2008-Jun-30 - Cycling in another part of the country
Castricum is a small place in the north of Holland. Like in our surroundings there is no arable farming either here. There are cattle farmers here and sheep farms. The sea is close by and a line of dunes serve as a natural protection against the North Sea. Between the dunes and the village is woodland.
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2008-Jun-10 - Utrecht University
Here you see the university building and the Dom Church on the right and the Domtower on the left.
Utrecht University (Universiteit Utrecht in Dutch) is a university in Utrecht, The Netherlands. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe. . It was established March 26, 1636,
The university's motto is "Sol Iustitiae Illustra Nos", which means "Sun of Justice, shine upon us"
Utrecht University is firmly founded on tradition. The University, which recently celebrated its 365th anniversary, has developed into one of Europe's largest and most prominent institutes of research and education. With 14 faculties, and 70 degree courses, which are attended by more than 20.000 students, Utrecht University offers a wider range of subjects than any other university in the Netherlands.
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2008-Jun-2 - Summer in the park.
Walking in our little park I met an ex- pupil of mine. She must have been 6 or 7 when I was teaching, Of course I didn't recognize her, but she told me who she was and we had a nice chat. She told me that the park and the pond are going to disappear to make place for a car park. It's a shame and I am very sorry that every thing has to be replaced by ugliness.
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2008-May-24 - A bicycle ride in the polder
Today I made a bicycle ride in the surroundings of my village.The weather was warm and we enjoyed this ride very much. I took these photos, but I don't know the names of some flowers and birds. I hope somebody can help me!
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2008-May-5 - Then came fair May...
The weather is fine, sunny and therefore I decided to go for a bicycle ride and take my camera. There was lots of white cow parsley and yellow rape or colza.
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2008-May-2 - Leny's Lime Tree
On the 4th of May we commemorate the victims of WWII. On the 5th of May we celebrate our Liberation Day to commemorate the fact that the Nazis were defeated, the occupation was over and that we could start rebuilding our bombed cities. But then the survivors of the destruction camps came back and the horrible facts became known to those who never had a clou of what had been going on.
This is about a woman who lived in Bathmen, where my sister now lives. Her name is Leny Polak and she was born in 1919. Her father David and his brother Jacob had a drapery and a furniture shop. THey were neighbours and lived happily in Bathmen, where they were members of a drama group for which they wrote plays and played roles in them. They were respected citizens of this village and socially involved in all kind of matters concerning the village. They knew everybody and everybody knew them. Life was good to them.
In front of the house of Leny's uncle was a lime tree, which stood there before Leny was born and which is still there. This tree was very important to Leny. She confided her dreams to it and often played under its branches.
Leny grew up and became a teacher at the local elementary school. She taught needlework, sewing and knitting.
At that time there were all kind of rumours about the behaviour of the Nazis in Germany towards the Jewish people. The cruelties they had to put up with and the humiliations became known to the Dutch, but everybody thought that this couldn't happen in our country. But.....
The Netherlands were invaded on 14th May 1940 by Germany and already
in July 1940 the first of a series of anti Jewish measures was taken: Jews were not allowed to be a member of the Civil Defence. On 22 November 1940 Jewish teachers and civil servants were dismissed., Leny was one of them.In the begin of 1941 the Jews were forced to register and from 3rd May 1942 they were obliged to wear the yellow Star of David. On 10th April the little group of Jewish people in Bathmen were transferred to the Dutch concentration camp Vught. Leny and her husband Hartog de Leeuw were tranferred to Auschwitz where Hartog died. When the Russians were approaching Auschwitz the prisoners had to leave for Ravensbrück It was a long walk to the railroad and those who were too slow or too tired were shot. Leny did her utmost to keep in pace with the rest .For three days and nights they walked. When they reached the railroad they had to climb in an open freight train. There was no place to sit: they all stood squeezed together. They were hungry and the thurst was unbearable. They tried to eat icicles from the train. Leny had to face more hardships and when she finally got back in the Netherlands she found some relatives in Goor. During all that time she had thought of the lime tree, which was now a symbol of freedom, of comfort. So she went to Bathmen and was glad to learn that her old friend had survived like herself. From that time on the tree was called Leny's Lime Tree. There is a small plate on the tree with Leny's name on it.She is the only survivor of the whole family.
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2008-Apr-30 - Today's celebration.
From left to right: The crown prince Willem Alexander, his wife princess Maxima, the Queen, her sister,princess Margriet,
The weather was not so bad, though the sun didn't show herself. Anyway it didn't rain. My neighbours were all flyng the flag. I couldn't for I haven't got a standard to put the flagpole in.The flag is red, white and blue. The orange banner is added when a member of the House of Orange is having a birthday. The Queen visited two small towns in the north of the Netherlands, in Friesland.
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2008-Apr-29 - Koninginnedag
A stall at the Vondelpark in Amsterdam
Typical koninginnedag-humour in Amsterdam; the sign says 'overthrow the royal house', referring to the pictures of the royal family on the pile of boxes one can throw balls at.
