Another Day in Enshede

Author’s note:  This post covers the day of July 11^th.  I wrote it on the train going to Brussels on July 13^th.

Just for the record, the title to this post rhymes.  The way they pronounce the name of this city is “En-shka-day” with stress on the first syllable.  While I’m talking about random nonsense I figured I’d mention that the sun doesn’t go down until 10PM here.  I don’t know what time it comes up in the morning, I’m told sometime around 4AM, but I haven’t woken up earlier than 8, so I wouldn’t know.

I was only lazy for an hour or two on Wednesday morning.  After breakfast and then a later snack of banana and PB&J I got on Smith’s bike, which I had borrowed for the day, to ride the “Rondje Enschede” which is a path of roads and both paved and unpaved bike paths that circles the city.  I thought I’d be able to do it all.  I was told it’s about 45km.  If I could do 15km/hr, which is only 10mph, then it would be done in 3 hours.  But first I had to ride out to the trail, and then I promptly got lost.   I was finally able to make it back on the trail, and from then on it was pretty well marked.  But at 2/3rds of the way around I decided I was getting too tired and too annoyed with putting the chain back on the gears of Smith’s bike.  I told you it desperately needed a tuneup.  The chain needs to be tightened something fierce.

But the riding part was beautiful.  The weather was beautiful for me, 68 degrees and partly cloudy, definitely the sunniest weather yet.  The countryside is beautiful: lots of farmland, with a few new suburban developments beginning to pop up.  Cows, sheep, horses, ponies, goats, rabbits, purple yellow and white wild flowers.

After cutting my bike ride short I stopped off at the synagogue that the tourism office ladies recommended.  I wore a yamulka for the first time in my life.  I tried to get the guy taking my money there to take my picture so you could see the yamulka, but it barely showed up.  The inside of the synagogue was certainly beautiful.  However, I’m still not a fan of the orthodox form of any religion that would separate men from women and put the women in their own, lesser, section.  The lower area is reserved for men, while women must sit in the gallery above.

After seeing the synagogue I stopped off at the Volkspark, the “people’s park”, to read and enjoy the weather.  But then the weather got mean.  It got cold and started raining so I biked home.  Smith returned and we spent the remainder of the night going to the grocery store, cooking, and cleaning.