Bags not sticking my finger in this baby.
Summer solstice and it is one of those days that seem to shout joyously at you ´you´re overseas, friend, and it is bloody weird over here´. From the copious windmills to the orange furry top hats on the tram, it was a very dutch time indeed.
image: Greg E (CreativeCommons Attribution-Non-commercial-Sharealike licence)
Mum and I are staying with Brian, a family friend, resident in an outlying suburb of the ´Dam. Together we drive to Harlingen along the giant dyke the dutch forged over a decade in the 20's and 30's. It´s a huge wall of rock, bricks, sand and now motorway that turned what was once a bay into a lake. (The original plan was to fill most of the bay in, but after a few polders, the locals valued their new lake more than the land that could be claimed from it.) ´With typical Dutch romanticism, they named it Afsluitdijk, which means the closing dyke´ Brian drily quips . We stop at Harlingen, the port where it seems most of Holland is leaving for the freisan islands, riding bikes loaded with several months worth of camping supplies strapped to any possible surface
Oh the bikes in the Netherlands! I could rave for hours. H.G. Wells said, ´When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race´ I´m the same, so in the Netherlands I am optimistic to the point of absurdity.
Image: Gen Gibson (creative commons attribution licence)
On the return trip to Amsterdam I follow the thinnest of leads concerning a gig by an up and coming soul band and we end up in the dormant satellite town of Monickedam looking for what I assumed was a little festival… Besloten Feest. After asking some locals and receiving some skewed glances, someone finally cracks the code for me… it is not Besloten Feest, but a besloten feest – a private party - one I wasn´t invited to and had little chance of finding. Luckily I have a good plan b, which is going to the city centre to watch the…
1 comment:
Besloten feest!! haahaha! magic mate! That's as good as my attempt at orienting myself by "einbahnstrasse" (one-way street) on my first day in Germany! XD
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