I took Jasper and Asia’s bike to central Leiden today, to buy stuff and check out the city. Leiden was the largest city of the Netherlands in the 17th century, after Amsterdam. Then the textile
I took Jasper and Asia’s bike to central Leiden today, to buy stuff and check out the city.
Leiden was the largest city of the Netherlands in the 17th century, after Amsterdam. Then the textile industry slumped, and since then Leiden has been living on its history, including the famous Leiden university (where my ex used to work, which is why I lived here). This means that the old town is an unusual large part of the city, making it super-cozy.
I love the Dutch architecture, both the historical and the modern. One little thing where Sweden wins is that our water lines have to be public, so that you could walk along the rivers everywhere, something which you can’t in the Netherlands, which sometimes makes travelling difficult. On the other hand, saving 100 meters like the Swedish law states is extremely crazy. Two meters is OK. One for old water, and one for the humans!
Above is the house where we used to live. Third floor, third balcony from the right. Would I like to go back and change? Not really. I was so poor back then. Had to borrow money to drink beer or have a coffee. With 1000 USD/month and I’d be working on my MA thesis and might be a professor today. Instead I started working with computer games translation. Which in the end made me well-off, so maybe this was a good place to live. But I’d rather go forward! Especially since it started raining as hell, as it will the next six months.
Then we played Chicago Express, a very simple “18xx” game, meaning that you buy stocks in various train companies, that are then played to make money for their owners. I screwed it up, ending up owning no company majorities, meaning that the money I made was divided with others. But I can imagine that it was fun for Jasper to win something 😉