Watching Dutch TV

After not having watched TV for a couple of years, and with my family on a long holiday in Ukraine, I spent a few hours this rainy afternoon watching some Dutch television. I was really impressed by the Dutch major public channels Nederland 1 and 2, which one can watch without any cable subscription, which we deliberately gave up 2 or 3 years ago in order to have some more quality time for ourselves and our little daughter.

So today there were a number of top-quality Dutch and Flemish productions definitely worth watching:

1. The Philosophical Quintet http://www.filosofischkwintet.tv/): a philosophical debate about the rule of law and religious freedom;

2. A programme about Shostakovich and how the realities of life in the USSR were reflected in his music;

3. A documentary about the controversial issues of development help in Africa;

4. A really great film The Bardsongs about the ancient wisdoms of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam (http://www.bardsongs.com/);

5. A Flemish documentary The Way to Mekka (De weg naar Mekka: http://www.nederland2.nl/programmas/3043-de-weg-naar-mekka) about Islam in the present-day Iran;

6. Beagle Revisited: a wonderful documentary that reconstructs Charles Darwin's 5-year trip, but this time in the course of one year on board of a Dutch clipper Stad Amsterdam: http://beagle.vpro.nl/#/talen/item/12/

And I am still looking forward to the late-night documentary Homeland by the Jewish-Dutch-French film director George Sluizer, in which he follows two Palestinian refugee families: http://www.hollanddoc.nl/kijk-luister/documentaire/h/homeland-.html

So it's good to watch some public television from time to time, just skip the ads in the beginning and the end!

Biking to the Corner of Holland, thinking about my Grandma

After the exceptionally bad weather of the last couple of days with storm and rain pouring in buckets non-stop for more than 24 hours, today's crisp sunny weather was a welcome relief! Because I did some overwork earlier this week, I took the afternoon off and set out on a training bike ride. Due to the pretty hard western wind, I first biked against the wind westwards to Wassenaar and then south-west along the coast to the Hoek van Holland.

Biking in the dunes is sublime. It's good to smell the sea air, the flowers now in full blossom, the occasional pine trees that smell of home and my childhood summers in the woods of White Russia. From the dunes of Meijendel one suddenly emerges into the urban world of Scheveningen with its numerous cafes, hotels, casinos and busy traffic. But quickly, the city is left behind and is replaced by the dunes of Kijkduin. From there, there is a long beautiful ride through the wide, green dunes of Westland, then past the many green-houses to the Hoek van Holland, literally translated as the Corner of Holland. It is indeed an almost right angle formed by the coast and by one of the major arms of the river Maas, which serves as entry to the port of Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe.

I stop to admire the huge cargo ships entering and leaving the port. The waves are pretty big and there are some surfers around waiting for a perfect wave. I start biking back along the same route. It is nice to bike with the wind! I feel like going for a swim, but most of the beaches are too busy for my taste. I finally stop at the beach of Meijendel. There are no people around and I plunge into the sea naked. The water is pretty cold, but I feel invigorated, with every cell of my body alert and alive with wind and waves.

Last 16 km through Wassenaar, Voorschoten, and along the Vliet canal are not so hard. It's 82 km in less than 3.5 hours, not too bad!

Today is my late Grandma Sonja's birthday. It's good to remember her. She would have turned 97, but she died 5 years ago. I was always a bit afraid of her, to tell the truth. I probably thought she was too strict, or actually too distant. I always said "Вы" to her, never "ты" (respectful "you" instead of casual "you").  But at the same time, I liked to visit her, liked her dinners and her compotes. Of course, I came also to visit my Aunt Natasha and my dear cousin Zhenya, who lived together with grandma. Rest in peace, dear grandma.

Biking through the Tulip Land and Beach Meditation

As I wrote earlier this month, I've been training hard to bike up the Stelvio Pass in the north of Italy in early September with a bunch of colleagues.

This week has been pretty busy, so I didn't have much chance to bike. So today I decided to go for a long training ride. I started out around 5:30 PM, right after Maria Sharapova lost her Wimbledon final. I biked past the old chapel of Wilsveen to the mountain bike parcour of SnowWorld in Zoetermeer, and from there past Stompwijk to Zoeterwoude and Vlietland, then along the Vliet to the Lammenschanse Brug in Leiden and then to Warmond, Rijnsburg and Noordwijkerhout. It's a beautiful route through many old towns in the north of South Holland, the heart of Dutch tulip industry. But I get a lot of headwind.

It feels good to bike with the sun and wind and fast flowing low white clouds. I am at about 40 km from home. I cross into the dunes and start cycling with the wind, southwards along the coastline. I stop briefly in Noordwijk. According to the weather service, it is wind force 4 on Beaufort scale, but the sea looks like it's wind force 5. A beautiful view of Zandvoort in the north and Scheveningen in the south! I continue along the coast, flying with the wind in my back. I stop at the beach of the Wassenaarse Slag. There are not so many people on the beach. I sit down in the sand, the sun is glistening on the wave tops. I fee like meditating. I put on a guided mindfulness meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn and try to follow my breath and mind for some 10 minutes. What a bliss!





Watch this short video of the dunes at Meijendel:

From Biking through the Tulip Land and Beach Meditation

I bike on to Meijendel and than through Wassenaar with its beautiful stately houses, along the royal estate De Horsten, over de Knipbrug bridge and then along the Vliet canal to Leidschendam. The last 2 km to home, and I am tired and cannot bike fast. But it feels good!

It's 78.5 km in a little less than 3.5 hours. The average speed is not so impressive, but with so much wind I don't really care. This is my longest ride this year. I dedicate it to my dear wife Luda, whose birthday is tomorrow and who's now on holiday in Ukraine.

Then a quick look at our Delta-N Tour de France pool cloud application at http://azuretour.cloudapp.net/, and, o wonder, after the first stage, which I didn't even watch, I am on top of the pool!

My friend and colleague Konstantin, who's also been biking, turns up at the door and we share a meal of smoked mackerel, very small Parisian potatoes (krieltjes) with dill and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini and green beans. As desert we eat a whole bunch of cherries. We talk about food and fish and sour cherries and about our childhood in the now non-existent USSR. We decide to watch an old, good Soviet film about school Доживём до понедельника, but after 20 minutes or so I start falling asleep, so it's time for him to go home and for me to go to bed. What a great day!

Update:
Monday evening (July 4) another training ride in the dunes: 36km in 1h27min. The beach at Meijendel is completely empty, not a single soul! The sun is going down. What a peaceful and serene feeling!





Update 2:
Tuesday evening biked to the beach in Scheveningen with Konstantin. Ended up chilling-out at one of the beach bars on the Zwarte Pad. The ice cream was delicious, but too little :)

Update 3:
Wednesday eveing, again went to Scheveningen, this time with my good friend Jasper Seger. First we went bathing in the sea. There was lots of wind and waves, and pretty cold water, but we had so much fun fighting the waves that we didn't want to get out of the water. Then we relaxed and watched the sunset at the same bar as yesterday! It's good to be able to talk to a good friend for a couple of hours!