Holland
by Vicki Simmons 

Original version printed in Between The Vines Fall 2007 Vol. 19 No. 2

TEXT AND PHOTOS, NOT FOR REPRODUCTION WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

I don't know exactly what I expected of Holland. I'd been to London, and Boston, so I knew there was likely to be real history in Holland, as compared with the California history I'd learned in school. California history goes all the way back to, well, gosh, before California was even a state. You know, back when it belonged to Mexico. “Old” buildings are the remains and restorations of the adobe missions that Father Junipero Serra built around the turn of the 19th century when he selflessly walked from Mexico all the way to the San Francisco Bay to help the poor Indians. And then they found gold in Sutter's Creek, and the rest is, uhhh, history.

Yes, of course we learned about Greek mythology, and Hannibal, and the Vikings, and World Wars I and II. Oh, and Columbus, who found our new world. And Copernicus before him. That was back when the world was flat, I believe. But in 1492 we learned it was round. So, yes, I knew there was plenty of history over there in the “old” world. After all, Saint Nick came from Holland. He traveled by boat to fill wooden shoes of good children over there at Christmas time. (Here in the new world we have of course improved upon that, and our more modern Santa Claus flies around to fill the anti-microbial polyester stockings of good children so he can get it all done on Christmas Eve.)

So you can imagine my amazement upon arriving in Amsterdam. Those people toss around the 17th and 18th centuries like I toss around the 70's and 80's. And those centuries are as real to them as the 70's and 80's are to me. Most of the brick buildings lining the canals are much older than Father Serra's adobe. The “old” buildings that those folks consider restorations are the ones from medieval times. And they just think of it as “Amsterdam”. Not even “Olde Amsterdam”, just “Amsterdam”.

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that they recognized, back when those four-story brick homes were new, that they could get furniture into the top floors of their narrow buildings by inserting a hook into the outside of the building near a window on the top floor. Then, whenever moving in or out, they could attach a pulley with a rope to that hook and lift the furniture directly to the top floor and thus avoid having to navigate the narrow stairs. And they still use that technique! Old-fashioned? Or just intelligent? Had the American colonists adopted that technique over here, it would certainly have been replaced by now with something hydraulic, or at least something noisy and intrusive that used plenty of petroleum.

Speaking of intelligent, I'm curious about the history of the Dutch. How long were they there before they realized that the wind wasn't going to stop, so they may as well take advantage of it? They used the wind to turn their windmills to make more land for themselves (pump water elsewhere), to grind grain (turn millstones), make cheese (spin a churn), turn rocks into powdered pigment to add color to their lives (turn grinding stones), and darned near everything else we here in the new world used horses or petroleum for. I also find it interesting that their windmills were used to get rid of excess water, to turn a lake into dry land, whereas those we had on our American Great Plains were used to bring water from underground to irrigate dry land.

After a few more centuries went by and the wind still hadn't stopped they started using wind turbines in place of windmills. Or perhaps in addition to windmills. I know that over here we use wind turbines to generate electricity. At the time, looking out the window of our coach, I assumed that was what they were being used for over there as well, but I don't really know what they were doing. I didn't hear anyone mention what the purpose of the turbines was, so they may well have been pumping water with them. Or, now that I think about it, if they're making energy with them, they can do anything they want with that energy, can't they?

When the driver stopped the coach along a row of wind turbines that seemed to go on forever, I, along with a few other hardy souls, got out to see what they were like up close. Wow! At home, when I drive past a wind farm, the turbines are just silent, off in the distance, looking stately as they turn seemingly slowly on their hillside. Not so! Not only are they huge up close, they are loud! It's an almost indescribable sound. A very loud sound. Not like a motor, yet nothing like normal wind either. Maybe more like a jet engine, with a just hint of the whistle combined with plenty of roar. Loud. Amazingly loud, but not a piercing, cover your ears loud. Just a constant, somehow heart-thrilling, wow-inspiring, incredulous loud. I'd left my camera on the bus, and I'm almost glad I did. While I wondered briefly if I should run back to my seat to grab it, I just stood there in awe looking up at the one just across the two-lane road. I could almost feel the incredible power of the turbines. I'm used to thinking of a propellor being turned by a motor so it can push or pull an airplane or boat or something. It was almost hard to conceive of those huge blades being turned solely by that wind whipping off the water.

