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A Day at the Races (long)
Posted: 2007-03-18, 6:48 pm

michaeloSupporting Member
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Location: New England
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A Day at the Races

It was predicted to rain today, so I went back to Den Haag yesterday, a Saturday. I practiced saying Scheveningen along the way; outside the train window, the first tulips were up in the outskirts of Leiden: carpets on the earth in pink and purple, next to rows of yellow daffodils coming up gangbusters. As a backup plan, I hand-printed SCHEVENINGEN on the back of a business card. I really didn’t need it: the next 3 trams on the electronic timetable were Scheveningen N-Strand, and printed on the tram’s forehead was SCHEV 9. Still, though, seeing this through to the end, I handed the driver the card, and said whatever. (Nobody else needed his attention.) I was rewarded with a three-strip validation, not the four that my years-ago research had indicated.

Tram 9 traverses some nice home sites. There are several places where the track bed is green grass. At the Madurodam (must visit here), the tram passed a road race: the streets were blocked, and pace cars and Politie on motorcycles passed in the opposite direction, followed by a few single runners. Opposite the Madurodam, a glut of athletes jostled toward open road. It’s a marathon, I reasoned. Looks like it’s just underway.

There was a guardian angel on the tram, a kind woman who soothed the nerves of a couple of young men on their outing to the beach; each of them had to be reassured that this is the tram to the beach. This was to my advantage, because when we got to the stop at the sea, the sea was nowhere to be seen. The Randstad extends all the way to the shore, and I listened in as the woman indicated the passageway through the buildings to get to the beach.

First order of business was finding the Box. Paniked’s instructions once again were pinpoint, but yours truly is not impressed with his eroded map skills, especially being (I’m ashamed to admit) a former digital mapper. We used to look at aerial photos of road geometry like this, peering with a loupe to determine attributes like directions of travel, and applying them to a database of road network.

At the Kurhaus (must stay here someday; now this is where to bring m’Lady) is a map of the North Strand on the bottom of a sign in Dutch explaining the Kurhaus. This part of the sign closest the ground has gone back to the earth: a combination of sand, water, mold and rotted paper have prematurely shortened the edge of the map’s universe. But I was in luck—“Havenkad…” I found printed right at the southwest edge of the world. Off Badhuisweg at Geyvers Deynootweg. Check.

But where am I now? The Kurhaus is bigger than a hundred barns, yet I could find no physical depiction of it on the map. (There is, however, a useless illustration of the thing on the sign, when all you have to do is look up, and there it is.) “YOU ARE HERE” would have been nice. (It probably was there in Dutch.) As I studied the map, a gentleman approached.

“What is it?” he asked, gesturing at the sign. He wasn’t a native English speaker, not Dutch either.

I nodded, and pointed to the word printed “Kurhaus,” underlining it with my index finger.

“Yes,” he said, impatient, “I can see that, but in English, what is it?”

I got a tickle about being demanded to speak English to a tourist in a country foreign to me. As if I were a local Dutchie—it’s an honor to be so mistaken! I said in American, “I can speak English perfectly well, but I still do not know what it is.”

He was taken aback for a second, I smiled, he burst into a belly laugh. We exchanged greetings. I set off to waste footsteps. My bad: I saw a sign that said, “Badhuisweg.” It was a 'that-a-way' indicator, pointing to the left. That much I got. Danged if I could find it; I thought I was already at the intersection I was looking for.

A gas station attendant had to consult a map, and a kind man in queue behind me knew where it is, he helped the shop keeper direct me. I bought dropjes for good shop karma and energie.

I was looking for the break in buildings to head left toward the tram line, but couldn’t make up my mind. A car pulls up, window down; it’s the same kind man, he says, “You look lost.” I admitted it, he offered me a ride; grateful, I accepted. “I know where Havenkade is; I can take you there.”

There’s an old hitchhiking ethic from the US ‘70s, that one offers to pay for their ride in conversation, especially over the vast interstate distances of the West. But I was a little stunned to be a quick conversationalist; eventually I recovered. He is a local inhabitant. I tried the marathon as an icebreaker. Yes, he informed me, it’s a city-to-the-sea circuit, and they keep changing the route because everybody complains about the inconvenience. He sped down the Geyvers Deynootweg a distance much further than I would have wanted to walk. Muchas gracias, senor (he's Dutch, but Spanish speaks to me). He pulled over at Havenkade, made sure I saw where the street sign was displayed (Holland 101, but I was grateful even more), and made sure I wandered off in the correct direction. Then he took off. Adios, angel.

