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.

Recensies

Recentelijk nieuwe recensies:

Calliso - Providence
The Last Resort - You'll Never Take Us
Gwyllion - The Edge Of All I Know
Seiphian - Ambassadors of Morning
Wolves In The Throne Room - Black Cascade
Fear Falls Burning - The Carnival of Ourselves

Binnenkort:

• Sin Of Kain - The End


• Nebelhexe - Dead Waters


• Drudkh - Microcosmos

Wolves In The Throne Room zal ik ook gaan interviewen per telefoon. Voor iemand met telefoonangst een best grote stap, maar ik ga het wel doen.

Berlin Part II

This is Part II of my experiences in Berlin with my friend Heleen. The first part can be read here. Part I stopped at the point where Heleen and I were at the Philharmonie, hoping to score tickets for the Cello Concert.


I went up to the cashier and asked (in my best German) if there were still tickets for the concert. It was all sold out! I felt despair, but when we stepped back I had an idea. Whenever a concert is sold out, there are always last-minute tickets left, from people who decide not to come and cancel their reservations! I was pondering for a few minutes how the hell I was going to ask that in German, but went back to the woman and asked. She replied that they also sell Stehplatzen one hour before each concert that is sold out. In my head I was screaming at her "why didn't you say so immediately!", but I politely replied "ok, danke schön". We both really wanted to go for this concert and decided to come back at 6 pm, way in advance so we could be sure of a ticket. The Stehplatzen are only 10 euros, so we would be cheap off and we didn't mind standing.

It was 2 pm now, so we decided to sit near the Kulturforum to eat our lunch. The Kulturforum is a cluster of museums we had to skip completely because of our lack of time. I wanted to visit the Staatsbibliothek that was also close by, but it would be too much of a hassle to look inside. You had to hand in your coat, purse, and be screened. No thanks! We decided to go to the park Tiergarten instead. We both needed a little bit of quiet and nature. The park is quite big and has a very nice Rose Garden.


Almost no one was there, except for a few lonely book-readers. We decided to do the same and I retreated with The Karamazov Brothers on a bench. I felt so relaxed however, that within a few minutes my eyes closed and before I knew it I was sleeping! That is certainly not because of the book, because I love Dostoevsky! Heleen was also reading so she just let me sleep for a bit. After some 30-odd minutes I was back in the land of the living and we moved on again.


We left the tranquillity of the park in amazement; why did so few people hang out here? It's an oasis of quiet in a very busy city. We biked to Gendarmenmarkt, which is the most impressive square according to the Rough Guide to Germany. We secured our bikes against a tree and walked on the square, it is quite big indeed. I was distracted at once though, because I heard the most beautiful saxophone playing ever! An older man was playing My Way, from Frank Sinatra in a way that gave me goosebumps. Perfect tone, perfect dynamics and vibrato. I walked closer and just stood listening. I normally never give money to street musicians ('cause most of them suck), but after he finished the song I walked up to him and gave some money. I told him "das war wunderschön!" and then he promptly answered "Ich weiss", and I couldn't help laughing.


We walked up to the Dom and took a look inside. The Komische Oper is also a very nice looking building, but it was closed. We decided to walk around a little and we really wanted to see a bookshop. We finally found one, packed with second hand books. I'm a Bismarck fan and found some really cheap books about him, but I didn't buy them. My backpack was already full and I wanted to travel back home light. It was almost 5:30 pm so we biked back to the Philharmonie. We stood in line, making puzzles for 45 minutes. We managed to score tickets for the concert though, so we were super happy!

We had a quick dinner at Subway, me likey! It's about the only fastfood place where vegas can eat a little decently. I love the honey-oat bread! Heleen was dressed nicely (wearing nice jeans and a neat cardigan) but I entered the concerthall in my baggy pants. Everybody was dressed up! Oh well, the poor students are standing anyway...


