Vlieg van de meisjes

In the Netherlands, many people ride bikes. Almost every street has special designated areas for bikes. One of the interesting things I've noticed is how the dutch ride, especially the girls. The majority of dutch girls ride high on their bike, so that their feet can't reach the ground. Therefore, when they come to a stop they must hop down off the seat to balance properly. At rush hour it is quite common to come to a red light, and find a number of girls, with one foot on the ground, and one foot on a pedal, standing, waiting for a green light. Then when the light turns green they start pushing with their foot, a few times even, before they jump up onto their seat and start peddling. I always think that it reminds me of a flock of birds trying to take off. They need to take a few steps before they can get enough speed to get airborne.
Anyways, this is the kind of thing I notice and spend my time thinking about. Maybe I need a hobby.

Day 270: Hoek van Holland

Today was a beautiful day, so I went to the beach. The closest beach to Rotterdam is at Hoek van Holland a small town on the Atlantic Ocean about 25km from Rotterdam. The town is at the end of the Nieuwe Waterweg, which is the main shipping route into the Port of Rotterdam. It's a good place to watch all the huge ocean cargo ships coming in. The beach side which faces out to the ocean is very nice. The sand is soft and fine. I imagine on a hot summer day it is a very nice plae to relax.

Future plans

So... I have exactly three months left before my work visa expires, and I go back to Canada permanently or not. Therefore I have to figure out what there is I have left that I absolutely must do.
There are many places left in the Netherlands I would like to see. I want to visit the north; Groningen and maybe the Frisian Islands, to the east to visit Arnhem and Nijmegan; to the south to see Maastricht; and finally to Zeeland. So, many places left to visit. Also, there are still museums in Rotterdam and Amsterdam I would like to visit. I would like to go to a Feyenoord game. Not because I have an overwhelming love of football, but mostly because it´s something I would like to say that I´ve done.
Also, I´m planning on going travelling my last month in Europe. I´m thinking of a tour across northern Europe. I´d like to see the places where my ancestors came from. That means I´d like to visit the Åland Islands in Finland, the Dalarna region of Sweden, the Hedmark region of Norway and finally southern Ireland around Cork. There´s some other places i´ll probably stop by too. Helsinki and Oulu in Finland to visit friends. Stockholm, Oslo and Dublin just because it´s nice to see capital cities. I still have lots of planning to do, but I´m very excited about the prospect.
Do I have the time left to accomplish all these goals? And try and find anther job in Holland, or back in Canada?
Any of my loyal readers want to join me on any of these trips? It´s always more fun to travel with friends.

Rotterdamse Museumnacht

Last Saturday was the Rotterdam museum night. 44 museums, art galleries, schools, etc., opened up their doors to put on special exhibitions. For 12 euros we could get into all of the exhibitions from 8:00PM until 2:00AM when everything closed down. I can't quite remember how many places i visited, but it must have been 6-8. Many of the places were small exhibitions that took only 15min to visit. An example of one place that I visited, was the Goethe Institute. Usually it is a german language school. But on this day it had an exhibition of German art from Bohemia, which is now the Czech Republic. Until WWII, there was a thriving German population living in the Czech Republic. There were other interesting exhibitions like this one. Still more museums i'd like to visit in Rotterdam though...

Carnaval!

On the second last of February i went to the province of Limburg to visit my friend and celebrate Carnaval. Carnval is a catholic celebration that goes back centuries, and is generally held in the five days before Ash Wedensday when the 40 days of fasting begins. It is celebrated all over the world, most famously in Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. In the Netherlands it is traditionally celebrated below the rivers, ie: the south of the country. These are the the traditional catholic parts of the country.
The whole idea of carnaval seems to be five days of drinking lots of beer, dressing up in costumes, having parades and listening to 'Carnaval' music. Here are some examples of the music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw5HmEjSyM4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-apSZWqzY&feature=related
The music is interesting at first... but then it just gets worse as the evening goes on.
overall, I had a really great time, and I hope to do it again.

