot to take the papers and his old ID. Setback number one. Marching on we came upon a closed door: lunch break. Sean and me stared at each other and I let out a scream which made him chuckle. There we were with the non-working bike.
Alright, nothing is unsolvable. Just a quick stop at the postoffice to get money. Bzzz bzzz did the machine, but all seemed to be functioning normal. It seemed. The damn thing ate my card! I could see the edge and tried to pry it out but to no avail. Scream number two started to rise. Then the postoffice manager came out to see what the ruckus was about. With the words “Whatever you do, stay calm,” he disappeared back in. A small crowd was forming behind my back. After 5 minutes he came out with my card, hurrah.
From that point on things went smoother. We did some grocery shopping and decided on pizza. Plus cookies. Half an hour early we reached the hairdresser. And guess what, Sean could sit down immediately. I got some tea and read a magazine. It’s so nice hearing his 15-year old voice go down all the time, turning into a man’s voice. I kept far from the cutting business. He’s old enough to tell Daniëlle what he wants. Result: slightly shorter hair with wax, but still it was messy enough for him to like it.
On our way home we stopped at the bakery to buy bread and some rolls. Things went rather smoothly after all. Tomorrow morning it’s back to passport business for Sean.
Figments of a DuTchess 