September 2024

9/11/24

 I’m back!

That is, in The Netherlands after spending the summer in Minnesota. For the last three weeks of the school year I neglected to write, partly because of workload and partly because I wanted to get started with summer already! So you can once again expect updates from me this year, but in a new format…

Since this newsletter has so many (well, relatively… it’s about 30) subscribers, I’ll be moving from emails to a blog-style website (insert url here or smth) 

I arrived back to Amsterdam at 12:00 on September 1st, and in classic Schiphol-efficiency, I was on the train to Middelburg by 12:35. I met my new roommate, Alex from Bulgaria, later that afternoon. He’d already been in Middelburg for two weeks and enjoys life here a lot. (as I’ve previously mentioned there are a lot of Bulgarians here, mostly studying in Civil Engineering and Chemistry) Like my previous housemate, he studies computer science and enjoys late nights. Fine by me, he’s a nice guy and keeps the place clean, what more could I ask for? We shared a big pot of pasta that night and ate it all, probably a sign of things to come this year. 

For the new quarter, I have some great classes: Statistics, Climate Change Physics and Effects, Advanced GIS, Vision Design Development, and Climate-Proof Spatial Design. The last two are a seminar/project on Schouwen Duiveland, the next region north of Middelburg. We’ll focus on the typical Dutch issues: salty soils, over-tourism, land subsidence, and excess of nitrogen. So it’ll be a fun start to the year!

The first week back has to go down as one of the busiest I’ve ever had, and I finished it with a weekend trip to Brugge, Belgium to meet my relatives Dick and Mary Graves. They were on a river cruise and the timing worked out perfectly for me to come and see them for a couple of days. So I loaded up my bike and booked a campsite near the city. It’s a two-hour ride southwest from Middelburg, so I was able to travel straight there on Friday afternoon, including a short sprint to the ferry in Vlissingen. Though the city has just 120,000 residents, there are more than 9 million visitors each year, myself now among them. 

I was staying at a classic Euro-caravan campground, full of middle-aged German folks in town for the weekend. I was one of a handful of bikers there, sleeping in a 25-ish year old tent which I’d inherited from my dad. It’s built to last, there were two thunderstorms on my second night and I was just fine. Hopefully my neighbors were too– a Dutch teacher and psychoanalyst and a German sailor from Hamburg, on a tour of Flanders together. That’s my favorite part of bike-touring, the characters that I meet. 

Suffice to say I was wined and dined for those 36 hours. Seeing family outside of Minnesota is strange, but easy to get used to! I became an honorary member of their group, so I joined their city walk and river cruise. And of course we saw one of just four Michaelangelo sculptures that reside outside of Italy, the Madonna and Child. Now I’ve never been to Brugge during the summer months, but I really don’t get the tourist-overload feeling that I do in Amsterdam. For me, it’s the true “Venice of the North”.  

Considering how close this great city is to Middelburg, I need to get down there more often. I have a particular bakery on the north side of town that I like to call my favorite– their cinnamon buns are to die for! For reference, the line was eight people out the door at 7:00 AM, and these people were already buying croissants and baguettes like Frenchmen. 

On Sunday morning I hurried back to Middelburg; to see the beautiful sunrise in the countryside, dry out my stuff, and visit the Koorkerk congregation for the first time in weeks. It was a damp and chilly ride, but I handily made it back to Middelburg by 10:00. All the old folks were grateful to see that de Amerikaanse student had returned for the year. 

I had a nice birthday-excursion on September 9th to celebrate 20 years of bumbling across the Earth. For a couple of my classes, we traveled by bus to Schouwen-Duiveland, the next island to the north, to investigate sustainability and design problems there. We met with Farmer Huub, who grows potatoes and onions, the municipal director of Spatial Planning in Burgh-Haamstede, and some rangers from the Oosterschelde Nationaalpark. Traveling by rented bike, as per HZ tradition. The school even paid for our ice cream at the end of the day, how kind of them to think of such things. (the emotional impact of this after a long day is not to be understated!)

I’ve been getting more scientific about my shopping lately, hunting for the best prices, as we students like to do. So I’ve been investigating Aldi, and the other day while I was there I saw quite the scene. A man was shopping with his little son, and I watched as the elder told his kid: “Oke Pieter, go get the cheese!” (translated from Dutch of course) and of course the little guy selects the largest piece they sell from the case, 2.2 pounds of gouda. That made my day! 

For the coming weeks, I’ll continue to settle in. The goal is to break up my routine a little: go to Lidl instead of Albert Heijn for groceries, start with Dutch courses in Vlissingen, and join some community forums on the American election. I’m glad to see the locals are concerned for my homeland, and very Dutch of them to hold an open debate about this–it’ll be interesting! Have a fine week and stay tuned for more updates on my many adventures.

Regards, Aaron