Utrecht in the center of Holland

The city of Utrecht is in the center of Holland, just about 20 km from Bilthoven, the village where I grew up (and 20 minutes by train from Soest where I am staying these five weeks). I lived in Utrecht for one year (1983) when I worked for an industrial design consultancy (before starting at Fokker Aircraft in 1984 and moved to the city center of Amsterdam to live for four years). Today I purchased two tickets for the Tina Turner Musical to bring my sister Han there on Nov 13. The theater is right next to the Central Train Station. During the past 30 years the city center around the train station had a complete facelift, and in the shopping center next to the train station they have a nice photo gallery of how it was in the past ("Toen...") and how it is now ("En nu...").

What was once a road under the railway, has now been transformed in a waterway connecting to the older city canals and adding to tourism opportunities for the city. As seen in Amsterdam, the city of Utrecht now also has its canal tour boats ("rondvaart boten").

Still existing in the Dutch city centers are the classic moveable street music shows ("Draaiorgel"). The owner/operator asks the passing people for a small contribution to this entertainment.

Slowly catching up on the traditional Dutch comfort foods: today a few "oliebollen" (Sue, Mary and Joe will remember that Opa Vandenboom used to make this in late December for New Year's Eve).

The city of Utrecht has a variety of old churches, among them this cathedral originally built in the 17th century. The city center has many places for people to enjoy a drink or bite to eat at terraces...

Socially responsible entrepreneur

Today I had lunch with Freek, a former colleague of MSF Holland. We worked together in the HR team and during that period, Freek decided to start his sustainable travel agency, called "Multatuli" (named after a famous Dutch explorer). I am still proud of the fact that I was in a position to give Freek a little push to go that route. Later he sold his company and travelled for 7 months with his wife and three kids (at that moment ages 5, 7 and 10). Coming back in Amsterdam, it was his wife's turn to be the entrepreneur of the family and Freek ran the household for 7-8 years. The past decade he has been busy again with entrepreneurship from travel to cakes (based on the recipe of his baker father). Not sure if the sites are also in English, but they are www.beterplaces.nl and www.pieceoffreek.nl  

Friends along the rivers

Joop and Ellen are friends from my years at the University of Technology in Delft. Yesterday I finally found time to visit them in Beusinchem where they have lived the past 30 years. Their house is situated behind the dikes of one of the many rivers of the complex watersystem of The Netherlands (remember that of this country about 60% lies below sea level). They have a good chunk of land with an older house full of character; lots and lots of work; basically a "work in progress forever" (but they love it).

They built a small barn (in the photo the building to the right of the white house) in which Ellen has her creative workshop and where Joop keeps all his tools for home improvements.

The house on the inside also has lots of character and they heat their living room with woodfire. Joop and I took the bicycles and toured the area with a few of the local historic small towns. We crossed one of the rivers in a small ferry, always a fun experience during a cycling tour.

The weather these days has been surprisingly nice, and the terraces were full of people enjoying the good life during a weekend day. The rest of this post features just a selection of sites to see in these small towns with buildings dating back hundreds of years (some of the smaller canals date back even to the time of the occupation of this region by the Roman Empire...).

Former colleague from MSF

Paul is a former colleague of my years with MSF - Doctors without Borders (1988 - 1995). When I was based in Mozambique (1988-1990), he assisted me on HR matters from the Amsterdam Operational Office and visited our projects once (and he got me running in Maputo during that visit; a good habit I continued afterwards). Then he - sort of - talked me into putting my name forward in late 1992 for the position of Director HR of MSF Holland (a new position as member of the Management Team), and he was a strong pillar to lean on for me during 1993 and 1994 when I tried my best in that position. We did not manage to stay in touch much after 1995, but this year I was able to contact him through LinkedIn and today I visited Paul and his wife Simone in their new home in Erica, a small town in the north-eastern province of Drenthe, close to the border with Germany. It was a super nice short visit.

They purchased this classic house late last year and after some renovations moved in earlier in 2022. Paul and Simone told me some interesting history of the region; one is never too old to learn. During my 35 years in Holland, I never visited this province much (just driven through it on my way to cities in the northern provinces of Groningen and Friesland). 

The garage is Paul's domain. He is an avid collector of various things, among them DKW motorcycles (he has various parts waiting to be renovated and assembled). Upstairs in the garage, Simone calls the space Paul renovated, his "man-cave".

I did not remember that Paul and Simone also had done extensive world travel during 8 months in 1986 (a few years after my travels in 1982-1983). They made great photos of which a few are displayed in his "man-cave". Paul had also done already a few MSF field missions before we worked together in the MSF Holland office in Amsterdam (my poor memory had it registered as after 1995; he also did various missions after 1995 with an emphasis on organization & management training for MSF staff). Later Paul started his own one-man consultancy business and continued to work for MSF and other relief & development organizations till recently. Last year he had a COVID infection which was followed by "long-COVID and this has been seriously affecting his health. Get well, my friend. We'll stay in touch!

PS: on the photo above, you can see a small crate with "Trappist" beer, which he argues is considered the best beer in the world (produced by monks in a monastery in Belgium).

PS2: Paul & Simone lean on their "new timer" in the first photo of this post: a classic Fiat which he keeps in mint state; it is about 40 years old and had driven only 12,000 km when Paul purchased it a few years ago. Truly a man with hobbies!!

Walking the dog with Bert

Bert, the husband of my sister Ger for 55 years, recently turned 80 (see earlier post in September). He is still in great shape and has always loved having dogs, most of the years two of them. He still every now and then "walks" them on his bicycle (an action which would cause an accident for most people). But today he walked the dog of their son Berry, who is visiting for a week (Berry and family are a week in Switzerland during the Dutch autumn school vacation). And I accompanied him today during the walk in a small forest area near their home. The building in the back was the old municipal administration building, but now is the house of a local farmer.

The trees along this road to the old town hall were planted many years ago during a time most transport were carriages and horses. More recently a plaque was made along the side of the forest area as a memorial for five young Canadian airmen, whose bomber plane was shot down by a German fighter plane. This happened in 1943 during a period that allied troops carpet-bombed cities in Germany every day. The 1940-1945 Second World War period stays memorized with plaques like this around the world and last year this one was made for these brave five young Canadians. The plaque explains that on the day of this tragic event, 738 allied planes left the airfields in England of which 38 did not return to their bases. It is hard to imagine for us post-war generations, what a true human horror those years were. And unfortunately - in too many places around the world - humans continue warfare...

Ger's morning exercise

After the visit to Sascha and Joost, I stayed overnight at the house of Ger and Bert (about 45 minutes from where Sascha and Joost live). Ger (78) can't complain about the service in the morning: Bert who gets up earlier, brings her a coffee and the newspaper. But afterwards she jumps into action three days a week in a local gym. Here is she with one of her trainers...

 

Good technique on the rowing machine and also some upper body strength cross training, before joining a spin class and a general fitness training. A knee replacement of three years ago made it possible to go "full out" again...

In the meantime, I went for a morning walk to find a place where I could get myself a "koffie verkeerd" (literally translate "coffee wrong", a Dutch version of a cafe latte) ....