A realization about space in NL

Well I’ve come to a realization recently about living in the Netherlands: I’m claustrophobic here. Not because of the amount of people in a tight space – it’s actually the most densely populated country in Europe. And it’s not living in a city – Nijmegen has about 120,000 people, and although I live near the downtown it’s still nicely spaced and is actually a wonderful place to live. And it’s not the woods where I ride around Nijmegen – I’ve spent my fair share of time in the woods in Nova Scotia and Alberta.

It’s actually when I’m in the open spaces that I feel the most claustrophobic. That might not make sense right away, but if you go out into a field and look around in the Netherlands you can see a few km’s to the nearest line of trees or a building or whatever. But if you look just above that line of trees the next thing you’ll see in the distance is the sky – and that’s pretty darn far away. So there’s nothing in the ‘middle’ ground to give some depth to the countryside.
I really noticed this the last time I was in Provence when I realized I could look around from the center of a field or clearing and see a tree line or a line of buildings or whatever, then behind that in the middle distance I could see some hills or a cliff, and usually behind that I could also see a mountain, and then the sky in the far distance.

I know that’s not a huge difference and probably a lot of people wouldn’t notice anything, but for some reason it’s really been weighing on me recently that I miss having hills around and I think this might be the reason why.

Anyway, there’s a random though for ya, so chew on that for a while :o)