The concerthall is so nice, completely different setup than the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The stage is way down and the seats are all the way around it, ascending all the way to the roof. Our standing places were almost all the way up and in the back. The orchestra entered and started warming up and tuning. I love watching the pro's, but we were too far off to really distinguish the faces. They first played a single Dvorak piece, Die Mittagshexe op. 108. I didn't know it but enjoyed it immensely. This orchestra really mastered all the dynamics, from fortissimo to ultimate pianissimo. Too bad that in the pianissimo parts people were coughing; that sort of breaks the atmosphere. After this piece, the cellist Steven Isserlis entered the stage. I don't know him, but expected nothing than awesomeness from him! The first notes of the famous cello concert resounded through the venue (important solo for the clarinet!) and I stood transfixed. Goosebumps everywhere. The sound of this orchestra is so amazing! The cellist was waiting for his turn and when it almost came, he raised his bow and tilted his head upwards. The release came and the low sounds of the cello filled the hall. Tears flowed down my face, because this was reaching perfection. The tone, the emotion, the whole composition defies description! Heleen later said she had goosebumps all the time and enjoyed it immensely. After 40 minutes of sneak peak in heaven, the cello concert ended with a blast. Time for a break. We both praised the cellist, who in my opinion did a very good job. I also liked the way he expressed himself, it was very dramatic but not TOO dramatic.


After the break we managed to score some seats very close to the stage and watched the orchestra from close-by. I enjoyed to see the clarinet players in action. The symphonie they played was unknown to me: Symphonie Nr. 4 by Bohuslav Martinu. After the concert we biked to the hostel, tired but happy.

Sunday 19 April
This night was horrible. The three Italians arrived at 11:30 when we just went to bed and they all snored. I did not sleep at all! They left at 4:30 and made a lot of noise doing so. The downside of sleeping in hostels....I listened to the same Empyrium album over and over, the only way I could evade the snoring sounds. At 5:30 am I gave up and stayed awake until we had to get out at 6:30 am. We took a shower and had a hasty breakfast. We asked the guy from the hostel where we would have a good chance of catching a ride to Hannover and he advised us to travel to the suburbs near the [115] highway. Our only transport costs for this trip were: 1,30 for a subway ticket! We stood waiting for one hour, the longest time during our whole trip. At last, a German couple took us to Magdeburg, with 190 km/h (118 mph) in their luxurious Audi. That was fast! There we made our only hitchhiking-mistake of the trip. We accepted a ride offered to us by two Hungarian guys. They drove a BMW, but looked shabby. Plus we couldn't understand them! They might as well be criminals and we didn't enjoy the 1 hour ride they gave us. I was holding the map on my lap all the time, tracking where we went. They dropped us off at the gasstation I asked them to, so all was well. We learned from this though: if it doesn't feel right, don't get in.
After this ride we had a good score with a direct trip back to the Netherlands. I didn't like this ride though, because I got very tired and the people we were driving with were Jesus-freaks playing Jesus-music in their car ALL THE TIME. I was too grumpy to talk to them, but thankfully Heleen (who managed to sleep in our last night) did the talking so I could be the grumpy biatch. I was very happy to get out and be back in NL. Our last ride was with a Turkish (though Dutch) couple. We had a very cool chat with them; the woman was very nice! We had one of those talks about cultural differences, but in a very friendly and inquiring way. The woman also told us she finally got pregnant with IVF treatment, and I really enjoyed having such a connected feeling and open conversation with someone that I didn't know and also is from 'another culture', so to say. They dropped us off at Utrecht University (our second home, haha!). From there on, it was only a short bus-ride back to our bikes!

Conclusion: Hitchhiking RULES
All in all, hitchhiking is something I can really recommend. Don't believe the horror stories other people are telling you! If you don't trust someone, don't get in the car. Open up your positive energy and you can end up having very nice conversations with people you don't know (like we had with the Turkish woman) and even connecting with them. For me, this hitchhiking trip proved that there are so many awesome people out there, willing to take strangers in their car. I found one thing particularly funny. Most of the people that took us, never took hitchhikers before. Maybe they liked the fact that we were female (= harmless?), but when we got in and talked about hitchhiking (which happened in all occasions except with the Hungarians) they were asking us: 'isn't it dangerous? aren't you afraid that you will meet dangerous people?'. I didn't reply to them that I thought that if it was so dangerous to go hitchhiking, then why would they not be dangerous since they were taking us with them? There's this whole mystification about hitchhiking that it's so dangerous, only because a few horror stories are circling around in the world. But life itself is dangerous. Hell, you can trip and fall from your stairs and be dead. You can get stabbed on the street. I don't want my life to be ruled by fear, and the hitchhiking proved to me that it's not scary or dangerous at all if you do it sensibly. I spent 50 euros on a weekend in Berlin, and that's mainly because generous people made it possible that I only had to spent 1,30 on transportation costs from my home in Utrecht to this awesome German city!


Heleen hitchhiking