Day 242: How the Dutch handle the water

Back in June I met a man through CouchSurfing. We got to talking about the Netherlands, and he asked me what I thought of when I thought of the country. So, I mentioned cheese, clogs, windmills, unilever, etc...
"No, no" he interrupted, "the best representation of the Netherlands is the way we handle the water."
He started talking about the Delta Works, Haringvliet and Maeslantkering. It sounded very interesting to me, and he offered to take me for a visit to one of these representations of the Netherlands at some point. So, this weekend we finally had our chance to go visit Maeslantkering, and I could see what could possibly make him so excited.
Maeslantkering is the last of the Delta Works, a series of projects launched after the great flood of 1953 in which almost 2000 Dutch people died. It was left to the last, because all the other water ways could be shut off by simpler dams, while the Nieuwe Waterweg is the approach to the Port of Rotterdam, where one ship every seven minutes passes through. To shut it off, or replace it with a series of locks would be very damaging to the Dutch economy. So, in the late 1980s the Dutch government asked for bids to create a wall that could be moved across the mouth of the Nieuwe Waterweg in the event of a storm surge. It also had to be built without restricting traffic on the river. The Maeslantkering was the winning bid.
It is really an impressive stucture. On each side of the river is a huge joint, about 10m in diameter. The joint is sunk into a huge pocket of concrete, so that it can resist large pressure put against it. The joint is much like a shoulder joint. It can move up and down, and side to side. Connected to the joints are large steel arms, each one the size of the Eiffel tower, and twice as heavy. The arms couldn't be made in one piece, but had to be brought in in pieces and welded together. Each weld took over 100 hours and 100 layers to finish. They are also each coated in paint in the amount that could fit in half of an olympic swimming pool. The arms were covered in white paint, so that in the sun the steel wouldn't expand as much. If they had used black paint the steel had the potential to expand the diamater of each tube by half a metre. With the white paint it is only around 9cm. On the end of each arm is a large curved wall. The curved wall is 22m tall and 210m long. At the end of each wall, next to the river is a locomotive, which is used to move the wall out into the river. Once the wall is moved out into the river, there is still space between the bottom, and the riverbed. This creates a really fast current which sweeps all the sediment out of the way, exposing the concrete blocks on the bottom of the river. The wall then sinks down.
The structure is completely computerized. The wall will only move on the say so of the computer, and that will only happen when the sea level rises more than 3m. Not at 2.99m, only at 3m. When it was built it was expected that, aside from a yearly test, the wall would only have to be closed once every 7 years, and in the future with rising sea levels, once every 5 years. Since it's completion in 1997, the wall has only been closed once because of rising sea levels. Unfortunately, when I asked, they wouldn't close it so that I could see what it looked like closed...

International Film Festival of Rotterdam

The last week and a half of January, I worked as a volunteer at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam(IFFR). I was a 'zaalwacht', in other words, I stood at the door, ripped tickets and handed out rating cards, and at the end of the movie I helped clean up the zaal(theatre). I worked at the Luxor which is usually used for theatre productions, musicals, that kind of thing. It was only the one theatre with room for 750 people. I had a really good time. I got to see a lot of movies, and got to work with interesting people.
I saw about 17 movies over 10 days. Some of them were quite good, and others, well, I would like the hour and a half of my life I spent watching the movie back.
Here's some of the best movies I saw:

Troubled Water (Norway) 5/5
This was probably the best movie I saw. It told the story of a young man, just released from prison. He had been sent there while still a teenager for murder of a young boy. Something he still claims was an accident. In prison he has become an excellent organ player. On the outside he finds a job at a church as the organ player. Soon, he is an important member of the church; falling in love with the priest, making friends with her son, having his own place to live again. But trouble starts to happen when the mother of the young boy who died comes across him one day...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948544/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7I3hFBtOFQ

Maman est chez le coiffeur (Canada) 5/5
The 2nd best movie I saw was about a young girl and her family over the course of their summer vacation. It is the summer where she discovers that the lives of adults and those around her aren't as perfect as she thought. She helps her mother discover that her father is having an affair, which results in her mother leaving home. How will the rest of the summer go?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1153111/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRmpXuXWgtg
Also check out two of the songs from the movie, which are sung by one of the actors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUGFcqGBPtg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NrT14CGWMY&feature=related

The Chaser (Korea) 4/5
This was a really cool Korean film. About an ex-cop who owns an escort service. One night he realises that his escorts, that he thought were running away, in fact all disappeared after visiting the same man. He sets out to find the escort he had just sent to this man. Unfortunately he doesn't know where he lives... There begins a night of chases through the street, fights which explode into a great climax the next day. A very good thriller.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190539/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkqczsLZd1I

