You'll probably want to read this first line twice to make sure you understand it correctly:

The Giro D'Italia is coming to The Netherlands.

I'll wait while you read it again.

That is correct, the Italian equivalent of the Tour De France, has 3 legs of the race not in Italy, but in fact in three Dutch cities: Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Middelburg. Why you may ask? Because the Dutch love bike riding, and they love big bike tours like the Giro. Italians know this so they did us a solid this year and threw us three dates from their race.

The nice part, especially if you're at all curious about this world famous race, is that we can enjoy Italy's big event with the lovely Dutch countryside as a backdrop. A funny mesh of Europe North and South.

Quoting the details direct from their website:

1 08/05 Amsterdam - Amsterdam 8.4 km
2 09/05 Amsterdam - Utrecht 209 km
3 10/05 Amsterdam - Middelburg 209 km

This should get you on your way when it comes to making plans of what town to be in at the beginning of next week. I'll make sure to be out there at least one of the days with my video camera, and share that action with you right here on trippist.

It's a boy! News out of the Artis Zoo is that a baby Madril monkey was born last weekend. His name is Yaro (son in Swahili) and he is doing well along with his mother (Ndoki). According to officials everything went fine and the two are enjoying themselves in the new Monkey Shelter area of the zoo.

The Winter Olympics have begun over in Vancouver, and as a nation that loves its speedskating and other assorted winter sports, a lot of eyes are on the games right now.

While browsing around the web for more details about the Dutch athletes competing in Vancouver, I came across a little web project called "The Holland Heineken House". No they're not paying me to mention them, but taking a closer look I noticed this place is an actual house in Vancouver where the Dutch olympic team is staying or at least checking in regularly. In addition, they're rocking a twitter feed, a flickr photo stream, a youtube channel, facebook page; all the essentials so that we back here in the Netherlands can watch, read, and listen to what happens with team Holland.

Currently the games have barely started and the site is having some trouble with their international (english) page. But if you click on the regular house page you'll see the cute design and an array of features from everything going over there.

In cooperation with the University of Amsterdam, Leiden, and Wageningen, a new Center for Biodiversity (NCB Naturalis) was launched last week. As part of the Netherlands Year of Biodiversity, the center will focus on preserving and furthering research into the Netherlands' collection of natural history; in other words, the nation's part within the earth's biodiversity.

Along with the Netherlands, 168 countries are now participating in this initiative since 1992. Their collection consists of around 37 million objects, making it the 5th largest in the world. These objects include geological, zoological, and plant collections. Still expected to join these collections are insects from the University of Wageningen, and fish from the University of Amsterdam.

The goal of the center, which is now part of the National Museum of Natural History is for both national and international researchers to be able to make use of its content. A large part of its information will therefore be available online to both researchers as well as the general public. However, that part isn't available yet, nor is an english translation on their website.

Artis zoo in the winter is a funny place. Especially as the cold weather sets in and unexpected visitors stop by. Word from the bird people this week is that a rare Great Bittern appeared and is hanging around for the first time in the history of Artis. The bird's natural habitat are wetlands and its considered a rare bird in the Netherlands.

Besides the Bittern, Artis has lots of interesting birds who hang around even in winter. Here's a little video from feeding time:

I'm a fan of the Lloyd Hotel, the spacious and unique hotel housed in a former migrant hotel in the Eastern Dock area of Amsterdam. Why? Because it has history, character, and every room is extremely different, which includes cost! Useful for all levels of traveler, even those of us who don't have much money but seek something interesting.

So perhaps because I like them, or perhaps because they are a major creative force in this city, I was very interested in the news that the owners of the Lloyd Hotel (Otto Nan and Suzanne Oxenaar) are going to be opening another hotel in the center of the city.

It will be called the Exchange Hotel and it will be housed in a historical building ride on the main street of Amsterdam, the Damrak. Like its sister-hotel, the Exchange will feature rooms from 1 star to 5 stars, each to be designed in its own unique style. A total of 63 rooms in total, it is hard to imagine that this place will not be fun to visit and stay at.

According to their press release, the Exchange Hotel will be ready next year and will feature an all-day breakfast spot called Stock, as well as a shop that will feature items you cannot find anywhere else.... which brings up all kinds of visions in my head.

Stay tuned.

For those of you heading out of Amsterdam sometime in the near future, it's good to be aware of some changes taking place with the security procedures at Schiphol.

Recently the Schiphol Group announced that they would purchase 60 new body scanners for use on flights from Amsterdam to the United States.

The scanners cost 150,000 euros (216,000 dollars) apiece and will be seen in the coming months.

Make sure to allow even more time if you're flying out of Schiphol to the U.S., as security procedures can now stretch into several hours.

I got a few calls about a small flashmob which took place in Amsterdam over the weekend. Then I did some research and found out there were several over the weekend, as part of a sort-of-silent campaign to promote Holland's tap water and raise awareness about the environmental impact of plastic water bottles. Scanning YouTube for some good flashmob footage, I found the best video and the largest group got together and boogied out in the center of Haarlem. I can't resist a well carried out and massive flashmob, and they did a great job, check it out:

The first big snowfall of the season in Amsterdam is sometimes the ONLY big snowfall of the season, which means many people take the time to play in it, observe it, and yes - photograph it.

While there are lots of good places to look for public photos of snow scenes from this latest bout of snow in the Netherlands, I thought I would recommend the photos from the I Amsterdam group on facebook. Here are a few from that collection:

They're still a long way from flying a commercial airliner on only biofuel, but this week KLM did fly a commercial jet with some biofuel. Out of the 4 engines of the 747 in question, 1 was powered by a 50% biofuel mix.

With a handful of government officials, industry representatives and environmental organization leaders, the plane circled the Netherlands. KLM's CEO Peter Hartman was on board and told the press he was pleased to be taking the first steps to switching commercial flights to biofuels, but that the future of biofuels for air transport depended on finding suppliers that could handle the needs of such a large airline.

As we approach 2010, we're now just a little closer to the day where when you board a plane on your way to or from the Netherlands, your trip will be made possible by fuel made from plants. But, not yet.