I looked behind me at one point, as if to see if it really was windy. The bus was stopped in a turnout on the left hand side of the road. There was what I took to be a lake just a meter or two below the us on the turnout side of the road. I guess the roadway was actually running along the top of a dike, because it was quite a large body of water. Across the road was the row of huge turbines in a perfectly straight line parallel to the road, all facing the water. The wind was just whipping off the water, and it made some really angry looking waves, almost whitecaps, swirling against the dike rather than pretty waves lapping at a shoreline, and they were swirling surprisingly close to where we were standing. I was glad I didn't have a hat, because it was almost hard to stand up against the wind. When I think back, I don't even remember feeling cold standing there in just a lightweight, indoor sweater and socks with no shoes. The wind was definitely intense, but somehow the thrill of the turbines completely overwhelmed any sense of discomfort from wind or cold I might ordinarily have felt. I think I was totally captivated by the wind, the water, and the sound of the turbines. An absolutely amazing experience.

I know I said I didn't know what I expected to see in Holland, and I certainly didn't expect that. While I could have had a similar experience at home, it's somehow more appropriate to have had it there in Holland. Maybe because they've used windmills for some many things for so long, or maybe because of the water swirling just behind us. Maybe just because it seemed so appropriate for the Dutch to be using the ever-present wind for yet another useful purpose.

We saw old traditional windmills almost every day as we were driving across the country and back. Most of them were nicely painted and otherwise well maintained, but looked like they were being used as restaurants, museums or visitor centers rather than working windmills. We did go to two tourist areas that each contained a number of working windmills. One was a very nice destination kind of area with nicely maintained traditional houses too, some of which functioned as gift shops, restaurants, and museums. A walking path led out to the windmills along the waterfront. Each of the windmills was performing a different function (grinding rock for pigment was my favorite, although the cheese churner had it's practical side), and tours of the inner workings were available in some. The other park was in a more rural area, not quite so well developed as the first, which left it looking like it was a more accurate representation of what the landscape looked like back in the days of the windmill than the what we'd seen in the park. Regardless, the old windmills struck me as very picturesque regardless of the setting, but particularly against a backdrop of blue sky with puffy white clouds.

In terms of cultural differences, I guess the word I would use for what I saw in Amsterdam is “open”. I have spent much of my adult life in what others have called “lily white” areas, and on the west coast of the US. Not on purpose, just where my collegiate and working life took me. I saw more interracial relationships in that one week in Amsterdam than I've seen perhaps ever. I'm now thinking that, while we have the concept of the US being a melting pot in our cultural background, we may well make a bigger deal about racial issues in this country than they do over there. In fairness, I wasn't reading the newspaper over there, so I don't know what the general conversation was. But I can't imagine that it would have been as pervasive and seemingly unremarkable as it was if there was much outcry. And the red light district and coffee houses go right along with that openness, as the former houses the legal prostitution and the latter serve legal marijuana rather than traditional coffee. The outdoor walkup urinals kind of pushed my limit at first, but after first blush, it too, seems quite practical.

I wondered as I walked by the tall squarish open-sided fiberglass unit out in the square on Saturday afternoon if it was artwork or just what. It seemed a little out of place for a sculpture, and as I glanced, I saw that each quarter section of the unit had a strategically placed round hole that looked like it could be reached by stepping up onto the small quarter-circle shaped base I noticed as I walked by. And, yes, the fiberglass could indeed be forming what could be loosely termed privacy dividers between the four sections. I figured I'd never know, though, since we were walking to the restaurant for dinner. We crossed the street at the other end of the square, and as I turned my head to look for traffic, my curiosity was satisfied. I happened to catch a glimpse of the back of a man standing up on the base of that sculpture, facing the center of the unit, apparently using that strategically placed hole. So it would appear that four people, presumably men (but then I'm showing my American modesty, aren't I?), can handle their business in about one square meter's worth of space, with some measure of privacy from each other, while concealing anything that might make the proverbial American grandmother turn away and gasp in horror. Our new world portapotties can handle one person's needs in about the same amount of space, with a longer line, but no fear of gender discrimination.

