The best secret of Utrecht University

The campus of Utrecht University is a world of concrete. Even the two builings Rem Koolhaas designed cannot change the gloomy atmosphere of the place. The Uithof sports a variety of buildings, ranging from a library (I call it the borg cube):


the Educatorium


to the almost Soviet-style student dorms



I must admit that the campus has its unique surroundings, namely the sheep and cows that are on the grasslands inbetween the buildings. You might say those farm animals give it a typical Dutch atmosphere.

Let me get to the point of the story. The Uithof has a secret which is undiscovered by most students and I always wonder why. After this post it won't be a secret anymore, but hey, someone's gotta spread the word.

Next to the Campus lie the Botanical Gardens; a quiet, heavenly sanctuary of nature in the midst of concrete and highways. As a student you can visit it for free, and whenever I go there it's always very quiet. Whenever I am studying at the campus all day, knowing that there's an option to escape from it all only a few meters away makes me feel at ease. I am not going to put more words into describing the garden, the pictures will speak for themselves. The pics are made with my iPhone, so the quality isn't breathtaking.

Bachelor Thesis: Update 2

May 15th

I woke up at 7, opened the curtains and stared into a grey, misty sky. Perfect weather to sit inside! I made myself a power breakfast first: one banana, one mango, some blueberries, soymilk and oatmeal for a great tasting smoothie that provides fast energy (carbs) and slower energy (proteins). I boarded the train to The Hague at 8:30 and enjoyed myself by NOT looking outside (a mild drizzle and grey sky make the whole world look dull), but reading my Rough Guide to London. That was a gift from Misha, with whom I’ll be visiting London in July to see our friend Milla (and the city, of course). It is so much fun to read a travel guide and I am already getting excited about all the cool things I’m going to see there. Misha, if you read this, I also want to go to Tate Britain, because besides the Turner works, I’d love to see their William Blake collection! I’ve been to London before, when I was 11 years old, and the city made a huge impression on me at the time. I was just beginning to understand the language and it was so much fun to absorb everything I heard, read and saw. I am wondering what I’ll think of the city now that I have mastered the language and saw more of the world. My favourite city at the moment is Toronto, so I wonder if London can compete. This is all majorly off topic, because I intend to give an update on my bachelor research, but as I am writing this I am waiting for my requested files. It takes about 20 minutes before your requested files are fetched. The archive is huge and there are of course more people that hand in their requests. Patience is a virtue the say, right?

My goals for today in the archive are: look through as many maps as possible, and write a first chapter in rough form (hopefully 500-1000 words).

The first four maps contained nothing spectacular, though I managed to accumulate some quotes I can throw in my writings. I’m already halfway through the list I’ve made, so I’m afraid I’m back to scrutinizing the indexes soon enough. I haven’t yet found something that hit the jackpot completely, and that really disappoints me. Surely, there should be plenty of governmental correspondence, reports, any good stuff about the Berlin crisis??

There are two directions I can take in my research. I can also involve reactions in the media on the Berlin crisis, which would surely give me enough material. I can also try to find more archive material in the direction of military/defence matters. That would be an original approach, though it will be a lot more manual labour (you gotta love scrutinizing those indexes!). I’m not sure yet what I’ll do.

Bachelor Thesis: Update 1

For my bachelor thesis I’m doing research on the position of the Dutch government and media in reaction to the building of the Berlin wall in 1961. The Berlin wall fascinates me, as it was the symbol of the classic Cold War division between the West and the East.


With my short trip to Berlin I wanted to ‘experience the history’: see the leftovers of the Wall, and see if there was a difference between East and West Berlin. It proved to be a bit of a disappointment, there was not much left of the Wall and the pieces were scattered all over the city. The Wall is now commercial; you can buy ‘real’ bits of it everywhere. Anyone who believes that crap do an IQ-test. If you would combine all the ‘real pieces’ of the Wall currently for sale, you can probably construct a wall of a length much longer than the original wall.



May, 1st
This morning I went to the National Archive in The Hague. I was very curious if my research would go smoothly. The part of the archive I need (pieces from the minister-council, contact between embassies etc) might not be accessible, because 1955-1964 was recently moved from the Ministry of State to this National Archive. And indeed, when I got there, the woman behind the info-desk told me that it was not accessible yet... A classmate of mine who was also doing research today told me the reason why this part of the archive was inaccessible: some high placed person has to sign some forms and then all will be fine. Bureaucracy!!!
The first two hours were spent with two women helping me to find out what to do now. At length, I could see some notes from the minister-council regarding the Berlin-crisis from August-September 1961. Not the result I was hoping for, but there’s nothing I can do about it at the moment. I worked through these notes for the next two hours and now I’m stuck.

