In our short trip in the welcoming small city of Haarlem – and during our visit at Molen de Adriaan in particular – I discovered a really curious thing, which is less known about Holland’s windmills. I mean : we all know that they are an indispensable part of the Dutch landscape which we see all around the touristic cards and souvenirs – but how many actually know that windmills were used (I don’t know if they continue doing it) to transmit different messages, by positioning the sails in a particular way?

The interpretation may vary from region to region: I will tell you the story as it was told to me by Leo, our guide at Molen de Adriaan.

korte rust ~ owner is away for 1,2 hours (most probably he’s taking his afternoon nap)

lange rust ~ owner is not available for a longer period of time – 1/2 day, even 1,2 days

vreugde ~ happiness & joy in the family. Somebody god married or a baby child was born

rouw ~ sadness, mourning. Somebody in the family is very sick or died.

hakscheef ~ owner needs a grinder to come and groove the milestone

Another intriguing fact which I discovered by accident, while making a small research, was that the Dutch resistance were using the windmills this way, to coordinate military activities right under the nose of the occupying German forces.

from Unleashing the Ideavirus, written by Seth Godin, of course

Out of all the people attending an event – conference, seminar, workshop, you name it – how many people are actually paying attention/appreciating an insightful session from a good speaker/taking home couple of great ideas that were being shared

vs.

how many people are just there wasting time, doing lousy useless pathetic #hashtag twittering?

from Seth Godin’s book – Unleashing the Ideavirus

Way luckier than others who had to go to work (Bianca), we afforded the luxury to sleep late into the morning and we admit that only at 1 pm we finally convinced ourselves of getting out of the house and hit the streets, going in the city center.

Being warned by Bianca with – I quote – “Dudes, you’re here for no good if you don’t go to see “Amsterdam Sail 2010“, we happily complied and made our way behind Amsterdam Central Train Station to admire the ships parade, the canon shots and the elegance with which the ships were making their way through the dancing waves. Even though it was on a Thursday, the small harbor behind Amsterdam Central was crowded with people; I had to struggle staying on my toes to get couple of good pictures. And I’m 1.96! The whole event ended with a magnificent fireworks show, Saturday night. Mr. Butuc, you missed that!

Friday, we promised ourselves to be much more proactive and wake up earlier. Which we did. I guess. At 12 we were already in Harleem, making our way through the shadowy little streets which go to the middle of this little town. I don’t have the slightest clue why I keep having this impression but Harleem reminds me about reggae and jazz music (and to prove I’m not the single one who thinks this way - http://www.haarlemjazzstad.nl/).

After you run away from the traffic surrounding the train station and you walk deeper into the alleys, you discover such a calm and quiet establishment, as everybody would have left everything and went for a deep sleep. I suppose this is one of the reasons many Dutch people prefer staying here and, during the week, going in Amsterdam for work (no more than 20-25 min). This is one of those places where I would just love to hide, disappear for 3,4 days and take nothing with me but a couple of good books and a jar of good quality coffee.

Here we visited St Bavo’s Cathedral (or De Grote of St Bavoverk te Harleem – how we found it in the touristic presentations ). One nice 360° tour of the interior of the church you find here

- the floor is completely made out of gravestones, the oldest goes way back into the 15th Century

- every evening, between 9 – 9.30 pm you can hear the two small bells (Damiaatjes), a tradition started 6 centuries ago, which were announcing the inhabitants that the city gates are closing

- and because I like to keep the ‘nice’ stuff for the end .. Seems like the church is offering shelter for no less than 2000 bats. They made their nest here since they started building the cathedral. The clerics didn’t have the heart to banish them so they kept them here. In exchange for a small rent. I’m kidding!

I heared tourists making jokes – “Now I can only imagine where Batman comes to say his prayers”

Of course our visit couldn’t come to an end before visiting the city’s attraction, de Adriaan Windmill (Molen de Adriaan in Dutch)

The tower was built in 1778, on the old foundation of an ancient defensive tower, which was used to defend the area surrounding the city center. Leo, a friendly old man, with a small round pair of glasses on the tip of his nose, walked us through a short story of the Haarlem city: from the war the Dutch fought with the Spanish army because of money and religion (here, Leo nodded in disagreement), to the presentation of the different types of windmills – from the ones built to produce tobacco and flower, to those used to drain the flooded areas.