I think the biggest sense of discomfort I experienced came along with one of the greatest tours I happened onto. We spent a few hours at the Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of Art and History (rijksmuseum.nl), one morning as a replacement for a scheduled garden that, at the last minute, wasn't able to host us. I didn't rent either the art or the history audio tours that morning. I got lucky and got my history lesson from our local tour guide and historian, Dirk. I found myself continually astounded at how much the Dutch had contributed to history, and how little I had learned about it in school. Better late than never though, and his was a fascinating and thoroughly engaging lesson in Dutch history, taught by one who learned history the right way, before it was turned into a Top Ten List that could appear on David Letterman's show.

Amsterdam's centrum (central area) struck me as being a very comfortable area in which to live. Brick buildings line both sides of the streets. Urban homes, butted right next to each other with no visible space between, each similar in height and width but with different styles of windows or different brick colors so it didn't look like a solid wall of brick. Most had stairs up or down to the sidewalk along the fronts. No lawns, and I didn't see the window boxes of flowers that are common in other European cities, just sidewalks. Next to the sidewalk is a single narrow lane for cars, perhaps with a row of parking places on one side, perhaps not. And down the center is a tree-lined canal, often with boats tied to the edges. With the water, trees, and warmth of the brick, I didn't notice for a moment the lack of lawns or flowers. And it didn't hurt that almost everyone speaks English. Back in one of those 16th or 17th centuries they'd had a British Royal Family member marry a Dutch Royal Family member, so there's quite a long history of both languages being used in Holland.


I would bet, however, that there's more room for boats in the downtown core of Amsterdam than there is for cars. Some of those canals seemed wider than the streets that lined them on both sides combined. (Now that I think about it, I don't recall seeing a single Cadillac mixed in with those Smart Cars and other comparatively diminutive automobiles anywhere in our travels. No SUVs either, and only mini-minivans, and then only for delivery purposes and taxis.) And I'll bet there's more room for bikes than cars, too. Even along the canals, there's plenty of room for bikes, but those narrow lanes seemed a little tight for cars, even the smaller cars they drive there. I got to wondering whether there were more cars or bikes. It's hard to tell because the bicycles are small compared to the cars, and one patch of cement with a metal rack may well hold more bikes than a full block along a canal can hold in parked cars. For sure I dodged more bikes while walking downtown than I did cars, although I probably waited for an equal number of each at crosswalks.

The outlying areas, however, are quite different, and somehow equally charming. Amsterdam is probably not that much different from New York City or San Francisco in terms of downtown housing vs. the more rural areas. Except, in Holland, there's water. Everywhere. Okay, maybe not everywhere, but practically everywhere. Most of the gardens we toured were in rural areas, and it was quite pleasant to gaze out the window while traveling between them.

I've lived all of my life in valleys surrounded by hills. Holland is flat. Amazingly flat. There are the dikes and the overpasses, and the rest is flat. Only once do I remember seeing hills in the distance, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that those hills were really across the border in Germany. But all that flat land was also green. Beautiful pasture lands stretched for miles with homes and barns placed back away from the highway. Where there wasn't pasture, there were trees. Deciduous ones, primarily. I can't say that I noticed any evergreens growing in the countryside. We have more fir trees here in the Pacific Northwest than we do deciduous trees, so it was notable to me that I didn't see any firs given that the weather seemed so comparable to what I'm used to. But those pleasantly rounded trees in full leaf stood out magnificently, dividing sections of the wide-open green pastures.

Despite all the green and all the flat, I marveled at the water. We rode along rural roads, mile after mile, passing homes that had a narrow canal between the road and the house. Their driveways were flat and crossed the canal at street level, but their front walkways that extended straight out from their front doors and across the canal always seemed to be arched bridges. One arch after another as we rode along. All the lawns were perfectly green and manicured and most had lovely blooming and specimen plants in their yards. The houses all appeared to have fresh paint and the yards were well tended. The curtains visible through the front windows were tied back almost in unison. Every so often one of the homes would have a thatched roof: clean, in good repair, and the homes appeared to be lived in daily. The same pride that was evident in the clean downtown Amsterdam streets appeared to extend to the rural areas as well.

