April 2024

 4/9/24

I’ve been fine, just busy!

Yes, it’s been a month now since the last update. I really do enjoy writing these but it’s not my first priority, which of course is school. Exams for the third quarter have just finished, and I've also endured a visit from my family. All among many other events which I’ll explore here. So buckle down for a long letter.

Well, like I said, my mom and grandparents were in Middelburg from March 21st to the 26th. So nice to see relatives again after three months! They rented a spacious apartment in the city center and I was very spoiled with baked goods and restaurants. I showed them around, from the storm-surge barriers on the coast to the old abbey complex. For me, the highlight was a trip to the pannenkoeken (giant Dutch pancakes!) house we made with my roommate Emil. Our schedules don’t often line up, but it was a cozy afternoon and we enjoyed excellent pancakes: pineapple and cheese was my favorite. 

I don’t usually (meaning never, ha!) eat out in Middelburg so it was a great opportunity for me to see some of these restaurants that I walk by each day from the inside and sample their finest dishes. My favorites are De Herberg, where we had supper with my good friend Thomas, and De Drvkkery, a combination bookstore and lunch spot. Two of my favorite things under one roof, and many thanks to my Grandpa Sheldon for the book “Butter” by Asako Yuzuki. 

I also had somebody to take pictures of me, so in the attachments you’ll at last see me in my natural habitat. (I have yet to master the art of the selfie) On Saturday I brought my visitors to Neeltje Jans island to see the storm surge barrier and the (in my opinion) tourist-trap museum there. It was complete with a 4-D experience on the Flood of 1953, which I suppose is how they scare Dutch kids off the dikes! 

This was a cold and windy day, especially out in the middle of the Eastern Scheldt. Understandably the waterpark was closed, what a shame. We still saw their captive seals and sea lions, which I felt bad for– they were in such small habitats! There were countless scale models and maps of the island, and this was all great but the flood museum in Zierikzee which I visited in February is way better. 

Another incident, which felt like something straight out of a movie, took place at our favorite coffee shop in the city center. We’d discovered it in August and of course I had gone back a few times, but not more than a handful of visits to the place. And would you believe it, the owner remembered my mom from our August visit, where we sat and who we sat with, and the few times that I’d been back there. We were amazed: who on earth has such a precise memory?

 

While this family visit was a great opportunity to take a break from schoolwork, it also fell right at the end of the quarter, one of my busiest times. I’m good at managing this sort of thing and I only had to play catch-up for a few days: and as of this writing, I’ve passed four out of five exams, still waiting to hear about GIS. 

Which, if you’re wondering, stands for Geographic Information Systems. I have a little bit of experience with similar software, albeit a free version. Of all my exams at the HZ, this is the one that I feared the most. I think everyone did: we had 90 minutes to create a map of our study area using only raw data. So elevation, soil type, land use, roads, dikes, landmarks, etc. Time will tell how this went, but I have a good feeling and faith in my ability to pull one out of the bag!

My stronger abilities lie in map-making: on these exams I scored 8.7 and 8.5, which I’ll happily take. I’d focused a lot on them, maybe too much: the feedback was that I’d gone too detailed in my analysis of Middelburg! I’ll attach some of my work, maybe in a separate email since it’s a big file. It’s not as professional looking as I’d like but it got the grade. After all, it’s only the first year, and there will be many, many opportunities to improve here. Everything is a learning experience. 

But enough about school, I do other things here too. My family was quite the attraction in the Koorkerk on Palm Sunday. All these old folks were glad to see that there’s people to look out for and worry about me– we were all invited out to Ter Hooge, the estate of my friends Maarten and Eva, for tea on Monday afternoon. Not your usual tourist experience, and a real treat. 

I was also out at Ter Hooge for Easter supper, again very generous of them to have me. On the menu: classic Dutch meat, potatoes, and vegetables. A good meal for a hungry student! It had been one of the nicest days of the year, and I’d spent most of it out wandering the nearest woods. Most trees have leafed out, and the clocks have been set forward so now the sun sets at 8:30. So it’s feeling like summer already here!

Likewise there has been plenty to do in the student gardens in Vlissingen. I mowed the lawn there with a classic push-mower and this brought out a wave of nostalgia in me. Smell is the sense most strongly attached to memory and it was the sun and fresh cut grass that brought me back to Saint Peter. The good thing is that there’s just 10 weeks until I head home for the summer.

Anyways, we’ve also been planting a lot of vegetables: arugula, green beans, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, kale, sweet corn, and winter squash so far. With my newfound free time in between classes I’ll be growing a lot of my own food this year, but that also means pulling a lot of weeds and doing a lot of watering. 

