The Netherlands Trip: Part One
Starting things off, I'm off the planes quicker than I imagined, so I get to type this while I wait for my train. Schiphol Airport is like a small city, this place actually has buildings with their own roofs and everything about the hand railings, and lighting made to look like street lamps gives the impression that whoever designed this wanted to make an outdoor train station / shopping mall that would also hold out the rain.
Obviously some things here have already struck me as odd, like the giant hanging banner declaring a set of benches to be a "Meeting Point," Like saying, by the arrivals, or by the Burger King wasn't good enough. All you have to say now is, "I'll see you at the meeting point." And this is understood. Moving on, the number of smashedtogetherwords that are borrowed from English, like creditcard, which will probably be canonized by the MLA in a few years. And my train ticked which gives me a special discount because I'm a Weekendretour which we just assume is short for, I'm going to return on the weekend. So this is more like smashing English 'weekend' and French 'retourner' into one word. Things only seem to be getting stranger from here. But it's all strange in a fun, non-threatening way, I'm just chuckling to myself saying, "I'm here, this is what the Netherlands are like."
Now some horrible noise is pumping through the plaza, it sounds like a train stuck in neutral, maybe it's a friendly reminder that trains are about to depart. But no one seems to notice it, so I'll just pretend like I know what it means too. On second thought I think they start this sound around ten thirty (it's been going on for twenty minutes now) and keep it playing all night to make it absolutely impossible to fall asleep in the terminal. As droning as this noise it, it's about as relaxing as flushing bags of gravel. Maybe the speakers are just broken and they're supposed to be announcing train departures.
So, about the trip here... I love the Havash service in Istanbul. For about seven dollars (10 Lira) I took the metro to Taksim and hopped onto a very posh bus that drove me right to the international departures. This beats 40 lira in a hot, smelly cab any day. While waiting for the bus to take off in Taksim I saw a façade being done for a new pub, "TaXimus." I only assume they're playing on "Maximus" trying to inspire some whirling aura of Russell Crow and all things maXimum and eXtreme. But soon the bus was moving and I was bouncing along the familiar route I took in February, when I last flew from Istanbul, that time to Cyprus. Only this time I was doing it in the daylight and Istanbul is in full bloom. Around the mosques were green trees, making the domes and minarets appear to float above the lush foliage. As usual the bus passed through the old aqueduct, once used to carry water, now conveniently divides traffic lanes.
The terrible noise belching through the plaza just stopped. I feel somehow let down now that I can hear footsteps and people talking. It's now eleven, perhaps it's just some kind of half hour test of the PA, (gotta make sure they can really grate and annoy!)
More about the flight, Zürich is a beautiful city, it was just gorgeous to land there. Fields of some yellow flower, and stands of trees that weren't leveled to make way for more apartment buildings and strip malls. It's like the entire city was landscaped by a giant who liked those Lionelle model train villages. Swiss airlines is great fun too! They have good cheese and cucumber sandwiches and all announcements come in English, French, and German making half the flight seem to be announcements. Oh, and they give you chocolate!
My train leaves in fifteen minutes now. I just downed an largesoftdrink so I think I'm goodtogo for another few hours. We'll see how National Windmill Day goes tomorrow, and maybe I'll get fitted for some wooden clogs!
On the train. I love the sound of a quiet train, I'm sharing this car with one other person, it makes me a bit nervous, hoping I picked the right train to hop, but it seems to have all the markings and appearance of a Sneltrein and left from the right platform at the right hour to be the one I want. Now I'm rocking back and forth as the train plows into the night. When I landed at Schiphol every building seemed have it's own personal lake, there is even a body of water right before the tarmac that reflects the image of the landing planes.
From the air, this section of Amsterdam seems to consist of oil refineries and warehouses, built up from the water on little interconnected islands. Everything seems to be a string of islands more than it seems land interspersed with water. The water make the necessary borders. To plug one of my favorite electronic artists this train ride reminds me of Chessie's album, 'Overnight.' It's a cool double LP that I didn't really get from my train travel in America, but here with more track switches and in general more textures and noises added to the rocking motion of the train, while I can enjoy it in silence... it's quite a rhythmic experience.
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone is going to collect the tickets. I'm sitting in one of the first cars, but every thing about this experience has made it seem this train is running itself, right down to arriving and leaving right as the second hand reaches twelve. Yes, everything except prior experience and reason.
And now something is coming over the intercom in what I can only assume is Dutch. Having never been exposed to the language in such a closed environment I can only say it makes me think of German being pronounced like French. We're stopped again, Leiden Centraal, tonight's destination is slightly less than half an hour down the tracks. This is incredible exposure to The Netherlands. Arriving in the middle of the night and navigating through a world that seems populated only by a janitorial staff, late night food places, and a few quiet travelers wearily turning newspapers lets me sit back and look at the environment that will (presumably) be crowded in a few hours. The trains run on time, Burger King doesn't have extra large drinks, there was a duty free store selling tulip bulbs that was still open at 10:15 PM. How's this for first impressions?
So, it's now 9:22 AM the following day. (wait, 8:22 local time, I'm still running on Istanbul time) After being picked up and driven back to my friends' home we stayed up talking nearly until dawn. It's amazing how much three people can find to speak about with each other. Holland doesn't have very much space, houses are all built touching, circling their entire block. The cool upshot of this is everyone has a back yard that seems nice and secluded from traffic noise. Their house dates back from the nineteen-thirties which is a bit of a rarity as much of the region was bombed to rubble in the second world war. And just down the street from us there is an old windmill we will be going to tour in about an hour. I hopped an open wireless network that I found to post this update. Lots of pictures coming in the next!