We also found out that Amsterdam itself is with 5 meters below the sea level and 7 meters during the rise of the tide.

Because of the muddy ground, the buildings were built using a foundation made from wooden pillars of 10-15 meters deep, to strengthen the houses. Gradually, along with the technological advancement, they replaced the wooden ones with pillars of concrete. The windmills were used to dry the flooded areas and the lakes, pushing the water back towards the sea. Back in the old days it could have taken up to 2 years to drain a lake; nowadays you can do this in less than one month.

That’s pretty much it. I’ll stop filling your heads with technical details.

It was a live and well deserved weekend. All the best wishes to Mr. Butuc and we sincerely acknowledge that we will miss his joyful presence! Hope you’ll revisit us soon!

I promise to come back with a couple of other small stories because our trip was full of them.

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you around!

“We knew that Google was going to get better every single day as we worked on it, and we knew that sooner or later, everyone was going to try it. So our feeling was that the later you try it, the better it was for us because we’d make a better impression with better technology. So we were never in a big hurry to get you to use it today. Tomorrow would be better”

A nice idea brought to you from a book I just finished reading: The Dip, from Seth Godin. Will be coming back with more stuff from this incredible piece of art.

“Stop waiting for bosses and companies to get better and complaining about how are you treated. Build the skills – and use them – that will permit you to create the environment in which you want to live”

from What Matters Now – Seth Godin

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”

I was reading this part while being in the metro, on my way home, and I couldn’t help myself starting laughing when I saw the next part:

“When the chief engineer at the Rolls-Royce factory read this, he shook his head sadly and said. “It’s time we did something about that damned clock!””

For those from Vienna that are in a search for a library with English books

I offer you 2 tips:

• The British Bookshop from Weihburggasse 24 : big diversity of books, from belletristic to specialty books, welcoming staff + the nice thing is that, if you don’t find there the book you are searching for, you can always order it from their deposit.
• And there is also Thalia, another cool library, that has a section dedicated to English books. You can also go there and have a coffee or a tea, chose a book from the shelf and let the time pass by ..

picture from stuhleck.com

For reservations + transportation, things are really simple. We did it in the following way: reservations here – 1 day travel pack (Bus zum Schnee – Tagesfahrten) – bus transportation both ways, ski card included. Leaving from Erdberg Straße 200a (metro station U3) (Vienna International Bus Terminal) at 8 am, coming back from the ski resort at 6 pm the latest (leaving the ski resort at 4:30 pm). Team members: Dani, amateur skier, but striving to go pro’ (just wait and see!), Dorin (always going for the hardcore stuff out there) plus 3 more AIESEC trainees from Vienna.

Cool. So we’re there. Next step: renting skiing equipment. There are 2 renting centers, at the base of the slope. I warn you that it will take a while. Being quite crowded (it was 9am !?), until I asked for a pair of skiing shoes, until I changed them (the 45s were too small ), until I paid and let my ID card – guaranty, it took more or less 1 hour. Ah, and, not to forget, they also have storeroom + lockers in case you don’t want to carry all your shoes & clothes all the way to the top of the mountain. A list with the renting prices you can find up here. I paid for skies shoes+skies+sticks/1day=28.50€ .

And now this is the part where we get to the fun. Let’s not call it skiing (it’s too flattering), trying to ski. Great experience! It takes a while until you get used to the feeling of having your ankles really stiffy & starting to rely more on your balance and the force of you knees. I can’t really remember how many times I felt down. What really matter is to find a easy portion of slope and try practicing there, until you gain confidence on your own legs. Dorin was so happy, he was on the point of levitating. He was in his personal playground. The people around me were simply vibrating of joy, being such a nice weather and great snow. It totally worth it! Sun, adrenalin, fresh cool air, mountains all around. I think I will try this, at least once more.

great pictures, as always, from Dorin [slideshow]

I finish here, with a line à la Mastercard: “Ski card for one day: 25Euro. Renting equipment: 28Euro. The taste of a fresh cold Almdudler, enjoying the view, at 1300m height: PRICELESS!”

quicklinks: Stuhleck webcams, Stuhleck – map, panoramic view