The Box is on the next corner. The upper half-door was open to the air. Upon opening the latch on the bottom half, I was struck by an immediate first impression: I was stepping into a frat house at an American university. The seated crowd was all of that age, some played backgammon, some read, the ubiquitous cell phone. The Politie came in briefly for a quick chat with the shop keeper and cheerful greetings. I sat down with a cola, and was able to ascertain that what made the place look shabby was the floor: ancient, thick planking beaten absolutely to shit. Chair legs cut deep gouges, so what? It was built to take punishment; it is functional. It’s just that the hard-worn floor is what grabs your eyes after the prettiness of exterior window awnings and that righteous wooden door.

They’ve got Thai, 1.6 g. for 6 e. Skunk 1.0 for 6. Five kinds of hash (got plenty of that), “en tot ziens.” I still had the Diesel Haze from Jukebox, pass, but I liked the prices. I relaxed with a smoke, raised my eyes to see what else was in the Box. A couple lads sat down next to me, and I enjoyed to watch them roll their cones with a filter and weed crumbled with half a Marlboro on the table. I love watching this process, and made no pretense about doing it. One fellow gestured to the other with his head, toward the wall. They both remarked about it. I looked over my head to discover an etched mirror of Daffy Duck battling Bugs Bunny in foosball, wearing intergalactic garb. Thanks guys, glad I didn’t miss that.

One more smoke brought me peace with that floor. The trash that settles to a floor in the course of a day is the same as anywhere. The floor works. I reminisced about the bar below my apartment in Sicily, where drivers in tiny cars zoomed in for afternoon coffee braced with a shot of liquor. By that time, a day’s worth of sugar-packet papers and dust were kicked up against the bar like snow drifts. No different here, except Sicilian brooms are a breeze on the marble flooring.

Behind the bar is a carved wooden face of a cigar-store Indian, and another wooden statue of an Indian chief in full headdress, holding a bison skull. Like from around Cody, Wyoming. Formula One on the telly, everybody at the bar watching. Me too, it was exciting! The racetrack is decorated with ING logos, tulips are in bloom, there are boxes of skyline in the background. I asked the shop keeper, “where is the race? Is it in Holland? I see the ING logos.”

“No,” he thought for a minute, replied, “Malaysia! But ING, they are Dutch.” I acknowledged this point. He went on, “They are the new corporate sponsor this year, and this is the first race! It’s on Dutch TV.”

We said so long. I later looked up that the race was actually in Melbourne, close enough; Malaysia is the next one. But no matter. The man knows his sport, another example of something exotic to most Americans that the entire rest of the world gets. I found the Box to be a gem, especially when a day at the beach awaited me.

I was not going to walk that long boulevard back to the tram stop. I looked for an opening between buildings where I might get to the beach, instead. Quickly, there was a street to the left that ascends a dune through real estate (maklaar signs and trucks abundant) to a park on the seaward side where a statue of a Dutchman eats haring. (Being a fish eater, this really appeals to me.) There are benches on an overlook to the North Sea. Waves are lashing the pier today. I need the scarf I brought. I’m fascinated with the kite surfers, two of them out quite far, racing back and forth across choppy seas. The one in closer has been riding the swells, but he suddenly catches big air like a catapult. I don’t think he meant to do that: he went down. His parachute fluttered to the water. So how does he get up again? Even with a wet suit, there’s a hypothermia risk, plus all his physical exertion as he tugs and adjusts the lines to get the sail perpendicular to the wind: it lifts, fails, falls. He tries again. And tried again. I could feel the exhaustion in his limbs, the uncertainty of what-have-I-gotten-myself-into? Eventually, the kite flies skyward just like a kid’s does, if Dad knows what he’s doing; underneath the canopy, the man sweeps its attitude to the wind. Suddenly, the sail pulls the surfboard toward the shore. But the rider doesn’t stand; he’s just getting a tow. Entering the surf, he caught a wave, and at last stood for the ride to the sand. He hopped off the board, gathered it under one arm, and kept the kite flying up the beach as he walked away. I wanted to applaud, but I was 300 yards downwind.