Koninginnedag in Amsterdam, 2005Queen's Day (Dutch: Koninginnedag) is a celebration in the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba on April 30 (or April 29th if the 30th is a Sunday[1]). Originally a celebration of the queen's birthday, it is now mainly known for the 'vrijmarkt' (literally 'freemarket'), the one day in the year that anyone is allowed to sell anything in the streets and 'koninginnenacht' (Queen's Night) on the preceding night. It is also a Dutch holiday.
It started as a celebration of the birthday of Queen Wilhelmina (1880-1962), on August 31. After 1948 Koninginnedag moved to April 30 (the birthday of Queen Juliana). When Queen Beatrix succeeded Juliana on jan 30, 1980, she decided to keep the holiday on April 30th as a tribute to her mother. Furthermore, the weather on her own birthday (January 31st) tends to prohibit the traditional outdoor festivities. April 30th, however, is renowned for having very pleasant weather.
During the reign of Queen Juliana, and the Queen would welcome people who came to the Soestdijk Palace. The Queen and her family would stand on a dais, and a long line of citizens would walk past, congratulating her and presenting her gifts. These days, Queen Beatrix visits one or two towns where she is shown traditional Dutch dances and demonstrations of old crafts.
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2008-Apr-9 - The wettest place in the Netherlands
These windmills were water mills and had to pump the water from the polder into the canal. Now an electric pump does the job and keeps the polder dry. During the war however there was no electricity and then the mills were used in their original capacity. Other Dutch windmills were used for, among other things, corn or paper industry.
One of you was saying that I should work for the tourist industry. If any of you wants to come to Holland I'd love to be your guide.BTW all these mills are now protected by Unesco and are on the list of World Heritage Sites, and they are lived in..
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2008-Apr-8 - The Windmills of my Mind
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Origin of the name
The name Kinderdijk is Dutch for "Child's Dike". In 1421 during the Saint Elizabeth flood of 1421, the Grote Hollandse Waard flooded, but the Alblasserwaard polder stayed unflooded. It is said that when the terrible storm had subsided, someone went on to the dike between these two areas, to see what could be saved. He saw in the distance a wooden cradle floating. There was no hope that anything would be living in it, but when it approached, movement was seen. When the cradle came nearer, someone saw that a cat was in the cradle trying to keep it in balance by jumping back and forth so that no water could come into it. When the cradle eventually came near the dike, someone fished the cradle out and saw that in it a baby slept quiet and dry. In some of the stories the cat kept it balanced and afloat. This folktale and legend has been published as "The Cat and the Cradle" in English (Meder 2007; Griffis, 1918).
History
In the Netherlands, the drainage system is an important matter. The Dutch need a well developed water control system in order to keep large areas from being flooded, because some parts of the Netherlands are below sea level.
In Alblasserwaard, problems with water became more and more apparent in the 13th century. Large canals, called 'weteringen', were dug to get rid of the excess water in the polders. However, the drained soil started setting, while the level of the river rose due to the river's sand deposits. After a few centuries, an additional way to keep the polders dry was required.
It was decided to build a series of windmills, with a limited capacity to bridge water level differences, but just able to pump water into a reservoir at an intermediate level between the soil in the polder and the river; the reservoir could be pumped out into the river by other windmills whenever the river level was low enough; the river level has both seasonal and tidal variations.
Full control over the water level was never achieved. Throughout the centuries, the residents of the western part of the Netherlands suffered inundations, especially because of dyke ruptures; this is reflected the legend of the floating cradle at Kinderdijk ..
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2008-Mar-30 - Rotterdam, second largest town of the Netherlands..
The White House
Rotterdam had the tallest building in Europe until 1923. The “Het Witte Huis” (The White House) was built in 1898 in American style, designed by architect W. Molenbroek. This 43-meter high building was built at a time when tall buildings like this were not a common sight; that’s why its architecture looks like an oversized house. “Het Witte Huis” stands out in the Rotterdam landscape. It is one of the few buildings that survived the bombardment in May 1940.
The Schielandhuis, which is now a museum, also survived the war.
One of the major attractions in the Rotterdam architecture are the Cubic Houses, built in 1984 by Piet Biom. These are 39 cube-shaped dwellings which are still inhabited. If you’re curious to know how one can live in a house like this, you can visit one of them! Near the cubic houses there is the Rotterdam library, which also stands out for its pyramid-like shape: eight diminishing floors with yellow tubes around the building.
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2008-Mar-3 - A Walk in Bathmen in the north-east of the Netherlands.
I stayed with my sister in Bathmen a couple of days and we walked every day. There is a lot of arable and dairy farming here, while where we live, there is only dairy farming and a lot of sheep. Here in Bathmen there's also woodland, and it's not as wet as where I live.
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2008-Feb-12 - Walk in the winter polder.
When the weather is fine I sometimes go for a walk, but never alone! I don't like that.So on Saturday the 9th of February I went with a friend for a walk in the polders and I took my camera with me and took a couple of photos. We saw the usual waterbirds like ducks, moorhens, swans but also herons and partridges. There were some lovely houses and farms. as well.After our two hours walk we had a cup of coffee in a nice little café in the polder. It was too cold to sit outside, but inside it was nice and warm and the coffee was hot and sweet. We looked at the photos and I decided to keep them all . Sometimes I delete half of them,but they looked okay
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2008-Feb-8 - The flat, wet country...