May, 12th
Last Friday I received an email from the National Archive, with information about the section I have to consult. It is finally made public! So with 2 weeks delay, I’m now back in the archive and I just filed in my request to see a particular piece. The whole process is painstakingly slow. I just spent the first three hours solely searching through the index of this archive. The index is about 2,000 pages spread over two maps and I was scanning for the words: Germany, East Germany, Berlin, and Crisis. You can imagine that it takes hours to manually do that, especially since you don’t want to miss anything that might be of importance. Historic research will get easier in the future, when all archives are made digital, but until then it’s time consuming labour. While searching the index, I made a sheet with the numbers of the files that might be important on my laptop using Numbers (that’s the equivalent of Excel for Mac OS).
After searching through the first 3 boxes with paperwork from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I’m glad to be able to say that I found some information that’s worth reporting. My knowledge about the Berlin Crisis is very superficial, especially when it comes to the position of the Dutch government. It’s fun to explore what was going on in the government circles those days. I read correspondence going from the embassy in Berlin to The Hague, and reports about how to handle the crisis. Some of these reports held surprising insights for me, the anti-left sentiments where much more prominent than I had realised. Also, there was a general feeling that the Russians had ‘won’ Berlin. Information like this is very valuable for my thesis.


I left the archive after some 6 hours. It’s not really a place you want to hang out longer than necessary; the archive is packed with retired folks doing research on their family history. Some old people even look at you with a face that betrays surprise, like ‘what are you doing here?’ Well, there are still people who like to study history. I’ll update my research status as I progress. Tomorrow I’ll spend the morning in the university library looking through old newspapers ;)

Spring, I'm loving it

My favorite season is without a doubt: Spring, when Gaia comes to live. The air is filled with a scent of blossom, new leaves and freshness. There are colours everywhere, the forests are turning green again. It fills my heart with joy!
I wish I was a poet, so I could describe it more eloquently. However, under the motto 'a picture can say more than a thousand words', I'll just post some pictures I made. All the pictures are taken in Arkel, my hometown.

PS: you can click on the photo's to see them at large.

Die arme voetjes

Oh oh, wat heb ik me toch weer op de hals gehaald, denk ik nu! Ik heb me opgegeven voor de Dam Tot Dam loop (19 september, wie komt me aanmoedigen?) en dat is 10 mijl (16,1 km). Net heb ik m'n eerste serieuze training erop zitten en wat doen de voetjes pijn!

Het probleem zit hem niet in mijn conditie, maar in de benen. Op een gegeven moment is de pap op en willen ze niet meer. De laatste kilometer zag ik er denk ik uit als een zielig persoon die voor het eerst was gaan hardlopen, sjongejonge. Het mooie is wel dat ik 1,5 uur hardgelopen heb en dus al een flinke stap in de training heb gezet. Ik zat zo tegen die afstand aan te hikken, maar nu heb ik zo'n 13 km gelopen gok ik. Mooi was het ook, eerst een gedeelte door de bossen, dan een groot gedeelte langs de pasgemaaide weilanden en fort Vechten.

Het lijkt me een mooi project voor de zomer om te trainen voor deze afstand (op tijd), met behulp van een schema, hardslagmeter en nieuwe schoenen.

De nieuwe schoenen zijn inmiddels ook gekocht! Ik heb ervoor gekozen om samen met Christiaan naar de Run2Day te gaan. Daar hebben we persoonlijk advies gekregen. We kregen allebei eerst een neutrale schoen aan en moesten wat heen en weer rennen door de winkel terwijl we opgenomen werden met een camera. Het meisje dat ons hielp analyseerde onze ren-stijl en liet ons daarna bijpassende schoenen aanproberen. Christiaan kon gewoon een neutrale schoen pakken, maar ikzelf liep wat naar binnen toe (over-pronatie). Ik kreeg dus schoenen die de binnenkant van de voet extra steun geven. We renden weer rondjes door de winkel en ook nog een klein rondje buiten. In mijn schoenen zitten ook nog zooltjes, want anders zaten ze te los. Je betaalt wel flink voor schoenen bij de Run2Day; Christiaan was 140 eetjes kwijt en ik 120. We zagen net op internet dat je die schoenen voor $80 kon kopen in de VS. Volgende keer gaan we dus met een creditcard die dingen bestellen, scheelt toch wat doekoes.