For the upcoming May holidays, I’ll have a week off, so I’ve been planning a trip to England by bike. It’s just 30 euros to cross the channel by ferry from Dunkirk or Calais, so why not? I think it’ll be much more interesting than Belgium, if not much more expensive too. I can get myself a student rail-pass and travel around the country, which like Holland is really small. Oxford, Canterbury, and Stratford-upon-Avon are all high on my list. 

That’s a summary of my recent life, though I’ll add that Emil and I have really enjoyed all the American oddities brought by my folks, from Fuyuns to JIF peanut butter to real hot sauce. In the end-of-quarter celebrations we had some chips and salsa from Albert Heijn, and I remarked that the salsa would make an excellent marinara sauce. Juan, the fellow spice enjoyer among the Water Management cadre, sadly nodded in agreement. Then we doctored the stuff with some of my imported hot sauce, which at least made it tolerable. International student problems!

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this update, and expect another one soon as I inevitably think of a half-dozen major events which weren’t covered here. There was a nice poem about the Dutch which we saw on Neeltje Jans island which I’ll close with: Hier gaan over het tij, de maan, de wind en wij. ("Here the tide is ruled by the moon, the wind and us").

Vrede en gezondheid/peace and health, 

Aaron

—

4/15/24

Good Morning, 

I’m in the middle of an infamous HZ-break week: we have eight weeks of classes followed by two weeks of rest, repeated four times over the school year. It sounds nice, but this schedule is bemoaned by students and professors alike. It often leads to the first week of classes followed by another break, though this provides an excellent opportunity for me to go to England. 

And I’ve planned a great itinerary for my six days: I’ll ride my bike on April 27th across Belgium and into France, to Dunkirk, and spend the night there. The next morning, I take the ferry to Dover, ride to Canterbury, one night there. I’ve got myself a four-day rail pass for all trains in England (Scotland and Wales are for next year!) so I’ll go to London, bum around for a couple hours, and take a four hour train up north to Keswick in the Lake District. Two days there, then back south for two nights in Oxford, and then one night somewhere in Kent. (I’m undecided) 

It’ll be a busy trip! Keswick, in the Lake District, seems to be a poor man’s Switzerland. There’s a bunkhouse with beds for £18 per night that has drawn me away from camping– odds are it will rain anyways. There are countless lakes and mountains for me to explore up there, and it appears that I’m visiting in the off-season too. 

So much to see and so little time, as always. In Oxford one of my goals is to sneak into a lecture hall in one of the colleges just to say that I studied at Oxford once. After all, I am a student, so what could go wrong? Another goal is to find a cozy pub and buy books; I’m reserving a bag on my bike for this sole purpose. 

But enough speculation. I’ve been up to no good in Middelburg as well. Last Saturday I cycled 53 miles to the Kop van Schouwen nature reserve north of here, known for its famous candy-cane lighthouse which once featured on the ƒ250 (guilders!) banknote, before The Netherlands switched to the Euro in 2006. Nearby is an excellent beach, and with the weather turning warmer I went for a swim. I got pretty sunburned on this outing, because all the clouds have caused me to underestimate the strength of the mid-April sun. 

That evening some fellow water managers and I staged a barbecue on a rooftop. The buildings, built especially for students, are shaped like the letters LUL. The architects knew what they were designinghere: the best translation from Dutch to English for this is “prick” or “wanker”. Regardless of hidden messages, the terrace has a great view of the city center if it’s not too windy. I brought the classics, potato salad, cantaloupe, and banana bread. I was surprised to see that Albert Heijn sells Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce, so Thomas and I introduced these uneducated Europeans to our American traditions. 

In anticipation of my trip, I went to get the brake pads on my bike replaced at Piet Voskamp’s bike world. Usually I’d do this myself but I have neither the correct tools nor a good place to do this, so I’ve been reduced to visiting the bike mechanic. And fixing bikes is big business in the country, as you might imagine: Voskamp’s takes up a huge canalfront building, complete with a showroom for the latest e-bikes and racers, walls and aisles full of parts, accessories, and clothing, and no fewer than four mechanics working around the clock on Middelburg’s ill and damaged bikes. I tell you all this without hyperbole, I was amazed when I walked through their doors. 

They don’t bother in storing your bike until there’s time to repair it, instead I made an appointment much like you would with a dentist. On April 24th I’ll bring my bike there in the morning, and retrieve it in the afternoon: everything is done the same-day! As a bike enthusiast, (fanatic?) to me this feels like the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

And that’s just half of my two-weeks’ break. I struggle to imagine how I’ll spend the second part. The weather is much colder this week, strong winds from the northwest and frequent squall lines coming off the sea. So inclement weather for cycling and gardening, better for researching my trip to England and reading. Until next time!

Pas op voor lenteregenbuien/Beware the spring rain showers, 

Aaron

—

4/22/24

One more update before the trip to England! 