The country where I grew up is Indonesia.It is so different from the Netherlands. In Indonesia there were mountains, volcanoes, sawas( flooded rice fields ), kalis ( brown rivers containing crocs), coconut palms and bamboo. We lived in beautiful spacious houses, but then the war broke out and we had to give up everything, all our possessions and we were interned in Japanese concentration camps for 2 1/2 years. After the war we went to our homeland the Netherlands.No greater contrast was possible! Here were no mountains at all; more than half the country is as flat as a pancake, and wet, terribly wet! Here are also rivers but no crocs. There are flooded areas as well especially in winter, but they are beyond the dikes. There are fields separated from each other by ditches filled with water. And then of course the greatest difference is the climate with four seasons. Here are oak trees, birches, beeches and willows.
This afternoon I cycled to a neighbouring village to visit one of my friends of the Women for Peace group. She lives in a brandnew block of flats on the 13 th floor and has a magnificent view of the polders, which are so characteristic of this part of the Netherlands that is called Holland. I took some photos on my way to her house and from the balcony of her house
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2008-Feb-6 - Dutch Architecture, an Avant-Garde Home from 1933
The Sonneveld House.
Every time I come here for a visit I enjoy walking through the spacious rooms of this extraordinary fine building, built in the year that I was born, in 1933. I have been here three times, but I'd like to go another time. .Van der Vlugt designed The Sonneveld House. It's on the list of Dutch Historic Monuments and its present owner has put its management in the hands of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, who wants to present The Sonneveld House to the public as a museum home. The whole house has been furnished as it was on the day of completion in 1933.It contains many of the original pieces of steel tubular furniture.
Visitors get information by listening to a tape. There is a special programme for children, who get a small case with things they can use during the tour through the house.
On the ground floor there are the hall, the study of the two daughters of the family, the bedrooms and bathroom of the domestic staff, the garage and the laundry.
On the first floor there are the library, the livingroom, the gardenroom, the diningroom, the pantry and the kitchen.
The second floor contains the bedrooms of the daughters and their bathroom between them, the bedroom, bathroom and dressingroom of the parents.Here is also the guestroom and the stairs to the roof garden.
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2008-Feb-2 - The most beautiful building of The Netherlands...
The townhall of Middelburg.
You can compare it to the townhall in Gouda built at the same time as the Middelburg townhall.
Last year we had an interesting competion here in the Netherlands. It was all about choosing the most beautiful building in our country. I don't know how many people entered the contest but there were a lot of people who preferred old architecture.
The building that looks like a container ship.
On the other hand many contestants gave preference to the modern buildings. There was the townhall of Middelburg, an example of the old school and built in 1452, and a modern building which looked like a containership and was called at the same time the most beautiful building by some, and the ugliest one by most people. See for yourself!
The winner, however, was a very stunning interesting building, which didn't look like the right-angled structures of the past time. It was not boring like those blocks of flats, built right after the war.It was the office of the gas-works in Groningen. When I saw its picture I couldn't but think of the Spanish architect Gaudi.
The winner, the office of the gas-works.
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2008-Feb-1 - The result of fireworks
On New Year's Eve we had a very frightening night, because the houses of the neighbours of a friend of ours were on fire, due to fireworks. I wrote about it a month ago. Well these photos show us what it looked like. The people living in both houses lost everything they had on the top floor. The assurances are still discussing to whom, when and what they have to pay for.Nothing has been done yet. It's a shame!
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2008-Jan-31 - Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
On 30 April 1980, Beatrix became Queen of the Netherlands when her mother abdicated. She approaches her role as queen with more formality than Queen Juliana, and many admire her professionalism. While the monarchy remains popular, in recent years some members of the Dutch media have openly criticized the royal family. Journalists have also published "tabloid" stories, similar to the stories that have covered the British House of Windsor for decades. Some Dutch subjects view the monarchy as an ongoing "soap opera," rather than an institution that plays an important role in Dutch society. As a result, Beatrix's current challenge is to keep the Dutch monarchy modern, efficient, and most of all, in tune with the wishes of the Dutch people.
Queen Beatrix is celebrating her 70 th birthday today together with her younger sister Margriet( Margret ) who was 65 on 19 th January.
Beatrix is the third ruling queen of our country. We haven't had a king since 1880.Beatrix is doing well. She has a good reputation and is a good ambassador for the country.
As I say she is more like an ambassador and someone who supports our country. At a time when we demonstrated against the arms race, she was asked, while on a visit in the USA, if she was'nt sick and tired of the Dutch population. She said that we were concerned about the enormous amount of weapons and the continuous threat of an imminent war, they caused. She actually tried to convince the person who asked the question, that we were right to demonstrate for a reduction of arms. She is one of us.
She is a symbol of a united country, which would collapse if we were a republic with a president. Presidents change every fourth year and they represent a political party, which the queen doesn't.
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