My time in Amsterdam has come to a close—I have finished up my finals for my courses, I have returned key fobs and books, I have begun to share hugs and goodbyes with the friends I made. I have checked into my flight tomorrow, I have started packing up my room, I have gone through the groceries I have left. One thing remains to be done: returning my bike to a nearby Swapfiets, a bike subscription service.
As I enjoyed my last bike ride through town I found myself getting emotional, as weird as it sounds, about handing in my bike key. My bike has watched my confidence soar in pedaling around this city’s bike lanes—once upon a time, I didn't even know how to brake (these are back pedal bikes, FYI!), I needed to stop often to check that I was going the right way, I awkwardly started up at stoplights and navigated around bike traffic. Wow, how much I have grown! While there are still parts of the city that I left unexplored, by the end of the semester I almost never needed Apple Maps to get to where I was going. I felt comfortable biking day and night, rain or shine, traffic or no traffic. With friends or without, through parks and over bridges, over the occasional curb (seriously—how did I never get a flat tire?). I even biked forty minutes to Schiphol airport one morning, because the trains weren’t running yet. I simply adored the fact that biking is a legitimate, sustainable, and often the most convenient way of getting around the Netherlands.
Throughout this last week abroad, I have been asked about the things I will miss most about Amsterdam. I found myself surprised that, alongside the people I got to meet, becoming familiar with Amsterdam through biking topped the list. With every bike ride to class, every grocery run, every adventure with or without a destination—I felt a sense of belonging that I did not expect from a mere mode of transportation.
I biked through the Rijksmuseum one last time on my way to the Swapfiets store. I brought my bike inside, and found myself saying goodbye as a worker wheeled it away. I hope my bike’s next owner gets as much use and enjoyment from it as I did. If you become the next owner of a gray Swapfiets bike, I hope you will consider this blog post and embrace this aspect of Dutch life. You won’t regret it.
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Brooke Lackey
Brooke is from Winston Salem, NC, United States, and is a student at the University of Amsterdam this fall. She enjoys being outside, thrifting, and reading good books in good coffee shops. She is also a CODA, fluent in American Sign Language.