From here to the beach? As we say in New England, you can’t get there from here. All the beach access is private, via restaurant complexes on the sand. Pedestrians are funneled to the Noord Strand, a paved promenade with public stairs to the beach. When I got there, Politie and soldiers were cordoning it off with red-and-white tape. They let bicycles through, but detoured the walkers into the car park. Of course, it’s the marathon! The entire Strand was barricaded off; there was no going to the beach today. I wondered about those trapped on the beach side of the cordon. Out of the wind, I liked my position better.

I took a stand at the barricade directly under the 14 Km course marker, next to a soldier on the other side. He kindly acknowledged my existence.

Leading the pack were 2 humvees of soldiers, a Politie on a motorbike, 1 pace car, 1 official car, a sag wagon, then 3 more Politie and an ambulance, all on motorbikes at spaced intervals. Next, music blaring from a sponsorship car, 2 more Politie, 2 civilian motorcycles. To applause, the front runner arrives, an African, a gazelle in high canter, his indigo quadriceps pulse in strides more like leaps from footpad to footpad. I don’t know the team colors, white and green, a Kenyan I’d hazard. It’s amazing he’s got room to run: he’s surrounded by four motorcycles on low-rpm throttle, one of them a camera crew. The first 20 places were all Africans, greyhound racers, all received with applause. The first two Caucasian runners had their own camera cycle. The demographic then changed to all male and predominantly white. The contestants checked their watches against the kilometer marker as they ran by.

I wondered, can one get a tram out of here? I walked back to the Kerhaus stop. Nope. Behind the pedestrian shelters was now routed the race, along the car lane, looping back to Den Haag from the pier. I had to cross the race course to get to the tram island. All traffic was blocked; there would be no trams for awhile. The only way back to Amsterdam was on foot--no taxis to be seen, either.

There wasn’t much company at the tram stop. I sat on a steel bench to enjoy the race. A sole woman was among the pack now passing, an African, orange uniform. I don’t think she was the frontrunner, because she didn’t have a camera crew on her.

Talk about enforced leisure—people fly to tropical islands for the pleasure of doing nothing at the beach. Well, here I was flown-in to Scheveningen, or close-enough for horseshoes. I watched the entire race. For more than an hour, thousands and thousands of runners passed (I observed entry numbers north of 9000), bunched so thick there was no crossing the course anymore. The procession entering the square was endless.

Before the throng had arrived, the serious amateurs cut some time off the course for themselves. Instead of taking the long way around the tram stop, one guy cut through the inside car lane straight toward the Holland Casino, and the whole field followed; hell, they started cutting across the Plaza Leonardo da Vinci, where two lads were break-dancing on the polished slate underneath the statue. (They were good once they warmed up: handsprings, shoulder spins, Michael-Jackson poses. A kid on a bike happened along, laid down his fiets, and busted a move. Cheers from the lads; he got on his bike, moved on.) The Politie arrived in a van, not to hassle the kids, but rather to head-off-the-pass to the runners. The race officials were wise to it by now, and they descended in a show of authority, red-and-white taping-off the entire square. It became a slow watch for that police team; citizens came up to hang out with them.

Among the on-lookers were family members there to encourage loved ones competing. Cheers rang out at regular intervals from irregular places. Many people clapped the pace. One runner spotted her contingent before they saw her; the cheer this time came first from the runner. She managed to pull out of the pack for belated recognition and cheers, a hug, and a bottle of juice. One well-dressed swain brought his lady a banana. She ran off peeling the fruit, and I got to thinking about the hazard of a banana peel on a race course. The people right next to me greeted a gentleman runner far senior to me, a marvel of physical conditioning. He told three generations of kin that there was only 5 km remaining; he can make it. (20 km, eh? This was not a marathon.) Soon, the onlookers began exhorting the tired ones arriving: only 5 km to go, clap-clap-clap! (I marveled at how understandable Dutch can be in context.)

The tail-end of the race was perhaps the most interesting. I haven’t run since I was in the service, because, well, that’s what we did then. (I think the longest distance I ever covered was 8 km, in a fun-run in Sicily, where I, of medium height, towered over the local runners in the pack. “Hey, Chicago!” hailed down at me from a balcony.) I’m no runner, but I understand the challenge and reward inherent in the concept of personal best. To run a half-marathon is an achievement, and with respect to much more than entry fees, the race officials afforded every opportunity for every competitor to finish. The trams could wait. A motorcycle cop pulled up coasting to a laggard. I was close enough to read his eyes: you can jump on the bike at any time. The runner smiled, shook his head, soldiered on. The Politie zoomed off.