Wrong Rosary (Turkey) 4/5
This is a movie about a young muezzezin who has just moved to Istabul to work in a mosque. He meets two people, one an older man who owns an antique book shop and a young catholic woman who is looking after the old nun who lives next door. He begins to fall in love with her. There's also a connection between the old man and the woman. Both men have to make confessions to her, will they do it?
I actually saw the world premiere of this movie. The director and all the actors were there.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1366981/

Bronson (UK) 4/5
This is a true story about the longest serving prisoner in the UK. Charlie Bronson has been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of them in solitary confinement. He has never killed or fatally wounded anyone. However, he's pubslished 9 books on topics ranging from poetry to personal fitness. It's a very interesting story!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172570/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLvVXYwVj-o

La frontiere de l'aube (France) 4/5
This movie follows a young man through two relationships. The first one with an actress, things alternate back anf forth between them, he leaves her, she goes insane and kills herself. Then he's with a new girl, things are going good, she gets pregnant, they're going to get married, than his old girlfriend starts haunting him through his mirror. What will he do?
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=la+frontiere+de+l%27aube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZgsWh7QSxY

La memoire des anges (Canada) 3/5
This isn't your regular kind of movie. To make this movie, the director went to the National Film Board of Canada, and went looking through all their old films that somehow touched on the city of Montreal. Then he took all the old stock film, amd made it into a movie about the city. There's no real characters aside from the city itself.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286825/

Jerichow (Germany) 4/5
This movie is about three people. A German man just out of the army, and a couple a german woman married to a Turkish man. The Turkish man owns a chain of snack bars, and hires the german man to work for him. Then the German man starts having an affair with his wife...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1224153/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANPf4TmPB9E

Gomorra (Italy) 3/5
A movie with many different plot lines about life in Naples under the mafia. One tells the story of how the mafia is diggin holes all around Naples to dispose of dangerous chemicals. Another looks at two young boys who want to do things independently.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929425/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk8KeeZcQYc

Delta (Hungary) 3/5
This movie tells the story of a young man who movies back to his home village on the Danube Delta. He decideds to build his own house out on the river, away from everybody else. his sister moves out with him to help him out. But, is their relationship getting too close? The townspeople certainly think so...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910860/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E422dgatB10

Everybody dies but me (Russia) 3/5
This Russian movie is about three teenage girls preparing for a disco at their school. Things start out good, with them promising to be friends forever, but as different pressures build up, as boys come between them, things start to break apart. A really depressing movie, but also quite realistic I think. The filmmakes were not afraid of showing real life.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1227189/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXjEb7JzbBg

Tokyo Sonata (Japan) 3/5
Tells the story of a man laid off from his job, but he decides to keep it from his family. He then meets people doing the same thing. Meanwhile, back home his family is starting to fall apart. It was a good movie, but way too long.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0938341/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSKDeTVDEIU

Kan door huid heen (Netherlands) 2/5
This movie is about a woman who is assaultd in her home by the pizza deliveryman. It alters her life dramatically. She ends up moving to Zeeland and trying to renovate her own home with the help of the neighbours. A really weird movie. Can't say I recommend it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132593/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jomMVK2skw0

Tony Manero (Chile) 1/5
Weirdest movie ever. About a man living in Chile during the Pinochet regime. He has an obsession with the movie Saturday Night Fever. He takes it to some extremes...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1223975/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCpNw609V8

Parque Via (Mexico) 0/5
Most boring movie ever. It's about a man who's been living in a mansion from 10 years, looking after it, while it waits to be sold. Then, one day it is sold. What will he do? He's now accustomed to living on his own, and has trouble being in large crowds. Apparetnly it's mostly a true story. And the man who it's based on, actually plays himself. it is extremely slow movie. Here he is mowing the lawn... now he's brushing his teeth... now he's preparing something to eat... now he's sleeping... and repeat. The only highlight of the movie was when his girlfriend visits him, and she asks him: 'Do you think my legs are beautiful?' He replies 'I don't care about legs... They're the first things I push out of the way.'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183942/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPz9EhipfWI