Going Dutch

A bonafide Dutch experience of transversing the Hoge Veluwe via bicycle. Sorry guys, no GoPro, so the video is a little bumpy.

Nature or not, it's all the Great Outdoors

So, I’m gonna get a little landscape architecture nerdy on you for a minute… Being in the Netherlands has been pretty trippy, from a landscape perspective. I promise I haven’t been into the space cakes again. But my American concept of nature is being turned upside down by the Dutch engineering and the whole “draining the ocean and living on the bottom of the sea” thing.

The word “nature” is a highly contested term in the LA realm. I could write a whole dissertation on this topic, and I’m sure many already have, so I’ll give you a short(ish) summary: Nature is a human construct. While the forests and mountains exist on their own right, the word “nature,” and all of the connotations that go along with it, are totally invented. The ideas about what nature is and what it should be differ across cultures, and Americans tend to have a much different perspective on nature is because our country was founded very recently (in the grand scheme of things).

The idea of national parks was developed before we even settled the whole 50, thus large expanses of wilderness have been preserved. Space is plentiful in the amber waves of grain, so we associate nature with big tracts of undeveloped land hosting sublime views of mountain peaks and towering trees. 

Endless and untouched; the typical American idea of "nature." Near where my family and I camp every year in the Sierra Nevadas, California.

Europe, on the other hand, is obviously much older and has been settled for hundreds of years (around the time my dad was a kid). Consequently, most of the land has been developed and large carnivores hunted out, not leaving much pristine wilderness or wildlife to later be preserved once the concept of national parks came around. So, Europe embraces “new nature,” and has re-planted and reconstructed many of their natural areas, making it feel very different from the United States.

Dutch "new nature" in Bloeyendael Park, Utrecht, a former landfill. Moments earlier, not one, but two people wearing backpacking gear "hiked" by us. Note the apartment towers in the background.

I’ve been pondering all this while driving around the Netherlands on our first week of class. Shaped by my American perceptions of nature, I arrived here with a concept that the highly constructed Dutch landscape was somehow inferior to a more natural system. With such a heavy focus on sustainability in our education now, the preservationist in me wonders how can something artificial possibly be better than what was already there?? But as we drove around the polders (drained lakes or sea, used for farmland), it didn’t look as unnatural as I thought it would. I would momentarily forget that the beautiful pastures and bosques were totally constructed and manmade.

Small white birds dotted the fields, perforating the expansive, green carpeted farmland. Canals systematically pierce through the land, reflecting the sky in silvery metallic lines. A midwesterner from the Land of 10,000 lakes would feel very comfortable amongst all of this water, in spite of it’s synthetic origins. It was beautiful, and it all just seemed to work.

Hmm, that's a lot of turf. I wonder what the native vegetation is here. OH YEAH, sand. Because, you know. Ocean floor.

Okay, so the polders are obviously madmade, but what about the nature preserves in the Netherlands? The Oostvaadersplassen is on a polder, but was not used for farming, and was actually planned for industrial development that never came to fruition. It was, as Wikipedia phrases it, “rewilded” in the late 1960s. It has a highly trafficked rail line running along the southern perimeter, cutting through a peaceful view of pastureland. Oh, and did I mention the animals here? Cows, horses, deer, and foxes. To be fair, they are heritage cattle and wild ponies, but still… not exactly the wolves of Yellowstone.

Then, we spent a day exploring De Hoge Veluwe, the Netherlands’ largest national park (perched in the highlands on a hill they call a “Dutch mountain”). Over 20 square miles of dunes, forest, and heathland, wrapped up in perfect, silent tranquility under an endless sky. Once the estate of a wealthy businessman, much of the land is reconstructed nature and continues to be pretty heavily managed and maintained.

Biking through the rolling heathland and birch groves, it looked as if it has always been that way, as if it was that piece of land’s destiny to bare those trees. The forest suddenly fell away into the blistering white drifts of an expansive dune landscape, the big “Zand,” interrupted by the occasional lonely gnarled, silvering cypress.

Edged by whispy moorgrass, the dreamy moonscape taunted me. I mean, there are hundreds, thousands, maybe a million cubic yards of sand in these dunes. Surely THIS feature was naturally occurring… Even the Dutch aren’t crazy enough to construct something as elaborate this this…. are they?

Fiet Fleet

As Vince, one of my instructors, said, it’s not a trip to the Netherlands unless you get hit by a bike (or fiet in Dutch). Cycling has become almost as important to Dutch culture as windmills and dairy cows, which quickly became apparent to us on our first day in the city.  As we exited the train station when we first arrived in Utrecht, we confronted a sea of hundreds of bicycles, stacked vertically two or three high, in a labyrinth of bike parking.