I probably won’t have the time to write again for the next couple of weeks, so enjoy these spellbinding words in that time. I did some pre-packing on Saturday and everything should comfortably fit in my bike-bags, with extra room for books. (to bring back from Oxford!) 

“Preparation” for this trip mostly means scouring Google Maps for things to do and places to eat. For lodging, I’m staying four nights in hostels and three nights with Warmshowers-hosts. What’s that, you ask? A community that provides a place to sleep for cyclists! (and supposedly a warm shower, though depending on how I feel I’d want either cold or hot!) We bike enthusiasts are a strange bunch, and while these are strangers, they’re kind ones for opening their doors to a sweaty wreck at the end of a long day. 

The British Isles are notoriously expensive, though I plan to circumvent this as best I can: by seeing only the free sights and eating at hole-in-the-wall joints. Oxford will have plenty of these, what with all the hungry students. Keswick, while a tourist town, is home to an ancient stone-circle that I’d love to see. Not as impressive as Stonehenge, but just as advanced so I’ve read. 

I’ll be leaving on April 27th, which for the uninitiated is King’s Day in The Netherlands. A nationwide celebration of HRH Willem Alexander’s birthday, with music in the square, garage sales, beer, and a lot of orange clothing. In Middelburg the preparations are underway: Dutch flags hanging in the streets, stages under construction, and restaurants putting out extra seats. I’m not one to party, so I feel no regret at missing this celebration. 

Meanwhile, after eight months here I’ve finally found work. I found, via a student group chat, an artist’s collective in Vlissingen that was looking for a model, so now I’m paid €15 per hour to sit still and be drawn. I have to sit perfectly still in 20-minute intervals with 5-minute breaks for three hours. Better than washing dishes or stocking shelves! Free snacks and coffee sweeten the deal. They’re nice folks, these artists, and I’m told that I have a very difficult face to draw: “Je hebt een heel moeilijk gezicht om te tekenen, maar ook mooi!” Good practice for my language skills too. 

On Sunday I rode out to the dunes by the coast again to commune with nature, inadvertently preparing for my visit to the Lake District. The Zeeland-definition of “nature reserve” unfortunately includes beachside restaurants, roadlike paths, and a lot of cows and sheep. But I’ll take what I can get. I learned the hard way that they’ve got ticks here too, tiny ones smaller than a poppyseed. But a quick google search revealed there’s no need to fear Lyme disease. 

On Monday the 22nd, (Earth Day for those of you following along!) the final quarter of the year started. From here it’s seven weeks of classes, and then the summer break. In my Spatial Planning track, I only have to contend with three new courses: 

Water and Law, an investigation of Dutch and EU environmental suits, laws and their history. My most worrisome new study. 

Project Management, which will have something to do with teamwork and coordination if I’d have to guess. (we know very little about this course, but it’s mandatory for all first-years. Stay tuned for more information!)

Spatial Planning and Design I: The Local Scale, the class I’m looking forward to the most. We’ll be re-imagining the square around Vlissingen’s city hall and studying ways to make neighborhoods nicer to live in. As usual, a lot of maps and sketches. 

Meanwhile, in Aquatic Eco-Technology, the other track for Water Management, they’ve got six unique classes to follow in seven weeks! That’s overwhelming, especially for the end of the year. In my opinion, one can do better work focusing on a handful of classes than trying to manage a half-dozen. So I’m thankful again for my lifelong love of maps! 

It was unseasonably cold for late April here this week: only a few degrees above freezing and with frequent rain showers! This sort of weather occurs when the wind is out of the north or northwest, but that’s more typical for February than April. I stopped to talk to a lone gardener out in the countryside the other day, and she reckons that the farmers here are five or six weeks behind with planting. All the rain prevents them from working the fields, and with this cold weather nothing will grow anyways. 

Luckily the student garden has itself a cold-frame for sprouting seeds; I’ve been tending to these along with the usual weeding every few days. (it gives me an excuse to get out and about!) Recently I also had some English exams in Vlissingen, so in total I’ve spent at least a dozen hours in the garden this week despite the cold. 

It’s another can of worms as to why I still have to take English as a native speaker; but it’s not much trouble. I only went to the first class and made an agreement with the professor that I could skip them all and just do the exams. And they were pretty easy, about 8th-grade level in the US. I didn’t want to waste gardening time so I hurried through them: thus a 8.9 and a 7 out of 10 on the two, reading and listening. Should've studied more!

Thanks for reading, and get ready for some tales of the British Isles in the next update, probably without disaster. I will leave you with the secret to outstanding rice pudding, which I unlocked this week. It’s to use sticky rice and a lot of powdered milk, two things which I needed to use up in my pantry. And plenty of raisins and cinnamon to serve. Have a nice week! 

Treasure all the sunny moments/Koster alle zonnige momenten, 

Aaron