Another fun packed weekend

Had a fantastic weekend with Rich, he arrived nice and early on Fri evening and got to meet all my work colleagues, I then took him to see the wonders of our canteen where we had a couple of snacks before hiring a bike for the weekend and wandering back home. We then went for a nice evening cycle ride and stopped off at our favourite place for dinner, Easie (a great noodle bar) and then stopped for beers at a crowded and old fashioned bar in the south of the centre.

Sat we took it easy, we went to the new observatory musuem, went for a mooch around the markets, had coffee in the bar above which Rutger Hauer was filmed in the movie Soldier of Orange. After this we went to Naturalis, a very impressive museum! Then we had friends over for dinner in the evening.

Sunday, I suggested a gentle bike ride to the beach, the sky was clear, the sun was shining! I thought it would take about 50min but it was actually a LOT further. We were actually heading to the Space Expo European Space Station museum but it took an hour and a quarter to get to Noordwijk centre just for us to find out it's not in Noordwijk centre but about another 20min away and by that point we were freezing to death, so we cycled another 15min to the beach, stopped for a coffee to warm up, and then took a look at the beach. Despite temperatures near freezing the beach was heaving! We were too cold after an hour and a half cycling to walk along the beach, so what did we do? Spent another hour and a half cycling home! So instead of my original plan (50min cycling, 2hours in the museum, 50min cycling back) we ended up going for a 3hour cycle ride only stopping for 10min for a coffee! Whoops, I felt really guilty. Not only that but the sunshine didn't last, it was cloudy and freezing all the way home, not to mention windy! Oh well, nice to get some fresh air! We did have a really nice late lunch when we got back to Leiden and at least we made the most of the railway bike rental for Rich!