It looked like the Mall of America on Black Friday.... (Photo credit: Spencer Bauer)

Rush hour looked like a well-dressed Tour de France, as a steady current of students and businesspeople flowed down the bike lanes through the city, spilling out into the streets.  In fact, the cyclists pose more of a danger than cars when crossing the streets as a pedestrian, and the pleasant ring of the bell does not match the panic you feel when you realize that you are in one’s path.  The Dutch have an enthusiastic bike culture, to say the least.

How to be Dutch - Step 1: Find a bike. Step 2: Dress impeccably well. Step 3: Eat chocolate for breakfast.

Touring the polders around the Markermeer made it clear how the landscape is cyclist’s dream.  Without major hills and valleys to tire one out, it’s easy to see how a bike could keep going forever once it hit the pavement.  Probably even more flat that the prairies of the Midwest, you can travel for kilometers without gaining more than one meter in elevation.  One of the road signs we passed along a trail warned bikers of a measly 5% slope. It’s that flat.

Be careful of the steep slope. (Photo Credit: Alex Hill)

Outside of Dugerdam.

The bikes and flat land were a similar flavor to what we have at home in Minneapolis, but what made it interesting, and very Dutch, was how the bike infrastructure intersected with the water infrastructure.  With dikes and canals crisscrossing the polders, it seems as if this would render a lot of surface area unusable.  Much of the water system, however, has been seamlessly incorporated into the transportation.  When a road encountered a dike along a canal or larger body of water, the bike trail peeled off from the road and ran along the top of the dike.  Polder land lay to one side, the car traffic below at the base of the dike, the bikes on top, and the expanse of the Markermeer lay to the other side.  This specific typology causes dikes to be almost integral to the experience of a cyclist, and form a strong relationship between water and recreation

A section and section-perspective from my sketchbook from our stop in Dugerdam. And poorly drawn cars.

Section cut showing/perspectivey thing showing the relationship between the road, dike, bike path, and Markermeer.

Hallo from the Netherlands! Some quick house-keeping.... I will I will I will post entries on Lisbon and Bruges, my first two stops. Incredible places, so much to say, so many pretties to show you. I've been so busy traveling, haven't gotten around to finishing those yet BUT I want the train to keep moving so we're gonna get a little crazy here and post some things non-chronologically. This kills me, yes, but I want to keep going so everything is fresh in my brain for the word-making!

Another hang-up: about 400 pretties from Lisbon and Bruges are trapped in purgatory on my phone. If I can figure out this technology thing or get good enough weefee, I will be able to share the pretties.

A preview pretty of my hike on the coast at Cabo de Roca.

One of the only pictures I have on my real camera from Bruges that I was able to upload onto my laptop.

So I hope I don't disrupt the natural order of things too much by posting entries out of order. If so, then.... do your worst, universe! I'm livin' on the edge and bein' a risk taker.

No such thing as too many pairs of shoes....

Hello. My name is Grace Larson, and I am an over-packer.

It’s a condition I’ve been living with my whole life. Anyone who has traveled with me knows this already. Going on a three day trip? I pack for ten days. As a worrier with packrat genes, it’s kind of the perfect storm for wanting to bring everything I own with me every time I travel. I have a strong urge to be over-prepared for every possible situation, and an unstoppable biological anxiety that drives it. What if it rains? What if it’s cold? What if the hotel has a pool? What if I need band-aids, or a travel sewing kit, or extra batteries, or a wine corkscrew??

My "maybe" pile has gotten pretty big.

The fact that I have an interest in fashion only compounds the matter. I have not yet mastered the art of buying basics that can be mixed and matched, so my wardrobe is very outfit-based. These shoes can go with these jeans but not that dress. This cardigan looks great with this tank top but not that shirt. Et cetera. This sets up unfavorable odds for packing lightly. I might have made some progress un-doing this bad habit, but when I was about 12 I learned the Rick Steves-approved method of rolling (come on, folding is so “free-checked-bag” ago), and instead I found a new way to shove even more things into my suitcase. I’m more or less a professional at it now.

Rolled, not folded.

This trip, however, was going to be my greatest challenge yet. Three months abroad, ten countries, vastly different climates, countless planes, trains, & automobiles. Traveling in a new country – without knowing the language – while jetlagged – is stressful enough, without schlepping around half your bodyweight in high-waisted shorts and open-toed flats. So this trip was going to be different. I had a lot further to travel and no family members to discard overflow items onto. I was going to be a practical, resourceful traveler that wears zip-offs (shorts and pants in one!) and Merils (comfortable and sturdy). I was going to make Rick Steves proud.

…….

I'm a visual learner, and a visual packer.

I tried really hard, I did. I carefully belabored over my outfits. I created a flow chart. I packed and unpacked and packed again. I was making progress, and eliminating redundancy and bulk…. And then I discovered air-tight travel bags…. And suddenly I can fit that extra skirt and another button-up. It was a slippery slope that landed me back at square one, and I shamefully indulged.