Grocery shopping (by bicycle) in the Netherlands | Week 18 2024 

The US might have us beat in the selection of junk food. But being a big trade hub for the world, we do have options from all over the world.

By feeding it weekly, I assume that means it was alcoholic? The one I make isn't alcoholic, it's just ginger, sugar, optional lemon and some sparkling water. We didn't end up making it this week, because we didn't have the time. And since I haven't made it in years, and I'm using sweetener instead of sugar now, I'll have to experiment a bit before doing it in a video.

We didn’t make anything with it. Just enjoyed the “show”

It's been a while since I made it, too. So I'll just experiment a bit, with different sweeteners.

Technically, none of the trees are native, they have all been planted. Because where I live quite literally didn't exist until the 50's/60's. I live in Flevoland, the island right in the center of The Netherlands when you look at a map, and it's the largest artificial island in the world, by quite a margin. First, they dammed off the bay, seperating it from the sea and turning it into a freshwater lake. And then they built a series of dikes and levees to drain part of that lake and create new land. But yeah, there are no trees here older than about 60 years. And no, my bike wasn't knocked over by a car. It was leaning against one of the bike racks. Someone must've bumped into it when trying to put their own bike away. Since I had the basket with all the things from the market still on the front, it was quite front-heavy, so easy to topple over. Pretty much all supermarkets are part of a chain here. The biggest by far is Albert Heijn, which I hardly ever go to because it's the most expensive one in my area. Number two is Jumbo, which I also don't go to very often, just because they don't have a lot of sales. In third place we have Plus, which is the supermarket you see me go to every week, at the end. Then come Lidle (probably the store I go to most after Plus), Aldi, and some smaller chains like Dekamarkt, Vomar, Boni, Dirk. I'm definitely noticing the prices going up, especially produce. I don't know if it's general price increases, or (hopefully) just because we are in between seasons, but I've noticed that my spending on produce has almost doubled lately.

A bit chilly, but quite nice. A nice break after all the rain we've had

@@PaulvanGulik unfortunately we have had loads of rain here too. The last few days have been nice and sunny but temperatures are not great. 🇮🇪

What part of the world are you from? Winters are quite mild here. We get way more rain than we do snow.

@@PaulvanGulik I am from Eire☘️☘️ (Ireland) . This winter was very mild. Little or no snow. Usually if we get a colder winter then we will get drier and higher temperatures this time of year.

Not that far away then, in the grand scheme of thing. I hear it's beautiful there.