But back to the water. I can't tell you how many of those comfortable-looking homes not only had a canal between the road and their front lawn, but many also had canals along one or both sides of their houses at right angles to the street-front canal. The houses and yards had the appearance of being on an island, with the canals as property lines on at least three sides. I was fascinated by that. I didn't notice any cement walls in these canals; they looked quite natural to me. Inside the canal-marked property line may have been the homeowner's shrubbery or bedding plants of choice, with lawn inside that. Or, in some cases, the lawn extended to the inner edge of the canal. I had the sense that the lots tended to be narrow along the street but extend back quite a ways, making the properties long, skinny rectangles with the houses close to the street. It certainly does make it easier to water the yard and any animals you may have when you have a canal on either side of your property!

We didn't get the massive tulip display one might expect of a springtime trip to Holland. Mother Nature saw to that with a two-week heat wave in late April that all but finished off tulip season. We did see enough late tulips to almost satisfy us, and, because the season had moved on, we were also able to see azaleas and rhododendrons in bloom, as well as some hostas and other later-spring bloomers. This probably made the gardens we toured more colorful than they might have been had only tulips and early bloomers been in blossom, although the tulips we saw were definitely colorful.

Our first garden was exquisite, both in the maintenance, variety and sheer size. Keukenhof bills itself as the most beautiful spring park on earth, and they may well be right. It was beautiful no matter which direction I pointed my camera or which path I wandered down. Given the horror stories I'd heard about the tulips, I thought there was still a fine display of quite a variety of tulips in the garden, however their growing fields that a few weeks before were no doubt a gorgeous stretch of color toward the horizon had already been plowed under. The Japanese section of the garden wasn't lacking one bit in color, and in other sections there were rows upon rows of shrubs of various kinds giving a lovely display of their own while providing a nice backdrop for the beds. And, Keukenhof has the distinction of giving us our first up close and personal experience of a traditional Dutch windmill. We climbed the stairs to the top, reading about the history and workings of windmills along the way.

www.keukenhof.nl has a slide show and photo gallery in English if you click the Union Jack toward the bottom. It will bring back some memories of what you saw, show you what you skipped, and tease you with what you could have seen if the weather had been more cooperative; or if you weren't there in person, it will give you a good sense of the garden in all its glory. A friend asked me if Keukenhof was like the Butchart Gardens, and I had to say that I thought Keukenhof was nicer. They seem to be on a similar scale size-wise, similarly well executed and maintained, but I thought there was more variety in the plantings at Keukenhof and I thought the design made the individual areas seem more intimate. While there were clearly many people there on the day we visited both gardens, Keukenhof seemed to have more areas where you could get a picture that didn't include a crowd. I do have to acknowledge that we had more time to wander at Keukenhof than we did Butchart two years ago, and I may have missed some of the quieter areas at Butchart as I breezed through on the main tour route.

The other large garden at Het Loo, the Dutch Royal Palace, was completely different and yet equally exquisite. Being a royal garden, it was a formal garden. I'd never been to a formal garden of that stature before, and I found it very grandiose. The grounds were absolutely beautiful and, as befits a royal garden, meticulously kept. One of our own commented that it was nicer than Versailles. There were plants I'd never seen before, more fountains than I could imagine in one garden, and more perfectly trimmed hedges than I'd care to think of maintaining; all done with the utmost care. They have a website, www.paleishetloo.nl, but the only picture that gives much of a feel is the one on the home page. There is an English page, but it is primarily hours and prices, no pictures. Rachel's DVD will do a much better job, I'm sure. In fact, speaking of our photographer, our group photo along the bottom of the newsletter was taken at Het Loo. It's the society's “royal” photo! After touring the garden, we had almost enough time to make a quick stop at the lunch buffet and still tour the old stables and garage filled with vintage royal carriages and motorcars and breeze through a walking tour of the palace itself before heading back to the coach.

I found the private gardens that we toured in our day trips from Amsterdam most interesting. It appeared from the outside that people purchased homes on what appeared to be normal-sized rural lots, maybe a hectare (about 2.5 acres), maybe only half a hectare; I'm not a good judge of these things. They have their homes on the property, complete with driveways, garages, outbuildings, bicycles and other trappings of daily life, and they have next-door neighbors in reasonable proximity. And then they develop the rest of their property into their garden. One couple was thoughtful enough to welcome us with an American flag mounted on their entrance gate opposite the Dutch flag.

