(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

So, in my whirlwind trip through the Netherlands last week--best described by a Russian aphorsim "galopom po Evropam"--galloping through Europe--this is what I did have time to see:

The lovely Maastricht--a small medieval city on the Southern border of Holland, with cobble-stone streets, the aforementioned church-turned-bookstore, and phantasmagorical creatures lining the town square


I spent a day and two nights in Leiden, and I fell in love with it. The canals, reflected clouds lazily floating and shape-shifting upon encountering rusty boats, the houses with large windows that seem to veil the indoor stages with translucent curtains, an abandoned factory full of art, new friends in escheresque apartments lit by tea candles and anti-squats, a Dutch poet with a Russian name, who is a self-proclaimed magician (possibly true), trees preparing to march with roots mostly unearthed, labyrinthine weaving trips through narrow alleys and backyard gardens populated with black cats, amber-colored beer rivulets, a tempting junkshop left sadly un-investigated literally next door to where I was staying.

I slept on a stage of sorts in front of a floor-to-ceiling window with a streetlight casting a sooty glow on my face (and, apparently, as I discovered the following morning--five people watched me sleep from the street at one point).

I got several hasty gulpfuls of Amsterdam, darker and moodier than the light, fairy-tale Leiden, and in the end departed with a kinetic map of the country made up from the unfolding sequences observed from the second floor of the trains I took, first to the South, then back to the North. Traversing the country in this manner I saw the alternating human and naturescapes, small towns with rivers and canals weaving through them giving way to industrial inlets, flanked by towns that reminded me of Brno--a town a couple of hours from Prague, that theophile and I drove through on our cross-Czech road trip the summer before last. Mixed in were these strange planned communities, like hydro-suburbs, dozens of houses with tiny yards with water all around them--as my nre friend Niels described them--commuter abodes, shortly beyond the outskirts of amsterdam--and fields and windmills and patches of flooded land here and there.

On the train ride into Amsterdam the city sailed into view, futuristic cubes aggregated in constellations over water, the outer rings of Saturn, and box-apartment buildings, like the one I grew up in in Moscow, with laundry hanging on balconies, circling the deep rich pulsating heart of the city, saturated like ripe-ripe cherries, so ripe they could be mistaken for ticks. I walked through and around in a haze until twilight, and left the city at the same time the sun did.






Maastricht


depth of field in Amsterdam


the other photo I took especially for theophile


Niels in the courtyard of the abandoned factory


Niels took this photo of me hanging out with Gelya in the factory yard


bust-ed!


screamer


tea party shivers

Comments

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

Oooooooo.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

pretty, right?

also I have a question for you and am thus about to email you.

[signamax.livejournal.com]

cool
i love Maastricht
I hope we will visit you there one day

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I thought it was lovely (although I thought Leiden was prettier and Amsterdam was grittier)--quite unique. Reminded me of Belgium, which, in all fairness, I have only vague memories of, since I was there when I was 13.

[signamax.livejournal.com]

hope to see you tomorrow

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

actually I don't think you will--Anya said you guys are going to a birthday party until late, so in light of that I am going to spend the night at my boyfriend's cousin's house, as she lives very close to where the car I am picking up is parked at the moment... and I will meet up with Anya early in the morning for our adventure...soon though, I am sure!

[signamax.livejournal.com]

lets see
i would be glad to see you though

[paracelsus.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I love botörhead!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

ha, yes, me too.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I had a chance to go to Leiden in December and said no. Darn!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

oh that IS too bad--it is so gorgeous. what was the opportunity?

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Some evolutionary psych literary theorist types who'd just seen Comeuppance invited me to a working group weekend there. But someone else told me Leiden was ugly (and I had no mental image of it at all) and it seemed a... Schlepp, and I actually didn't particularly want to meet these people. (I should send Rob Boyd a copy though.)

We should try for lunch.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

who told you Leiden was ugly? how peculiar. Among other more idiosyncratic charms it has, it is so conventionally *lovely* that I have a hard time imagining someone characterizing it as ugly. Was Boyd there? I bet my other ex-adviser would also be interested in it, along with RB.

yes, lunch..when? I teach TTh, but other days would be ok, somewhere baby-friendly...

[cyberanya.livejournal.com]

wow, i had no idea Maastricht was so pretty! for some reason i imagined it as grim and industrial, although i've never been, must be something in the way the name sounds. looking at these cobbled streets, i just realized how much i miss living in europe. and that believe it or not, i am sick of india, this chaos, dirt and all. same goes for new york, i don't even miss it that much. am i becoming bourgeois??

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

maybe you associated it with Manchester? It is pretty, although not as fairy-tale pretty as Leiden. How is your health? I found that when I was in Ecuador I kind of got this gestalt exhaustion/tiredness of being there once my body systems started wearing down. Larium had a cumulative but hard effect on me, the altitude adjustment plateaued (no pun intended) at some point, I washed all fruit in that kil-al stuff, and constantly had an aftertaste from it, etc. also the jungle was, of course, super-fresh air, but I don't know if you remember, Quito can be pretty polluted. Well, you don't have to write up in NYC, right? onward with your nomadic or transhumant style. you can go back to moscow or go with those friends that are wanting you to go to berlin, or back to france.

[cyberanya.livejournal.com]

i'm actually feeling surprisingly ok, considering where i am. i do get cases of delhi belly now and then, but mostly, ok. i've also decided against anti-malarials, as i'm hoping to be in russia by the start of the monsoon. yeah, i know i don't have to be in NYC anymore, and it's actually kind of liberating and kind of scary - i've been through periods before when i just couldn't pick a country and it's sort of anxiety-provoking. i feel like i need roots, but it's not happening.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

cyber-roots is all you need...or portable roots like a baby!

when are you going to russia? And are you going to be in moscow for a stretch or are you going straight to siberia? are you going back to Olkhon? you can continue to sublet your (two now?) apartments in NYC and relocate...mozhet, mahnesh v gollandiyu? budem sosedyami! dazhe esli by ty byla v berline, vse ravno ne tak daleko. ya by tebya naveshala. s baby.

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

I am SO coming to visit you when you get that job, which you are totally going to get. Dutch can't be that hard, right? I mean, it's basically English with all that hard bits put back in.

[apropos.livejournal.com]

That's the best linguistic description ever! I like to think of Tok Pisin as English, as shouted by blind-drunk Australian agricultural extension officers at black people.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

HA. hey, you said you are doing stuff tonight but if you are free earlier in the eve want to come to beacon's closet with me and missmimesis? are you doing stuff in Greenpoint anyway? Also are you still coming back to Boston with me tomorrow? We'll have to make concrete plans for where I will be picking you up.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

hey are you in NYC or in Philly now? As in, this weekend and in general? I saw your post on the grad listserv about the sublet, but wasn't sure if you already permanently relocated. I'm gonna be in NYC tonight.

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

I was in NYC, but now I'm in Philly