Leanne Yanabu - Personal Photographs: Holland 2002

Photos 2002

Enschede, the Netherlands

For the first time since the Peace Corps in 1993, I left the U.S. In May I flew to Amsterdam and took the train to Enschede, near the German border, where I visited Job Elders and his family.

I loved Holland for its peace, order, and rationality. Enschede was small and flat, and so easy to bike around. Bikers have their own separate lanes and even their own traffic signals. How great is that!

The language was a lot of fun too. To an English speaker, it sounds a little like German but it looks hilarious. It's full of double vowels like ook, kaas, een, voor, aanbieding, naar, naam, gaat, eerst, aan, graag, maat, geen, and kookboeken.

They've got some kick-ass chocolade, though.

Enschede, The Netherlands


Here is Enschede on market day, Tuesday. The theater building has statues in front of and on top of its building.		A street with colorful buildings in downtown Enschede.


A lot of houses were made of brick. Even the alleyways were neat and orderly.		This is an ordinary street in Enschede. It's hard to explain the feel of a place. The tiled sidewalks and brick buildings' textures, the pink bike path, the bedding hanging out the window to air, the neat and tidy trimmed bushes...does it add up to the experience of being there?

Shoes and windmills

One of the few people I saw wearing wooden Dutch shoes. He was cleaning off the moss from the sidewalk in front of his house.


Molen (windmill) at Lonneker, a short bike ride from Enschede.		I had some kind of perverse desire to play tourist, in an anti-tourist kind of way. I went to a non-touristy area, but I went out and looked for tourist cliches of Holland -- wooden dutch shoes and windmills. I missed out on the tulips, though.


These windmills are pretty cool. This is the only one I got to see close up.		They look a lot bigger close up.

Transport solutions


The first thing I saw in Enschede was the huge line of bicycle racks at the train station. And the bike underpass. I knew right away I was going to like the Netherlands.		This was in Dortmund, Germany. Check out the trash can that lets you sort trash for easy recycling. Is it the just the German penchant for order, or is it that the Europeans really get the environmental picture in a way Americans don't seem to? Either way, I totally dug the mentality behind this train station trash can.


Because space is at a premium and gas is expensive, even the cars are compact. This Fiat looks like it is only half a car.		Here's the side view of the same car.


This is a "smart car". Why don't we have them in American cities? Because they would get creamed by our ungainly SUVs and ridiculously outsized trucks.		It's adorable!

Downtown Enschede limits car access

To limit car access to the town center, certain streets have these metal posts in the middle of the street that can sink down to let select cars pass through, then raise back up to prevent other cars from passing through.


Here's the post in the middle of the road.		As the car approaches, the post sinks down.


The post has completely disappeared so the car can pass through.		Now the cars have gone and the post raises up again.

Food


A cheese stall at the market.		These cheeses were the size of Taos drums. I loved the shapes.

I finally got the hang of the grocery store and got some great food.

Prices in euros, at the time it was comparable to dollars.

Job Elders


Job Elders in his backyard in Hengelo.		Dayla Elders, 3 years old.

Job and Dayla in the backyard

Floriade

On the last day I was in Holland, I took the train to Amsterdam's airport, left my luggage in a locker, caught the bus to Floriade, and ran around the park for a few hours. I envisioned seas of red, yellow, purple tulips. But I was too late. The tulips were out of season by the end of May.

Floriade, even without the tulips, was neat. There were landscape displays and quite a few were environmentally-oriented. It spread out over several acres and it seemed there was something for everyone.

I barely made it back to the airport on time. I was racing through the airport hallways and must have been the last one on the plane.


Why there weren't a ton of kids crawling all over this playground set I don't know.


These trees with huge balls and chains showed a whimsical sense of humor.		These outdoor couches were delightful and practical at the same time.


This interactive exhibit invited visitors to compete against each other to get water to spout into a funnel. A visitor standing, (1), could aim a set of solar panels to power a stream of water (2). The other visitor, (3), pedaled to get power for their water stream, (4). The water ended up in the metal funnel (5).		Even the smallest details were impressive at Floriade.

The next month I visited Chris and Sharon and Kaya in Moscow, Idaho.