Highlight for today is my bike purchase.
Woke up at 5am, as usual, called home and Skyped with Engga, Jojo, and Timo. Went back to sleep, waited for 11am. That's the time to meet my bike. Woke up around 9am and decided to swim. Went swimming...it was just opened, no one was there. I just enjoyed my moment swimming around the pool by myself, followed by a sauna. Back to my apartment, got ready to go to Derek's hotel...he's driving me there so I could ride it back if I liked it.
I walked to Derek's hotel, then we drove to Roland's house. He's the guy who's selling this bike I found on marktplaats.nl website. Jan-Willem from my workcenter group helped me at first, sent the message to Ronald and I went from there. Ronald lives in a very nice area, just like we see in the US nice neighborhood.
When we got there, Ronald was excited to see me. He said "Oh, this is good. The bike is perfect for your height." It was like love at first sight...hahhaa...I tried to sit on it, the seat was too high a bit. He lowered it and I just rode it on his backyard. He also had a chain & lock for 5 euros. So I asked him bike and chain/lock for 50 euros total. The ad was 47.50 euros. Since I didn't really know how to go back to the apt, we loaded my bike in the car. Derek dropped me off and he decided to rent a bike so he could go with me to find ASML. Bike rental cost 10 euros a day.
Riding it was fun. The bike rides pretty well, enough for me for what I can do. It is so nice to ride bike here because there is always bike lanes. Not like in the US, you have to fight for staying at the bike lane...hoping those big truck drivers can see you and give you space. Took about 2.5 hours riding, went back to the apartment and cooked dinner.
Sunday is very quiet here, not a lot of stores open. I cooked roasted potatoes with garlic, parsley, onions, and salt/pepper, pork chops, lettuce & tomatoes salad with my honey mustard dressing. Then TJ Lee from San Jose office came over. He brought hazelnut pie.
It was a great day afterall. Spent the rest of the evening skyping with my loved ones at home. Miss you guys!