Tuesday 17 January 2017

January visions

Today we had a black morning in Amsterdam - The power outage early this morning affected to the public transportation and to the normal morning routines in many households. When I woke up and wanted to turn on the lights nothing happened at first, but after a one minute the power cut was off in our case. I slept happily in my bed without knowing the night was even darker than usual without any streetlights. The vulnerability of our modern system is there, even it is easy to forget. The luxury of light, heating, transportation, shopping and many other things is something we are used to. The electricity is making so many things easier and possible. This sort of interruption is always a good reminder and also making me think we should be better prepared and more ecological with our use of energy. I have been thinking for a while we should install the sun panels on our roof top. 

Netherlands is the first country in the world testing the opportunities using the solar panels on the surface of roads. The first solar bike path was build in Krommenie, a town north of Amsterdam. The solar panels are between glass layers, silicon rubber and concrete and are strong enough to support 12-tonne fire trucks without any damage. There are now plans to roll the technology of SolaRoad to other provinces of Netherlands in the future. Similar plans are now also made and signed in California, USA and in 2016 the first 1 km long solar road was build in Normandy, France. The new innovations are giving more opportunities for collecting and producing the energy we need. 

We were having a nice energy walk at the beach on Sunday. For me the element of water is very important to see in a bigger scale regularly. We will go to the beach more often this year, because it is such a balancing, surprising and mind clearing way to relax - just walking, listening and breathing there. Especially the winter is even more inspiring sometimes by the sea. The waves seem to shape the coastline more powerfully during the colder season and the beach looks different every time.



It is fun to follow the solar path at the beach. The sun is often giving a bit of light, even through grey clouds. Many times it has been raining in the City and we still decided to go to the beach and the weather has been just perfect there. Like it was again in Bloemendaal on sunday.



This time the water line was full of starfishes and my daughter was fascinated by seeing these beautiful creatures. She was worried that some of them, washed too far to the dry land along the waves, would die when not being able to go back to the sea. She spent some time moving many of them back to the water. This was also the first time she saw seastars and it was wonderful to see how she wanted to help them. 





Winter surfers with their minimal silhouettes are fun to watch.

Every time there are horses at the beach too.


A rescue team and the police arrived to the beach, hopefully no one was in trouble in the water.



After a long walk and finding interesting details like shells and crayfish scissors, we went for a luch at the beach restaurant. What I love about Holland is that there is always nice fish meals also on the menu. This time we tested the portion of shells and it was very tasty. 


Now the life is back to normal rhythm again after a long holiday season in December. I hope the year has started well to you !! I think the worst grey, season is over now. Yesterday I found out that the 3rd monday of the year( which was yesterday), is always a "blue monday", the most depressive day of the year. Well, for me it was a sunny, positive day with a clear blue sky. Anyway the life can be challenging, tiring and boring sometimes. But the blue sky combined with the bright sun is making it easier to go on. I feel I also learned about something new about myself during my winter sleep:-). I learned I can change the wrong tracks of my thoughts by being aware, giving me some time to consider and this way letting me to see the other possible options and solutions in the situations. I feel I am more in charge of my visions and reactions this time and ready for the new set of seasons again. The great thing of getting a bit older every year is "it seems to be I am more and more willing to get to know myself better". This means I am also getting more understanding considering the other people in my life. It is wonderful!