Amsterdam or Bust

Vierhouten to Amsterdam.
I wake with the fear again, am packed and clear of the site by seven. Today is Amsterdam of bust, and I need to take into account the numerous wrong turns that I am bound to take, as I have lost my map. So all day long I relie on small town diagrams on service station walls, and cycle route guides when I stumble upon them. Tn this fashion I edge my way closer to Amsterdam never knowing where I am in relation to it, because of the tight scale of those local maps. Until after cycling furiously all morning, expecting the longest day yet, I come across a sign that says “Amsterdam, 20km”. What a suprise, I could be there in no time at all. So I lunched, and lay in the grass, wahsed a pair of underwear in canl water and soap. Rested legs while they dried across my bike. I would be fresh when i arrived!
Not having a map meant there is less interruption in my cycling to consult it at every interesect. It seemed more sdventurous, to be traveling with only a vague sense of my destination.  I find Zeeburg camp site easily upon arrival.
a shower, the first in six days, clean undies, a shirt I had been saving, and a bike without baggage, that leaps and sprints, through the new city.  Gangs of cyclists fly by as I take in Amsterdam at sunset.
I already see some cycle stores to meet my needs, tommorow a new spoke, and maybe a treat for the both of us.
Its great to be in the city, Rose bouncing over cobblestones and tram lines, but soon the novelty wears off and i settle into a pub for a few drinks. I realise that one ot the reasons I was looking forward to getting here, was the hope of having company, after a a week of traveling solo.
Someone to share all this with, my enthusiasm and the beauty of it all. and maybe its because I am tired, cycling over 100ks today, that `I feel this way. But its easy to be going solo, determined and independent when thats the only option, in a tent in a forest in a foreign country. In a city, surrounded by others, its just being lonely.
So a little forlorn, I return to my tent, to rest, and in the hope that tommorow will dawn bright.