Bikes, Sailing, Music - What a Week!

This week as we rode up and around and through North Holland we've been doing things we've never done before, “going places we have never been, seeing places we may never see again” (thanks, Willie). We’ve enjoyed bicycling through towns, villages, countryside and seashore while negotiating the challenges of riding in a pack. We've totaled 140+ miles. 

And also we've been sailing on a 157 foot three-masted barquentine. Yesterday we spent the morning on our big beautiful ship helping hoist the eight sails. It took 7 people for each sail, and it was quite unlike anything we’d done before! What a thrill to be under sail in such a powerful vessel.

And this morning, after cycling eighteen or so miles along the coast of the Ijsselmeer (pronunciation anyone?) from Hoorn (a historic & charming harbor town), through the village of Edam (cheese!), to Volendam (another harbor town but today overrun by tourists at the beginning of this holiday weekend), we loaded our bicycles onto the ship for the last time and began our journey on water back to Amsterdam.

And we've been playing music on ukuleles. As I pedaled along each day I loved the frequent experience of hearing melodic whistling coming up behind me & then singing along with Ralph to “Four Strong Winds,” “Le Mer,” “Les Bicyclettes de Belsize,””King of the Road,” or other theme-related ukulele songs we’d practiced earlier. It made the miles so enjoyable. 

We are all looking forward to more ukulele tonight. On this trip, Ralph Shaw is all about strumming - using ukulele as a rhythm instrument and varying how it is strummed. He’s touched on trailing (basic clawhammer), slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, finger-picking arpeggios, accents on various beats, rolls, reggae, Bo Diddley strums, etc. all in the context of playable songs - not that I'm even close to being able to do all that! It’s been fun to learn more about ukulele. And play in a group. On a boat. With new friends. After riding bikes. Through the Netherlands!