In the windy Nederlands...

As I cycled down my street once more it occurred to me, as usual, “why must it always be so bloody windy??”
I am peacefully riding along the Mekelweg, the smooth bicycle lane flying past beneath my wheels. It is a little bit windy; a light breeze whipping my hair into my eyes (time for another haircut). Then comes a point somewhere between the IO faculty and the sports centre, where I must turn right down the scintillatingly named “Cornelis Debbelweg’. I know that TUDelft has a wind tunnel testing facility, and I wonder if this is it. Suddenly I am being faced with the breath of the arctic, blasting so strongly that I can feel my cheeks rippling. As I ride past the petrol station I am overtaken by an old man…walking. And I most dread the little ditch in the cobblestones just beyond the Shell station. Because on a particularly bad day, here my bicycle will roll to a complete halt, and I will have to perform the embarrassing acrobatics of standing on the pedals to try and get enough oomph to get myself out again.
At first I thought perhaps I was exaggerating by saying it is the windiest street in delft. But after three months I am 100% certain.
For a while I wondered why. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. After speculating aloud I was finally enlightened by a helpful nearby Dutch person.

It’s the tower.

Rivaled in uglification only by the UTS tower building, the electrical engineering tower looms above my house, looking down on me an expression of red and blue distaste. Unfortunately, with a Babel-like irony, the presence of this tower sets up localized hurricanes in its base, in the street that just so happens to be…Cornelis Debbelweg.
What I wonder though is, in a university full of architects, aerospace engineers and aerodynamics specialists…..how did this happen??

Het huisfeest van Marco

I arrived in Bagijnhof, a rabbit warren of student living that used to be a hospital, at 10pm sharp. I thought this a not unreasonable time to start a party, but I was the first to arrive. This had the positive effect that I got three free beers in before they began selling bonnetjes, but apart from that was rather dull.

The theme was L-egance, the room painted the kind of red that makes your eyeballs hurt, and graced with a single impressive chandelier. Upon closer inspection the chandelier proved to be a true Delft student accoutrement; a dead bicycle wheel suspended by $2 strings of plastic beads.

Next to arrive was Thomas, equally bewildered by the extreme lack of guests. I talked to him, but something was disquietingly different. At last I put my finger on it. In the absence of his partner in crime Koen, Thomas was actually talking in a normal voice, rather than the B-grade superhero accent that had plagued my entire trip through Torino. I almost didn’t recognize him without it.

The evening progressed, and the room which had preciously resembled an isolated cell was now a seething discotheque. People were getting less L-egant with every beer consumed. The DJ turned out to be another Torino-er to my surprise (I guess the giant earphones he sports with his mp3 player really should have been a giveaway). I gave Thomas my money to mind, which was on one hand sensible because I had no pockets, but on the other hand exceedingly stupid as
a) an uncounted stream of beers in my direction reduced me to a state of abstracted drunkenness
b) I forgot to get the change back
c) I suspect I funded several beers of Maureen, Thomas and Aranea

There is a rule of thumb I have invented that deals with riding your bicycle home drunk; as follows. If you cannot actually get on the bicycle, then you probably shouldn’t ride it. This rule came into effect that evening, and held me in good stead ever after. Instead, I made best friends with a random student outside the party, and proceeded to let him walk me and my bicycle unsteadily home. Which was very fortunate, as I had forgotten the way… Alas, what at trashbag I have become. But he guided me back to the electrical engineering tower and told me his email address for future drunken reference, which I forgot between Cornelis Drebbelweg and my room. My last words before falling onto my bed that night were to mutter a stream of expletives at my watch, for being so inconsiderate as to read 6am.

Taart in de Markt

Like most traditions, I don’t really remember who started it. I suspect Erik, with his unreasonable need for caffeinated beverages. But soon Elia had hopped on the bandwagon with me, forming the core players in what were to become quite frequent trips to Beestenmarkt.

It was always six o’clock (by which time everybody would hopefully manage to be dressed and showered) and as such, those not of Spanish origin would be somewhat peckish. This led to a gradual sampling of all the appeltaarts available in Beestenmarkt. The first week we found an extremely high quality establishment, Bar “Mij”. So considered because they gave you a cube of chocolate cake with your coffee and had couches. It seems that in the first week we must have overstayed our welcome a couple of times on those couches; because after that they closed and never reopened.

So we tried some others. The tiny place whose name we never managed to learn had the best appeltaart, but lost popularity after we were fumigated out by a group of cigarette-smoking adolescents. There were so many of them they practically had to sit on the tables. The next stop was Kobus Kuch… proclaiming to have “the beste appeltaart van de helemaal Nederlands”. I only tested this proclamation once with Maureen, when we were so starving and blotto that we gobbled down our appeltaart without even tasting it. Although I had the vague impression that there was a little too much cinnamon. Belvedere was always our café of last resort; a place whose only virtue is having the largest amount of seating. We would only set foot in it when all other possibilities had been exhausted (Except for Billy Bear… the name alone ensured we never even tried that place). Their appeltaart was reasonable, but the service so rude that I found myself with steam coming out of my ears, having to be physically restrained from throwing handy objects at the waiter.

They had no table service. But rather than telling you this, the waiter would make a great show of ignoring you, wiping glasses with his back obnoxiously turned to you. Even when you were the only table of people in the whole bar (and I wonder why that is?).

The favourite by far was Vlaanderen. Vlaanderen where they served you excellent appeltaart with a dob of cream bigger than the cake itself. Occasionally they would have a rather overwhelming jazz band, but everybody has their faults. Forgiveness comes as long as they keep the coffee and the cake a’flowing.