A young woman of classic Nordic physique took a spot across the course from me, alone. She began clapping pace to the back of the pack, encouraging them to carry on. Her clapping was first relentless, but the pack thinned out. With a voice deep and confident, she began offering individual encouragement to the slowest contestants passing at intervals now. Each one got a personal pep talk from an angel. She stayed until the very end, then disappeared into the crowd.

The Politie and race workers collapsed the course in the rear, wadding up tape, and the usual chaos of traffic resumed. I counted two Trams 1 and seven Trams 9 that came along to loop back to Den Haag from the end of the lijn. To let the crowd clear out, I got on the third Tram 9 (saying “Centraal Station” to the driver is so much easier!), and got there about the same time as everybody else. Along the way, the tram passed the same slowest runners I’d watched pass by before. There’s that hulk of an old man lumbering his huge frame into the homestretch! By golly, the exhilaration of “I’m going to make it!” has got to be a motivator like no other. Good for those stalwart souls. The official time posted at the last kilometer marker said 2:33:00, with seconds advancing.

The tram went left across the Malieveld, the race took a right to the finish line past the Escher Museum, where an audience still awaited. Runners filled the Centraal Station complex; three sat across from me on the 1728 Sneltrain to Leiden with carb snacks, water, celebration.
Re: A Day at the Races (long)
Posted: 2007-03-20, 11:24 am

paniked Power Kat
Posts: 1376
Location: Amsterdam
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michaelo,

glad you made it out to The Box -- not the best or most memorable coffeeshop ever, but so close to the beach, and I used to live right around the corner.

Best overall coffeeshop in Den Haag (some would say in Holland) is Grand Cafe Cremer's in the Prinsenstraat. You know the Juke Box obviously. My one other recommendation, if it is still around, is De Mazzelaar on Zoutmanstraat.

-paniked

_________________
"De kinderen fietsen naar school, zij roken dikke sigaren en slaan de leraren. Ja, dat is Amsterdam!"
"So high you couldn't reach me with a fuckin' antenna"
Re: A Day at the Races (long)
Posted: 2007-03-20, 12:54 pm

michaeloSupporting Member
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Posts: 80
Location: New England
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Paniked, thank you for participating in my Den Haag threads. I thought of you frequently when I was there; I appreciate what you and the other moderators do on this board to enhance our experiences in Holland.

I really like what I have seen of Den Haag. MFL tells me of Ottawa, a place where she once lived, another national (international) capital. I think if I could secure a decent flat near a tram line in Den Haag, MFL might be persuaded to live with me there, sometimes. (Amsterdam is no place for her; she has been here: too thronged, too cramped, too transient, too nuts. Further out in the residential areas would depress her. She doesn't get high, which for many of us is a tonic for dreary weather and dense population.) This is but pipe dreaming (still got a big nug of hash left), certainly, but dreams are good to see one through the day job I won't see another break from for six months. I'd like to keep a flat on two continents: I doubt I'd be allowed to live in Holland but part-time, and MLF needs her sense of home. On my list of cities to check out is Halifax.

You've left me a map, Paniked, for my next sojourn to Den Haag. Thank you, sir. Darn tootin' I'm gonna find the best shop in Holland (and we shall stay at the Kurhaus). If my mapping skills haven't given out entirely. Note to self: there is a Dutch version of Mapquest; I know, because I found Club Bianca that way.

If you lived around the corner from the Box, then you lived in one hell of a great place, Paniked. If the crush of humanity, or the heat of the summer should drive you to flee the Randstad, the block of buildings right across the street is nothing but a fascade to a sand dune. All I'd need is to put my face into the wind, and be refreshed. After, of course, I'd slid some haring down my gullet.

Cheers,
Michael
Re: A Day at the Races (long)
Posted: 2007-03-20, 3:00 pm

br1965Supporting Member
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Guys,

Talking about poor map skills....Something that has helped me in the past is Google Earth (or any of the satelite imagery websites).

You get an overview of what it looks like and you can overlay the street names. Granted... looking a city from above it is not that same as being at street level. But if definitely gives you a good sense of what to look for!

especially since Google earth just updated their images of parts of The Netherlands a couple of months ago. ...for some cities the detail is good enough you can make out individual people sitting at a table at an outdoor cafe!

eric

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If you ain't Dutch you ain't much.
Re: A Day at the Races (long)
Posted: 2007-03-20, 3:42 pm

Pala
Posts: 4
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That was great. Thanx.
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