Update from the Netherlands

Dear Fulfordians, you haven't heard of me for a while now. It is because I was on holiday most of the time, the last month and before that I was finishing my bachelor thesis.
Anyway, I had a great summer so far. First I went to the Cevennes, in France, where I had a training week with my team mates. It was great, we had splendid weather and we laughed so much that the muscles most trained after that week were my stumach muscles. After that I took the train to Brescia, in Italy. It took quite some time to get there. First my three team mates dropped me off in Lyon at the train station (the wrong one, but it did not really matter) and there I took the train (with my bicycle in a giant bag), first to Lyon Part Dieu and after that the bus to Turin, and there I waited more than an hour for the train to Milan, where at last I caught the train to Brescia. That's near Lago d'Idro, where Sterre was staying with her family. She and her father picked me up, and I spent a week swimming, cycling and relaxing in general, while Sterre was working on her bachelor thesis...
After a week in Northern Italy I went back to France, which was even more of an Odysee because the sole-Italian-speaking staff of the Brescia train station did not know the French town I wanted to travel to. I had planned my journey on the website of the Deutsche Bahn (the german train company) and I knew for certain that there indeed was a train connection between Brescia and Salon-de-provence, where I wanted to go. I went a day early to Brescia to make sure that I had a ticket for the next morning. I had to explain in my best Italian that I wanted to go to Salon, but according to the Assistenza man this was not possible because the town was not in his book of French railwaystations (only the main ones were in there). I tried to explain that if he would just go on the internet that he would find how I had to travel, but even though he understood me (hurray for my Italian!) he wouldn't do it. So I asked for a ticket to Chambéry, which was possible.
The next day I left for Milan Central station and my journey began with a €25,- fine, because I had forgotten to date my ticket... I got a long speech in Italian from the conductor, ending with a perfectly understandible and well pronounced twenty-five euro. I had no chance for clemency, so I paid right away and decided not to bother about it.
I bought a ticket to Salon-de-provence, without any trouble in Chambéry and arrived there after eleven hours of train, car and bus travel. In de the Provence I had a five day race, but the level was slightly to high for me, and the climbs to steep for me (with my height and weight I am considered a heavy weight in cycling, and that's not good for climbing). In the fourth stage I had to give up, but I had a wonderful time anyway.
Last sunday I had a race in Denmark, the Fyen Rundt, together with some professional riders. I did quite well, I finished in the bunch.
But yesterday I had my finest hour (quite literally). Yesterday the national time trial championships were held and I had qualified and so I went to Zaltbommel, where it was taking place. I had to ride a distance of 44.7 kilometres and I had set a time of 59 minutes for myself, quite ambitious because there was a strong wind and I had never before ridden so fast. The first kilometres of the race I already noticed that I was in good shape, so I tried to ride a higher pace, which I could. In the end the whole time trial took me 57 minutes and 51 seconds, which put me in 12th place. Which means that I am the number 12 time trial cyclist in the Netherlands! I was really happy with this, you can imagine.
Now for the rest of the summer I'll be working a bit and cycling of course and in the first week of september classes will start again. And somewhere in mid-September Dave will visit Holland! So we'll meet up, and I'm looking forward to that.
How has your summer been so far?