Monday, May 15, 2006

Rotterdam

I walk in the street with a bag of garbage. Between the corner houses in front of me I can see a gigantic ship. It has a large white building on it, so high it seems it could topple any moment.

It is a sunny spring day with a biting cold gusting wind. When the Hell! can one in this country lavish unlimited with the warmth of the sun. And finally when such a divine day arrives, then it lasts at most a few days and next you're punished for three weeks with rain, cold, clouds racing past and wishy-washy bits of sunshine.

Last year when everyone had abandoned their hopes and returned passionately to work, there came a continuous period of heat, in September of all, how about that, what’s that all for?.

So often I searched the horizon for mountains. In the summer evenings when the sun started to set and dark waves of mist rose from the ground, I  thought I could see them, just above the polders at Moordrecht, a soft slant purple colored landscape under a dark blue sky. But as we neared Rotterdam and entered the Maasboulevard, the moment definitively passed. No more mountains but concrete boxes, unmistaken. On that spot an infinite feeling of boredom always creeps on to me, if one had a wee bit of hope that God exists, then you would definitely loose it here.

Rotterdam is beautiful if you climb the Erasmus bridge by bike and look upon the west. In every type of weather, the view there is overwhelming. It is especially the Erasmus bridge that can give you this feeling, the mighty pale blue pillars, the ships underneath, it really feels like climbing a mountain and on reaching the top, every time again your reward: a splendid view over the ports in the distance and further on the sea. Just beautiful.
  
But there are so many places in Rotterdam that really appall me. Too many. The worst of all is the Weena. When I ride my bike past the black shining monster of the Nationale Nederlanden and through the endless whirlpools of wind trying to reach the bike shelter of Central Station, I curse Rotterdam and beg God to help me away from this misery. But who has thought up all of these places. Do those architects and civil servants live here? Have they ever sold the street paper (newspaper from homeless project) at the entrance of the five star hotel the Westin? Or just tried to find one spot worth finding?

I throw my garbage bag in the dumpster, tomorrow it will burn in the inferno of the AVR where all that ever had any meaning will perish in flames.

Posted by Maartje Heymans at 2:46 PM

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