Trainspotting

On my way to the airport I stumbled upon the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Haarlem central station. For the occasion they pulled some historic trains out and had people in 1890's clothes walking the platforms.


The movie is a 1920's 'Blokkendoos' EMU with a 1200 series at the end.




Old machines rock.

The Skies over Holland

The skies over Holland are an ancient favourite of painters, photographers and cloud-staring hippies. And, with reason. I have to admit that, even though I hate the place to my guts, there isn't a single place in the world with more beautiful skies than Holland. The Dutch (or 'Hollandish' would be the adjective here) skies seem higher, larger and with more depth.

Some nice examples:

Kenaustraat


Raaks construction site (former Vestestraat pictured)


Sunset from my window


Sunset over Raaks terrain


Kleverlaan, rainy afternoon


KPN Tower from KPN Lake


Sunset over the former Ripperda cavalry barracks


Another sunset from my window, somewhere in '06


Sunrise from my window


Early evening 7/8 from my window

Sloterdijk Blues

It's a liveless place, with office buildings both empty and occupied, it's always windy there. No one stays. They just pass.

Sloterdijk is a part on the west edge of Amsterdam. It's where my office is. It's too clean to be logically considered a part of the Netherlands, let alone Amsterdam.

At night it becomes really quiet - the only thing you hear are the trains from the Sloterdijk station, a pretty large transfer hub that turns from a busy commuter station into an empty playground for all kinds of shady folk after 7pm. I never have problems though - I look like one of them, apart from the laptop case :-)

The mumbling in strange dialects is only rarely disturbed by the occasional over-caffeinated accountancy trainee rushing to the platform.

If the train on the viaduct tells me one thing, it must be "...gettin' my ass outta here..."