We did not go inside any of the homes (or perhaps I should say that I personally did not go into any of the homes), but the sense of each was much more intimate than a traditional commercial garden. Each had its own particular flair representing that of the owner. They tended to be divided into sections. One garden had a separate section for each color of blossom: the whites, the blues, then the pinks. Another had a formal section in which the shrubs were all shaped, whether as a bench, as a cornucopia, or as a teddy bear; next to a section where the dusty miller and lavender were free to blow in the wind. The rose gardens were typically separate as well, often surrounded by formally trimmed hedges, one with arched windows cut through the hedge wall. (While it was still early for roses, I could generally spot one or two blossoms visible in the sea of green leaves.) Outbuildings often played an active role, whether as a backdrop for climbers or as a cottage with vintage furnishings. And I personally thought that their yard art was more thoughtful and perhaps clever than what I generally see in my corner of suburbia. The hindquarters of a dog with its tail in the air, presumably with its forequarters in the hole it is busy digging comes to mind. A wooden bench all but overgrown by climbers with a window-shaped opening in the “wall” of climbing green behind it, with a view out over the countryside. A life preserver ring from the Titanic hanging next to a swimming hole.

A common topic of conversation was how long it had taken the owner to develop the garden and how much help they had in the design, planting, and maintenance. All the gardeners seemed very friendly and eager to talk about their gardens and the individual plants and most were quite fluent in English. Five years seemed to be a common age of the gardens, and most seemed to do the bulk of the maintenance themselves. I heard that one of them had someone come in and do the spring hedge trimming, which was completely understandable given the number of hedges.

Equally interesting to me is that these people seemed to develop their gardens as a business right from the get-go. As I understand it, they are listed in a directory of such gardens and are open during specific times for tours. They are set up to serve coffee and goodies in one of their outbuildings, and a number of them had art for sale which we could browse while we refreshed ourselves and asked our questions about the garden. One had beautiful sculpture and paintings in a separate museum-like building, but most had paintings or photographs on the walls and a variety of note cards and post cards for sale. One gardener had taken shots of her own garden and had them made into note cards. I thought that was worth supporting, so I counted my euros and had enough coins to purchase three of my favorites.

I cannot begin to adequately discuss The Ada Hofman Botanic aquatic garden, other than to say it was fascinating. Ms. Hofman designed her garden as a demonstration of how to keep pond water clear biologically, that is, without using chemicals or filters. Her 30 or so gardens with 50 ponds on 5 acres contained a wide variety of plants, with the individual gardens all exquisitely designed, from water plants to shrubs and trees. She hosts tours for school groups as well as professionals. She has a video that runs periodically on everything you'd ever want to know about ponds. She has written a book on her method of keeping ponds clear and a second on frogs and ponds. www.adahofman.nl doesn't have too much in English, and I don't know if her books are available in English, but it was a fascinating garden to tour.

Our tour of the Hosta nursery was interesting and well done, although perhaps a little disappointing in that they can't ship directly to individuals in the US. As it was early in our trip, I was still marveling at the canals running right along the property lines and right up to the greenhouses that were one right next to the other clear back to the back of the property. There appeared to be a dairy farm behind the Hosta grower's property. His parents had purchased and now live in the house across the street, letting the son live on the property and raise his children in the house in which he'd grown up, and he recently bought the property next door to his when it came on the market. He turned the small house into a visitor's shop and added a greenhouse behind it which became the retail side of the business. I have no doubt that the rest of the next-door property will soon be covered in greenhouses.

The Aalsmeer flower auction was unlike anything I have ever seen. It was on such a grand scale that it was almost like an assembly line in a manufacturing plant,. The whole purpose of all the miniature rail lines moving long trains of linked cars full of flowers through the building was to get the flowers to the auction rooms so that buyers could make their selections, and then see to it that those little cars of flowers were shipped to the buyer. With all the automation (bidders bring their laptops to the auction rooms, see pictures and descriptions of the contents of the mini rail cars up on the wall, as well as the current bid, as they pass through the auction rooms) combined with the location so close to the airport, it seems plausible that the flowers might arrive at their destination before the buyers do. I wonder now, every time I see the flowers and potted plants at the grocery store, whether they spent yesterday on one of those little rail cars being rolling through an auction room and then on to the shipping area and off to the cargo hold of an airplane.

