Tag: Netherlands

Even though I’ve now settled in Houten, I keep visiting Amersfoort now and then. I’m still doing aikido with Joginder Singh.

On September 7^th our dojo gave a demo on a “district day” Vathorstdag 2014 (Vathorst is the district in Amersfoort our dojo is in), just like six years ago.

I didn’t participate this time, but was filming instead. There was also another cam, so the idea was to put both footages together nicely, and I volunteered for that.

I’ve tried a number of video editors for Linux, most of them proved to be utterly unusable (Pitivi wouldn’t allow me to edit track properties, OpenShot lacked the very basic timeline shift function, Shotcut quit abruptly after adding a clip, Kino is discontinued long time ago). Finally I’ve tried Kdenlive, and that one is absolutely fantastic! I was surprised how quick and hassle-free video editing can be nowadays. All in all it took me about a couple of hours, including the final render.

The result is under the cut:

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In the previous part I mentioned the “Bike Town” award given to Houten a few years ago. This tiny geographical object has also won a number of other awards:

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Holland is decidedly and prominently a bike-land. Any Dutch settlement features miles of bike paths, bike traffic-lights, special bike road marking, ubiquitous bike parkings and bike rental at every train station.

But our Houten seems to be in the lead here.

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The summer is almost over, though I haven’t seen much of it. It’s been quite busy here, but in a positive sense.

Firstly, I’ve officially become a Netherlander. Secondly, I’ve changed job yet again, which I’ll tell you about some other time. And finally, I’ve settled down and got stuck in Holland bought a house.

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I haven’t been actively blogging lately, and that’s not because nothing is happening. Quite the opposite, I can barely find time these days, so let me share the most important stuff with you.

Inevitable happened: my journey into an alternative reality I’ve embarked on exactly six years ago is now complete. A few days ago I’ve oficially become Dutch, a citizen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

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This cute little blue vintage train was spotted today at the Amersfoort Central train station:

Whether it’s a well-maintained old piece or just a mockup, I don’t know.

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During our trip to Leeuwarden we have also visited, among other places, the port town of Harlingen.

The highlights of that visit can be described as: wind, sky, open water and VIEWS. Harlingen is so small that it’s barely visible on a map, so but 15 thousand people enjoy these views.

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I’d like to show you a bit of northern Dutch summer in our damp off-season. Last June we’ve visited the city of Leeuwarden (Frisian: Ljouwert), situated in the very north of Holland. It is the capital city of the Friesland province, which is famous for its language that makes very little sense to an average Dutch.

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I once posted about a special person called Bob. It’s almost a “saint with all possible benefits” (a quote from a popular Soviet-era film). To be precise, there’s at least one benefit with him—a car.

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It’s automn here again. Some annoyed expats keep insisting there’s only just this season in Holland, but that’s not true.

We are fortunate enough to live in a very picturesque woodland area. One of these days we went on a hike in one of numerous forests called Baarnse Bos and situated near the equally picturesque village Baarn (which I posted about five years ago).

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