Almere

Wind was nice yesterday, but a cold stop me from going into the water. Damn microorganisms.

Still it didn't stop me from going for a small sight seeing trip to the newest part of Netherlands: Almere in the Flevoland province.

I am a engineer at heart. I love to see feats of human ingenuity, great constructions and big endeavors. Be it in arts (music and architecture being my favorites), sport (windsurf closer to my heart) or constructions (cathedrals, enormous bridges and feats to tame mother nature. Netherlands are filled with all this. A big part of the country is bellow the sea level and exists only because of the huge effort from the dutch into expanding their land.

Almere is the newest city of Netherlands and, has I would expect, it's a wonderful place to go and see modern architecture.

In the first picture you can see what looks like nice well taken care yards and a small block. Well, it's what it looks but the grass fields are actually the roof of shopping centers. Houses and walk paths were set on the top of the shops and building, creating a village above the city center. It's wonderful to see, the busy people bellow going from shop to shop and then stay in the yards relaxing and enjoying the sun.

Really a nice place to visit and to go shopping - so many different shops were to leave your money…

Going around a little, and as usually being attracted to the line between land and sea, we came up with some windsurfers that were packing after having enjoyed a good session. Lucky guys, I was (am) so jealous.

Never the less I went to have a talk and it was some really nice people. They live close by so I will probably see them more time (I hope so - in the water specially). They gave me some ideas of nice spots were they go and, I think I can learn quite a bit with this guys (I feel I can learn a lot with almost any other windsurfer).

After the talk, and with sun starting to set, we head back home for some nice hot tea and staying warm as by then the damn cold was starting to make itself felt a lot harder. Nothing a paracetamol doesn't help.