075: Maeslantkering

Dutch storm surge barriers and a passing reference to Marlow Granados's novel, "Happy Hour"

I am used to being the trip leader. It is easier to just say ‘I’ll drive’ or ‘I’ll pay’ than to wait for people to step up. But with my friends Vanya and Dmitry, it’s not like that. Together, they are good at life. When they asked me if I wanted to drive with them along a coastal Dutch highway called the Dammenroute, I immediately said yes. I didn’t even know what a dammenroute was, but with these two, it didn’t matter.

The highway was flanked on both sides by a smoothly rounded berm over which you could see acres of serenely reclaimed fields. To the west, there was the misty, diffuse blue of the ocean which faded into a fat bank of clouds sitting over the coast of England. The infinitude of the horizon next to the flat, cultivated landscape conveyed something both orderly and wild.

From the front seat, Vanya asked ”what are you reading right now?” she speaks six or seven languages and reads widely across all of them, so this is a common topic for us. I didn’t answer right away, though…