Legends of the Sun Pig

Pat and Susan are visiting for a couple of weeks. On Monday we went in to Amsterdam for lunch, and visited the World Press Photo exhibition in the Nieuwe Kerk. For as long as we’ve lived here, I’ve seen the billboards and posters advertising it go up around this time each year, but this is the first time that I’ve gone in. I was reminded of it last weekend when I fell down an internet rabbit hole and ended up browsing around PetaPixel. That’s where I learned about the controversy around the prize last year, which led to the organization adopting a code of ethics. I had not known that World Press Photo contest was started in the Netherlands, and has been around for 60 years.

I had expected to be impressed; I had not been expecting to be moved to tears. I followed the main path through the exhibition, looking at striking and beautiful photographs of nature, sports, and people. But the many images of refugees, leading up to the final, winning photo were harrowing. I had seen the image itself elsewhere before, but the context of the exhibition, and seeing it blown up to life size made it much more powerful.

The exhibition is on display around the world. It’s worth a visit. I’m going to make a point of seeing it again next year.

I was reading recipe blogs this afternoon looking for suggestions on how to make a honey and orange vinaigrette. The typical ingredient lists were sufficiently consistent (orange juice, cider vinegar, honey, olive oil, a little mustard as an emulsifier) that I felt able to improvise, but in doing so I was reminded of Mallory Ortberg’s classic article, All The Comments on Every Recipe Blog:

“I didn’t have any eggs, so I replaced them with a banana-chia-flaxseed pulse. It turned out terrible; this recipe is terrible.”

“I followed this to the letter, except I substituted walnuts and tofu for the skirt steak, ditched the cheese entirely, and replaced the starch with a turnip salad. Turned out great. My seven-year-old boys have never seen a dessert and I’ve convinced them that walnut-and-turnip salad is “cake.” Thanks for the recipe!”

“I didn’t have buttermilk, so I just poured baking soda into a container of raspberry yogurt. It tasted terrible.”

“I love this recipe! I added garlic powder, Italian seasoning, a few flakes of nutritional yeast, half a bottle of kombucha, za’atar, dried onion, and biscuit mix to mine. Great idea!”

She’s not wrong.

This weekend Abi and I abandoned the kids again and headed off for a short break. We stayed at the Van der Valk Hotel Cuijk and had a wonderfully relaxing time. I’m always impressed by how Van der Valk have industrialized their particular brand of hospitality. They do it so well.

Yesterday we wandered the outskirts of Cuijk in the afternoon, and then again in the dark after dinner. (We shared a smoked duck carpaccio and cranberry salad as a starter, and that’s a dish I’ll definitely be stealing for my own repertoire.) Today we drove through Molenhoek and the Mookerheide to the Duivelsberg (Devil Mountain) just outside the village of Beek on the German border. (It’s only 75.9m above sea level, but that’s quite a hill around these parts.)

We followed the 3km Duivelsberg trail before lunch, which took us past the hill’s summit. In medieval times it was the site of a medieval motte-and-bailey castle. In the Second World War the hill was fought over during Operation Market Garden. Now, it’s a pleasant forest stroll.

The Duivelsberg trail is a loop. We started out from the car park of the Duivelsberg restaurant. On the inbound leg, on some of the red markers for our trail, we started to see these plaques:

To me, it looked like a dude with flippers for hands. Abi wondered if it might be an oddly winged devil, or the Angel of Mosquitoes. Because this wasn’t our first rodeo visit to the Dutch countryside, we automatically thought that the signs were going to lead us to an inscrutable piece of public art. We also speculated that they might be symbolic of the Duivelsberg restaurant. A tall guy with serving trays for hands?

Indeed, the trail led us right back there. The last plaque had an arrow that seemed to point straight into the restaurant’s back garden, but the symbol was nowhere to be found on the building or its menus. Curious. We sat down for lunch and speculated. We tried a reverse image search, but it didn’t produce anything. The other thing that kept our interest piqued was the fact that the plaques were directional. They only appeared on one side of the trail markers. They were trying to lead you one way, rather than in a loop like the other walking trails.

After lunch, we decided to follow the signs a bit further, to see if they led anywhere. We followed them for maybe a couple of kilometers: along the Grensroute trail at first, then over the Oude Kleefsebaan at the car park on the road, and into yet more muddy forests. It was a lovely walk, along some beautiful tree-lined and root-paved avenues, but we weren’t getting the feeling there was an actual destination awaiting us. Eventually, it started to hail, and then to rain. We sheltered at the top of a hill, and then turned around. We figured that we’d decipher the mystery once we were warm and dry again, with access to more internet.

When we got back to the restaurant, the obvious thing to do was to stop and asked one of the staff if he knew what the plaques were for. He did. They’re markers for the Walk of Wisdom, a 136km walking trail that loops around Nijmegen and surroundings. It opened in June of 2015, so it’s brand new. The people behind it are trying to establish a new kind of secular pilgrimage tradition, with its own rituals and symbols. Pilgrims doing the whole route can buy a Walk of Wisdom badge (Sinister Paddle Man/Angel of Mosquitoes) to pin to their lapel or bag. They can also get a special leather thong, and buy commemorative bird rings in every village or town along the way to attach to it. Pilgrims are encouraged to take part in a “modern fast” by keeping their phones and devices turned off for as much as possible. The organisers hope that once the tradition gets bedded in, they can expand it to other locations around the world.

I’m a fan of big walks, but I’m not sure how I feel about this. Traditions generally rub me the wrong way, and this attempt to kick-start a bunch of new ones feels artificial. I hope people taking part enjoy the experience, but this afternoon I would have preferred a statue.

When I was working in Schiphol-Rijk a few years ago, I would occasionally cross the Aalsmeerderbrug to Aalsmeer to fill up at a conveniently located petrol station. More recently I’ve been shuttling Alex to appointments in Amstelveen, which has had us crossing the same waterway on the A9 a few kilometers further north. The route along the dyke always looked quite attractive, and I put it on my long-walk list. Last weekend the weather was gorgeous — cold, but sunny and clear — and I got up early on the Sunday to give it a go.

I didn’t want to spend the first few hours just walking to the start of my walk, so I took the first bus from Oostzaan to Amsterdam Centraal (08:30), and then a tram to the Olympic Stadium. From there I followed the path around the north shore of the Nieuwe Meer. I crossed the water on the Oude Haagseweg and continued on the Nieuwemeerdijk. That took me as far south as the A9, and to the north-western corner of Schiphol. The road wandered through the Sunday-deserted office and light industrial parks of Schiphol. Past the N231 the dyke became the Schipholdijk, and I could walk alongside the water again. A couple of kilometers later the road became the Aalsmeerderdijk, and later the Leimuiderdijk. I walked past the Westeinderplassen as far as the Leimuiderbrug, at which point I got bored.

I had intended to keep going to Sassenheim and take the train back, but there were other things I wanted to do that afternoon. So I turned back to Burgerveen, and cut along the Venneperweg to Nieuw Vennep and caught the train there. (Nieuw Vennep -> HoofdDorp -> Zaandam -> Oostzaan) Total walking distance about 25km.

It was a nice walk, and some parts of the dyke are lovely, but it wasn’t as idyllic and charming as I’d pictured. It was also about five hours straight into the sun, and I hadn’t even considered bringing sun block. Bad move. I got a serious burn on my face, and most of the last week it has either been painful or flaking off. Note to self: do better.