F: Fiets

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike~


One of the things the Netherlands are apparently most famous for (aside from legal weed) is the abundance of bicycles. Here, it is unthinkable that anyone might not own a bicycle. Kids cycle to and from school everyday (unless, like me, they are lazy and make do with public transport), and really anywhere else they need to go that is within reasonable cycling distance. In primary school, we had to pass a 'traffic test', which consisted of a route we had to cycle, with teachers at different points checking whether we were adhering to all the traffic rules that come with cycling. These include but are not limited to sticking out your arm in the direction you're going to turn when at intersections. Nobody does this in practice, generally. The only time I do is when there is a car coming toward me, since I prefer not to get squashed to an early death, and when there's police in the vicinity. But I digress. The fact that such a test is mandatory goes to show that it's assumed everybody owns a bicycle, even at such a 'young' age.

Then again, according to Katie Melua, there are also a lot of bicycles in Beijing. (Oh god make it stop I HATE that song).

I guess it depends on how you look at it. ("Look at what?", you ask? I haven't a clue).


~Levyathan.