Obviously some things here have already struck me as odd, like the giant hanging banner declaring a set of benches to be a "Meeting Point," Like saying, by the arrivals, or by the Burger King wasn't good enough. All you have to say now is, "I'll see you at the meeting point." And this is understood. Moving on, the number of smashedtogetherwords that are borrowed from English, like creditcard, which will probably be canonized by the MLA in a few years. And my train ticked which gives me a special discount because I'm a Weekendretour which we just assume is short for, I'm going to return on the weekend. So this is more like smashing English 'weekend' and French 'retourner' into one word. Things only seem to be getting stranger from here. But it's all strange in a fun, non-threatening way, I'm just chuckling to myself saying, "I'm here, this is what the Netherlands are like."
Now some horrible noise is pumping through the plaza, it sounds like a train stuck in neutral, maybe it's a friendly reminder that trains are about to depart. But no one seems to notice it, so I'll just pretend like I know what it means too. On second thought I think they start this sound around ten thirty (it's been going on for twenty minutes now) and keep it playing all night to make it absolutely impossible to fall asleep in the terminal. As droning as this noise it, it's about as relaxing as flushing bags of gravel. Maybe the speakers are just broken and they're supposed to be announcing train departures.
So, about the trip here... I love the Havash service in Istanbul. For about seven dollars (10 Lira) I took the metro to Taksim and hopped onto a very posh bus that drove me right to the international departures. This beats 40 lira in a hot, smelly cab any day. While waiting for the bus to take off in Taksim I saw a façade being done for a new pub, "TaXimus." I only assume they're playing on "Maximus" trying to inspire some whirling aura of Russell Crow and all things maXimum and eXtreme. But soon the bus was moving and I was bouncing along the familiar route I took in February, when I last flew from Istanbul, that time to Cyprus. Only this time I was doing it in the daylight and Istanbul is in full bloom. Around the mosques were green trees, making the domes and minarets appear to float above the lush foliage. As usual the bus passed through the old aqueduct, once used to carry water, now conveniently divides traffic lanes.
The terrible noise belching through the plaza just stopped. I feel somehow let down now that I can hear footsteps and people talking. It's now eleven, perhaps it's just some kind of half hour test of the PA, (gotta make sure they can really grate and annoy!)
More about the flight, Zürich is a beautiful city, it was just gorgeous to land there. Fields of some yellow flower, and stands of trees that weren't leveled to make way for more apartment buildings and strip malls. It's like the entire city was landscaped by a giant who liked those Lionelle model train villages. Swiss airlines is great fun too! They have good cheese and cucumber sandwiches and all announcements come in English, French, and German making half the flight seem to be announcements. Oh, and they give you chocolate!
My train leaves in fifteen minutes now. I just downed an largesoftdrink so I think I'm goodtogo for another few hours. We'll see how National Windmill Day goes tomorrow, and maybe I'll get fitted for some wooden clogs!
On the train. I love the sound of a quiet train, I'm sharing this car with one other person, it makes me a bit nervous, hoping I picked the right train to hop, but it seems to have all the markings and appearance of a Sneltrein and left from the right platform at the right hour to be the one I want. Now I'm rocking back and forth as the train plows into the night. When I landed at Schiphol every building seemed have it's own personal lake, there is even a body of water right before the tarmac that reflects the image of the landing planes.
From the air, this section of Amsterdam seems to consist of oil refineries and warehouses, built up from the water on little interconnected islands. Everything seems to be a string of islands more than it seems land interspersed with water. The water make the necessary borders. To plug one of my favorite electronic artists this train ride reminds me of Chessie's album, 'Overnight.' It's a cool double LP that I didn't really get from my train travel in America, but here with more track switches and in general more textures and noises added to the rocking motion of the train, while I can enjoy it in silence... it's quite a rhythmic experience.
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone is going to collect the tickets. I'm sitting in one of the first cars, but every thing about this experience has made it seem this train is running itself, right down to arriving and leaving right as the second hand reaches twelve. Yes, everything except prior experience and reason.
And now something is coming over the intercom in what I can only assume is Dutch. Having never been exposed to the language in such a closed environment I can only say it makes me think of German being pronounced like French. We're stopped again, Leiden Centraal, tonight's destination is slightly less than half an hour down the tracks. This is incredible exposure to The Netherlands. Arriving in the middle of the night and navigating through a world that seems populated only by a janitorial staff, late night food places, and a few quiet travelers wearily turning newspapers lets me sit back and look at the environment that will (presumably) be crowded in a few hours. The trains run on time, Burger King doesn't have extra large drinks, there was a duty free store selling tulip bulbs that was still open at 10:15 PM. How's this for first impressions?
So, it's now 9:22 AM the following day. (wait, 8:22 local time, I'm still running on Istanbul time) After being picked up and driven back to my friends' home we stayed up talking nearly until dawn. It's amazing how much three people can find to speak about with each other. Holland doesn't have very much space, houses are all built touching, circling their entire block. The cool upshot of this is everyone has a back yard that seems nice and secluded from traffic noise. Their house dates back from the nineteen-thirties which is a bit of a rarity as much of the region was bombed to rubble in the second world war. And just down the street from us there is an old windmill we will be going to tour in about an hour. I hopped an open wireless network that I found to post this update. Lots of pictures coming in the next!
posted by Alex Gray at 09:22
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