Because Corona left the city streets deserted (again!) I have continued my walks around Amsterdam - they didn't result in any weight loss unfortunately but I do have great pleasure in roaming in various parts of town that I have never seen before and since I have natural curiosity about a history and the place where I live, this brings me a lot of joy. Not only that I carefully select areas that I would love to discover but I take pictures and later do a little research about what I have seen. I am simply shocked how much of the city was previously completely unknown to me, as my work & social life was generally focused on a centre and until now I simply never had a reason to explore suburbs or anything "over there" now, for the very first time I am starting to get some idea what means when people say "East", "West", "South" or various names of the neighbourhoods.
The latest discovery was a very distant part of town called Sloterdijk - its a completely industrialised edge of town, created at the spot where once stood a village of the same name. I couldn't care less for the factories, railway station or a horrible mega-large cement buildings that dominate this area but I immediately spotted a cute little church that looked completely out of place here: in the middle of all this metallic horror there is something like a little historical oasis, an old simple village church and a few houses around it. On the way to this spot there was a sculpture, that I found out later, represents a farmers who used to live on this spot, before the village was completely erased to make space for industrialisation. Luckily, the centre of village - a church with its cemetery - was preserved and it still stands here, like a fairy tale little leftover from some ancient times.
I walked around The Petruskerk with greatest interest - there are a lot of ancient tombstones of local people buried here but occasionally there is even a new arrival, like when I spotted a name of famous Dirk van der Broek who was the owner of a popular supermarket brand and who passed away last year - I buy groceries in a supermarket named after him, so naturally I was familiar with his name. The church itself dates back to 17th century and has been restored several times, it still serves as a wedding place for locals and I was very curious about little historical cottages around it, as they are really bordering the cemetery so I wondered how appropriate that is from a hygienic point of view (I have never seen people living in such proximity to cemetery before) - the whole place is almost like a little bubble in the middle of otherwise ugly industrial zone. There was absolutely nothing interesting or beautiful to see around, even though I walked a but further down south along Bos en Lommer district, which I need to re-visit again for a better introduction.
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