Our day in Rotterdam was quite different from the others. Rotterdam was destroyed in the war, so the old brick buildings that we'd become familiar with were nowhere to be found. What we did see were some fascinating examples of Dutch modern architecture, and the elegant Erasmus bridge. Our tour of the harbor, which is the largest harbor in Europe, was quite interesting, although after having been in much more intimate settings all week, I found it a bit incongruous. But maybe that's just because it was such a large harbor with so much going on. The arboretum we toured was also large, with a nicer collection than many of us suspected. All of this largeness might lead someone to think that Rotterdam is larger than Amsterdam, but it is not. Rotterdam is the second largest city in the Netherlands. Shortly after our return, an article on Rotterdam's architecture appeared in my local paper. I found the story on the internet, and it includes a slide show as well:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070529/ap_tr_ge/travel_trip_rotterdam_architecture_1

The food, as is typical of these tours, seemed omnipresent, especially with at least one garden per day offering coffee and tea along with coffee cake, cookies, or pie. Stroopwafels, round, caramel-filled wafer cookies, were a delicious discovery that I hadn't been familiar with. Dutch pannekoeken (pancakes) are used a bit like crepes are used in France: Put anything on them you want, and let them be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert. Salmon, asparagus, and brie made a nice combination, as did the apples and cinnamon with whipped cream, and each was a meal unto itself. We had some wonderful desserts, but I think the slice of chocolate-on-chocolate melt-in-your-mouth that we were served in celebration of a couple of birthdays one evening translated particularly well into English, even after the wonderful roast duck leg we'd enjoyed just a few minutes before. If we'd walked from the restaurant to the metro station rather than riding back to the hotel in our coach after that dessert we probably all would have slept better that night!

At some point, I got to wondering about the origin of languages, since there are a number of languages spoken within a few hours drive in any direction. I've studied French, I've been exposed to some Spanish, a little bit of German, a teeny bit of Italian, and I've dabbled in Japanese. When I tried listening to some Dutch language tapes before the trip, I found it surprisingly unlike any of the others. It helped to read a bit of the book that came along with the tapes to see which letters went with which sounds. Then I could sometimes recognize the similarity of a Dutch word to the English, French, or German version.

Wandering around Amsterdam one phrase in particular stood out. I kept seeing signs and placards with the words “Let op”. From the context, it seemed almost like it meant “Caution!”, but it kind of looked like “let up,” as in “back off” which is, in a way, sort of like “caution.” I asked Dirk about it, and, as with many Dutch words, it seems to be used in a number of ways, but yes, it essentially translated to “let up” or “take it easy” or “be careful”, whichever applied in the situation. Another that caught my eye was “het”. Dirk said it means “the” or “it”. Did one of our new world founders make a mistake writing “het,” and it stuck? Was it just creative spelling that gave us “t-h-e” instead of “h-e-t”?

I'd also read in my Dutch language book about the “g” situation. See “g”, say “hhhhh” with a gurgle in it for good measure. I practiced on Gassperplas, er, that is, Hhhhhossperploss, since that was the metro exit we used to get to the hotel. But I still sometimes had trouble translating backwards. For example, it took me a while to realize what our guide Dirk was talking about when he referred to the “Von Hhhhhoff Museum.” Not that it mattered, after all people can name their museums anything they like, right? At some point I finally made the connection that he'd been talking about the Van Gogh Museum all that time. And it turned out that we went to that very museum on Saturday afternoon after Dirk's walking tour of Amsterdam. I was fascinated to hear that the audio tour, narrated in British, referred to the man as neither “Von Hhhhhoff” (Dutch) nor “Van Go” (American), but rather “Von Goff” (British).

I did, however, understand very clearly the young man who walked by as a number of us were standing near the Rembrandt Cafe, looking up at Rembrant's house. He politely told us, in perfect English, that “Mr. Rembrandt's not home at the moment.”

Now that I've been back for a while, I am back to taking American life almost for granted. But I still laugh every time I remember one particular experience that was an accidental happenstance. We had stopped for dinner at a restaurant that had a windmill on the grounds. After dinner, I was wandering around the little gardens surrounding the windmill when I saw something familiar, yet unfamiliar in the garden. I just stared until finally I burst out laughing. Oh my gosh, they don't use N, S, E, W.

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