Incoming traffic for Schiphol Airport, which is an overhead blues for us being disturbed every two minutes for another one, while sitting in the garden.
During the Summer we see much more incoming traffic to Schiphol Amsterdam. Quite annoying actually, every minute a plane coming in. During day time they approach just over 600 meters, but in the evening they fly in from 1000 meters. When the wind turns West again in Autumn it will be over. However, who enjoys sitting in his garden in Autumn rain?
The Netherlands, Schiphol Amsterdam – September 2024
Driving passed Schiphol we were overtaken by four Citroën Traction Avant. Three of them were into sticker collecting, the fourth was beautiful pristine.
One common misunderstanding about time is that it can fly. It does not. It is us being mesmerized how a certain amount of time goes faster in specific situations. Eg when you are on holiday, or having a great 😊 time. Each second, minute, hour, day is exactly the same as it ever was. Sometimes time seems to go slower too! Again, a misconception. But what is the figurative opposite of flying? In most of those moments I do wish time could fly.
At times the incoming traffic for Schiphol gets annoying. Especially when it is cloudy. The limit for approach is 600 feet here. They do create graphic images at time. That is a small benefit.
Before the pandemic I used to cross this canal twice a day, and I took loads of photos of it, but just recently I found out about its history and historical purpose.
As most of you probably know the Dutch have a long relationship with water, and learned how water could be managed over the ages. About half of The Netherlands is below sea level; the question was and is how to keep it dry? Some say that God created the world but the Dutch created The Netherlands. In reality we manage water. In days of climate change that gets more complex. Not only the amount of water coming in by rivers and rain is growing, the soil of The Netherlands sinks as well.
In 1840 this canal was build. From 1848 the former lake the Haarlemmermeer was turned into the Haarlemmermeerpolder and this canal was used to dump the water of that lake into the North Sea. Schiphol (ship hell) was a spot in that former lake notorious for ship wrecks as the story goes.
Nowadays the canal takes out the water from the West of The Netherlands to the sea at Katwijk.