A town sprinkled with poems

De Profundis (Garcia Lorca)

Los cien enamorados  duermen para siempre  bajo la tierra seca.  Andalucía tiene  largos caminos rojos.  Córdoba, olivos verdes  donde poner cien cruces  que los recuerden.  Los cien enamorados  duermen para siempre.

This was the final poem of the 101 painted onto different walls all over the magical city of Leiden.

This art project started in 1992 as a way to beautify the city by the Tegen-Beeld Foundation. They are painted in their original languages, by poets from around the world.

Here's one I saw today by Velemir Chlebnikov 

When they are dying - horses breathe,
When the are dying - grasses wither,
When they are dying - suns fade away,
When they are dying - men sin

I want to ride my bicycle , I want to ride my bike

Bike Land Statistics:

-Approximate number of bikes in Holland: 16 million (Population: 16,499,084)

-Dutch people bike approximately 750 kilometres per person per year

-In 2008, approximately 760,000 bikes were stolen in the Netherlands

-The Dutch are willing to pay an average price of € 688 per bike.

So...What's with the clogs?

One of the quintessential images of The Netherlands are Clogs.

If you ever get a touristy trinket from a friend- it will probably either be a clog magnet, a Delft replica, or something to do with Tulips.

Do people actually wear hard heavy clogs? Do dutch people wear real clogs today?!

Clogs, or klompen in dutch are traditionally made of wood. They are officially accredited at "Safety Shoes" and can withstand anything from sharp objects or concentrated acid. They were often worn for farming or in factories.

The Dutch no longer wear klompen, but they are often used for gardening an considered as healthy for feet and posture.

Lovely Leiden

Kinderdijk

Kinderdijk, land of windmills! Pronounced "kinder-dike" is dutch for "Child's Dike," is a UNESCO world heritage site.

It is also the place where the story "The Cat and the Cradle" originated. It tells the story of a Cat was found in a cradle floating on this flooded area of water.

In the Netherlands, drainage systems are an important matter. In order to keep this land livable, 19 windmills were constructed in 1740, and they are the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands.

Rain, rain go away

Amsterdam is the most humid city. The city experiences 214 rainy days a year.

It hailed 4 times yesterday....

Land of Windmills

Fun facts about windmills:

• The first practical windmills were the vertical axle windmills invented in eastern Persia
• In Holland by 1923 only three thousand out of 10 thousand mills remained which further declined to just over the one thousand remaining today.
• The world's largest wind farm, the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Texas, has 421 wind turbines that generate enough electricity to power 220,000 homes per year.