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American Cemetery Margraten
I’ve posted about this remarkable and humbling cemetery before.
It’s an impeccably site, under constant care of both the foundation, as well as the many many adopting families in the area of Maastricht. A humble thank you for those who gave their lives for our freedom.
maesland.com The three graves we’ve adopted:
Margraten, April 30, 2023
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57th Amstel Gold Race
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‘t Brede Spoor
It’s not often you spot genuine engagement and passion. Marijk Greweldinger engages with little ones usually considered too young to be taught, with language, music, movement and images. Her atelier is nothing short of of amazing, making my fingers trigger happy to capture every little corner. And when she starts to play the piano, and sings along, the tiny children all sing along and learn to express themselves. It’s a special way to set a literal stage for their development.
Maastricht, 15 April 2023
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Powered by the neighbourhood
In Maastricht social housing company Servatius started an initiative with local volunteers in the neighbourhood of Wittevrouwenveld to improve the quality of life. In the last decade, they’ve turned around the neighbourhood by literally walking the streets with volunteers, and taking notes and following up. The housing company took a chance of using one of the houses to be the goto-place for the locals, winning hearts and minds over time. Step by step they addressed litter, gangs, broken pavements and spotted isolated eldery that needed support doing their gardening. Caring volunteers worked side by side with the municipal workers and the housing company to achieve this.
They moved from monitoring to intervening, and by now their todo-list of things to fix is usually short, and no one gets left behind in isolation. Their success is being copied to other areas in Maastricht and receives a lot of attention from other municipalities.
It’s been a gutsy move to get away from the head office, provide a place to meet and have meetings and go beyond the stigma of being a troubled area. When you look around now, it’s very well looked after, clean, gardens and play grounds are showing a pride and connected society.
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Catching the bells
When Radio BBC3 requests its listeners to record carillon bells in action
they make an effort, even if there’s background noise so a redo is needed.
Lovely Brittish granny of Danish triplets, where Maastricht is (as I always say) close to all other places in Europe, from Brittany to Danmark.
Maastricht, 4th april 2023
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Polish entrepreneurs
Friendly Polish folks on a business trip to Maastricht.
Posing for me in very tricky lighting, with super bright skies & city hall.
Still, love the composition of the last shot, they were so at ease.
(I humbly apologise for the injection of light the last photo needed)
Maatricht, 4th april 2023
(just email me if you’d want any of the pictures in 5584 × 8368 pixels and without watermark)
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20 : 1
There’s 23.4 million bicyles in the Netherlands, over 1.2 millon scooters.
With every third person even owning a second bycycle …
… this is any Dutch city centre anywhere.
Equally universal are the kids flocking
to enjoy the last rays of sun, feeding
the pigeons in front of the city hall.Maastricht, 4th of April
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At the train station
Picking up my daughter at the station,
I noticed the details: the well-groomed hair, the pretty lady
and the can of Red Bull, not disposed on the street – there’s hope!
Maastricht central train station, 2 April 2023
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Museum aan het Vrijthof
Maastricht isn’t exactly Istanbul
in terms of scale and liveliness
but it does have the cutest tiny museums
Maastricht, 26 March 2023
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Cattle class
Loneliness
is a hall full of people
that do not engage.Terminal 2 in Lisbon is for the cheap airlines.
Do not be fooled by the pictures, they are highly misleading.
The usual amount of people is about 3x to 4x as many, and it should be clear that the chances of finding a seat while waiting or eating a McPlant burger are nil.
Security, on the other hand is quick, with laptops staying in the luggage.
Lisbon Airport, terminal 2, 23 Mar 2023
Maesland
Black and white street photography
Maesland 