A VILLAGE FROM SIXTEEN HUNDREDS
5/27/2012
I am up early, barely 7 am and I am already on my way to the lake. I walk in and out of alleys adoring the small but unique cottages, cabins, homes, and house boats. The lake, all her limbs, and everything around them are asleep, not a single ripple on the water. I almost feel guilty that I will be the first to break that serenity. Can I lower my body into the water without causing a ripple? It is almost an unforgivable violation of this spectacular peace lying before my eyes. Yet, the water is so provocatively inviting, too. After spending some time daydreaming on Clara’s pier, I can’t help it and cut through the icy cold water as quietly as possible. My crawling in it is like a whisper. I am eastbound, toward The Sun. The thin layer of warmth its early morning beams spread onto my cheeks is in such great contrast with the firm, refreshing cold The Lake encases my entire body in. I am grateful.
One of the many arms of Lucky Lake from one of my morning walks
This will be my daily routine every day for a full week. I will come to the lake around 7 am, after a brief walk around it, will let myself into the water from Clara’s pier. Clara will be long gone, back to her work at Dam Square, I will enjoy her pier both for myself and for her sending my thankful thoughts to her twice a day. I will swim up and down along the shore for 30-35 minutes, will take a hot shower before a light breakfast and will head to the city with the 9:30 shuttle and will be in the city a little after 10. After my city tour, I will return to my camp around 7. After having dinner with my ever changing fellow campers, I will head to my usual sunset spot for my evening appointment with The Sun.
One of the many sunset scenery I captured around Lucky Lake
Today my goal is to go to Zaanse Schans, a village with still functioning, authentic old wind mills from fifteen sixteen hundreds. Lonely Planet says, there are five of them, but I will find 8 along the bay created by the Zaan River. They are still crushing, grinding, cutting goods for the people. I am at Central Station looking for the ticket booth. Finally I find it, get my ticket and head for the such and such track the lady at the ticket window instructed me to go to. I follow the instructions, I am on the right track. Lonely Planet warns that it is very easy to get on the wrong train to get there. I am determined not to make that mistake, so I take all the precautions. I ask one person, than another, then yet another. I even show them my ticket which reads “Amsterdam C” meaning Central Station to “Koog-Zaandjik”. Everybody is in agreement: I will wait for the train to Haarlem that will leave from track number 4 at 10:30 am. And I do exactly as I am told.
I am enjoying the countryside of Netherlands in a few minutes. The sheep and the cows grazing on the meadows, small rural settlements, everything is invigorating. We pass by couple of small stations, “Hmmm, it looks like this train doesn’t stop at small towns, Koog Zaandjik must be a larger town.” What? The sign that we just passed at 100 mph read Koog Zaandjik!? My goodness, I am heading to Haarlem, this must be an express train. I take out my ticket to show the young man sitting across from me. He is kind of indifferent to my anxiety. He simply states “This is an intercity fast train. It doesn’t stop at small towns.” Thank you very much, I have already figured that out. What now? I think all that silently and he doesn’t care. But somebody else does. A blond, younger looking man, in fact a boy sitting across the aisle from me tells me I would need a “sprinter” that stops at every town. I thank him and plan to get off at the next station to take either a sprinter back to Koog Zaandjik or a fast train back to Amsterdam and find the correct train to Zaandjik. As we pass by small stations one by one, the blond fellow traveler moves to the seat next to me.
Young people are so resourceful with their handheld electronic gadgets nowadays. This blond product of pure kindness and goodness of humanity had looked up all the trains and their schedules on his cell phone in that brief period of time and created an itinerary for me: “Get off at Stracum, go to this track, catch the train to Haarlem in 20 minutes, get off at Uetrich, next station, switch tracks and catch the train to Rotterdam in 15 minutes and get off in Koog-Zaandjik. That’s it. Youth has the answer to everything in their palms now, but if only they have the good in their hearts. His face is shining with an innocent shy smile, I must be nothing but a grateful smile. All I could say is “I will be as helpful to you as you have been to me when you come to Iowa City.” He most likely will never cross my path again, but, I am sure some good human just like himself will do some good to him for what he did for me today. I still trust the universe reciprocates with everything we do, too naïve of me? Who knows, maybe, maybe not.
As I get off the train at Koog-Zaandjik, I meet two Korean young women, who are exchange students studying business in Netherlands for the last six months. They will be returning home soon and took the opportunity to visit Zaanse Schans this long weekend. We walk all the way from the station to the beginning of the meandering path through the old Zaanse Schans. I visit a lovely store, which turns out to sell beautiful jewelry and nick nacks made of pewter, a metal created by mixing tin with antimony at 220 C after which it is casted at 350C. Eric is the artist, who tells me of his many visits to Turkey. He is now married to Clara, who also visited Turkey many times, 14 to be exact. I film both of them telling me their story and buy quite a few pieces of their art, I will need to take home gifts for my family and friends, anyway. Their repertoire is perfect.
I walk through old town, visit the mills, take lots of photographs; of the mills, of the people, of the ambience. Had it not been for the modern crowd all around me, I could’ve gone into a déjà vu feeling of being thrown into the medieval era. On my way back, I decide to sit down on the stoop of one of the mills where an interesting and personable man is playing his ukulele as he is singing along to kids surrounding him. The pediatrician in me wants to join the kids, I guess. I sit down next to one of them, two kids down from the musician. He is now more animated. The music almost sounds like Irish music. After a while parents drag their kids away one by one and I am finally left alone with him on the stoop. He stops playing and we start chatting. Hans Aris is a retired teacher. He was born in Zaanse Schans and after spending time away for decades, now is back to his home-town. I ask him whether he knows any Turkish songs not expecting he would. To my great surprise he starts playing and singing the same tune to “Yapma, yapma, yapma…” which basically means “Stop it” or “Don’t do it.” I crack up wondering “Where in the world did you learn out of thousands of words in Turkish?” I must have thought out loud. He declares, “I had lots of Turkish students when I taught, that was one word I had to learn to keep them under control until they learned Dutch.” We laugh hard, together now, as if we have known each other all our lives.
Dear Hans Aris, isn't he the prototype of a teacher, so happy with the kids around him, and he doesn't sing for money, either. The cup is his real coffee cup.
I end my day with an icy cold bottle of beer at one of the cafes right on the water, my feet dangling into Zaan River right off the pier. I will carry Hans Aris along with me on the train, on the metro, all the way to my rendezvous with The Sun by my Lucky Lake.
Just before dipping my feet in Zaans River to start sipping my beer
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