in search of "forty two": In Haarlem, last year...

Here are some pictures from my last trip to Europe. The first set are from Haarlem, which incidentally was the first station to be constructed after Amsterdam Central. This railway connection enabled the rich to set up their homes in Harleem. Considering the high property taxes, many of these stately houses are now converted into office space with any alterations.

I hope that many of you may know that New York had its origins as New Amsterdam and the Dutch language lost by a single vote to be the official language of the new world.

Haarlem is about 15 minutes away in a non-stop train. It is a nice quaint place with nice streets and a lovely old church. It was around this church a friend (an aeronautical engg) tells me that the first plane ride ever took place in the Netherlands. It also housed the aeronautical engineering college until the Fokker company went bankrupt.

Since he lived there for five years and since I have never been there, both of us decided to visit it for a day. Considering the proximity to Amsterdam, we were there even before we could take off our coats, backpacks and get comfortable.

The station was nice. The only place where I have seen a Third class waiting room! The station master's room is all wood and there is a small plank for him to stand on and wave his flag.

Although there were no canals and no trade, some of the houses still looked like in the ones in Amsterdam: narrow and gabled.

Like in Amsterdam, there were many houses being repaired. Most of the houses close to the coast in the Netherlands are built on piles. The older ones have wooden piles and many of these need replacement. So lot of construction activity going on in and around the Church, which was the centre of the town. The view of the street was from my lunch table. A lunch consisting of a Bagel and a coffee in a old cobbled stoned street.

Wanted to write about Flensburg, a nice quaint city off Baltic Sea. Would keep that for the next blog installment.

Haarlem