It's 2005. I'm nine years old and I love athletics, especially the high jump. Today, it's not going as well as I'd hoped though. I'm doing something wrong, but I have no idea what. My trainers are nowhere to be seen. An older man comes up to me. On his jacket, the logo of athletics club Ilion from Zoetermeer can be seen.
"Try to start your run-up from this point instead," he advises me. I put my marker on the spot he's pointing at. In my next attempt, I jump to a new personal best.
"Well done!" the Ilion trainer says when I tell him I just jumped a new PB. I go on to find my own trainers. When I tell them, I hear that it's "cool, but Kimberly jumped ten centimeters higher".

It's 2008. I'm 11 and my interest has shifted to the long jump. I'm not the best jumper around, but I've improved a lot over the past year. For once, a trainer of mine actually sees me jump at a track meeting. "If you jump over 3.5 meters, I'll buy you ice cream," he says. I'm elated. He's often made this deal with his other pupils. Never before with me. In my next attempt, I fly to 3.52. I never got my ice cream.


In 2009, I meet Lisa in the pouring rain. Like me, she does not have a big group of girls to train with at her club, AV'47 from Boskoop. We become good friends in no time. Soon, I'm dumping my spikes and clothes near her stuff and often sit with the AV'47 group during track meetings. I feel welcome there. I've never felt that way with people from my own club.

2011. At fourteen, I join the training group for older teens. I regret it within a month. Whenever we have to do something in pairs, I'm always the one left alone. Everyone is focused on the shot put and discus, so I'm always doing my long jump exercises by myself. At track meetings, there's no one there to give me advice. No one, except a trainer from AV'47. Sometimes I wish I was a member of that club.

It's now 2013. I've been practicing with the javelin for the biggest track meeting of my season: the heptathlon on my home track. I break the magical barrier of 20 meters that summer. Suddenly, the trainers are very interested in me and my progress.
"You did so well today!", one of them says.
"Thanks," I say crudely, knowing this interest is temporary. At the next track meeting, my javelin falls just short of 20 meters. No one even looks at my final attempt.


Two months later, I twist my ankle while playing soccer at school. I can't run, but I can throw a javelin if I wear my high top sneakers, no problem. When my trainer notices, he says: "What are you even doing here?"

I fall off my bike in 2016. My toenail turns blue and wearing shoes hurts. I start a 3000-meter race anyway, because I love to run. I've given up on jumping, as no one wants to be my trainer. No one wants to train a runner at this club either, so my dad has taken that upon himself. I have to be fair though: there's one trainer who would train me, but my college classes make this impossible. Secretly, I don't mind. I remember the way the group treated me in 2011 and this trainer hasn't even asked what's up with my current injury.
My toe makes me give up on the race after less than 1000 meters. The only person who asks me what's happened is, once again, a trainer from AV'47.

July 2018. I've decided that enough is enough. No one wants to train me, no one wants to train with me, no one respects my decision to stick with running. Why am I still a member of this rotten athletic clubs? Go where you're celebrated, not merely tolerated, right?
I decide to switch clubs in April, so I can run one last 5000-meter race in October, possibly attack my PB. I never run that race, since I'm still recovering from the antibiotics that ravaged my body after my wisdom tooth surgery. Six more months of being a member of a club that won't even acknowledge my existence. I count down to April 1st. I buy a top with the AV'47 logo on it. I fill the forms on their website out. I tell Lisa we'll soon be members of the same club. Mentally, I distance myself from my old club as much as possible over the course of the winter.

Today. April 13th, 2019. I've officially run my first race in my AV'47 jersey. Where, you might ask? On the track of Avantri in Schoonhoven, the club I joined 14 years ago, the club that treated me like shit for 14 years. I took the bronze. It felt like I'd given them the finger. I'm moving forward, away from Avantri's arrogance and cliques, and I'll never look back.

Source

The Charleston Church shooting, US.
Bataclan, Paris, France.
Zaventem, Belgium.
Manchester Arena, UK.
Christchurch, New Zealand.
It's happened often this decade: a brainwashed madman picks up a firearm and shoots people like fish in a barrel. Sometimes it happens close to home, sometimes a bit further away. But it never happens in your city. Right?

On the 18th of March, I get on the bus at 7.39 am. I'm annoyed. I usually catch the 7.22 on Mondays, but the bus drivers are striking and this is only the second bus passing through town today. I'm going to be late for my 9 am lecture at Utrecht University.
After 20 horrible minutes on an overcrowded bus, I get off at the subway station to catch the B-line to the train station. I'll be able to get on a train to Utrecht at 8.15 am. Then I see that the subway personnel is on strike too: the next subway won't leave for another 17 minutes. I think about my options, my two Monday lectures, the 4.5-hour break between them. Then I do something I normally wouldn't do: I turn around and go home.

It never happens in your city. After all, your city doesn't even make the news often. If it does, it's because the local football club is doing well, or because the university has won another award. Sometimes there's an article about chaos at the busy Central Station. Your city is doing quite well. Good things happen there.

"There's been a shooting in Utrecht," mom tells me, her eyes fixed on the screen of her phone. We're having a coffee at the kitchen table. I desperately need it; I've been working non-stop since my failed attempt at going to my morning lecture.
"Oh," I say, not too surprised. I'm used to Rotterdam, where shots are fired every now and then. "Where?"
"24 October Square," mom says as she looks the address up on Google Maps. "Is that close to university?"
"No. Uni is here." I point at the screen. "Quite far away actually."
Mom puts her phone down. "Maybe you should call grandma."
"Why?"
"She'll get worried when she hears about this."
"You think?" I know mom is right. Grandma does worry a lot about me whenever something like this happens. "Okay, I'll give her a call."

When the news breaks, you don't think much of it. Of course it's awful, but your city is still a big city. Shootings sadly happen. You just hope this incident wasn't inspired by Christchurch. More news trickles in. The situation is more serious than it first seemed. The shooter gets away. People are dying in the streets. The T-word gets thrown around: was it an act of terrorism? Do we have a terrorist attack on our hands?

My phone starts going crazy. My grandparents and dad have been called. They were very calm when I told them I was safe at home - that was before news outlets reported that the shooter is still on the loose. Now, everyone is worried. Classmates are checking up on each other in group chats. I get messages from the UK, Belgium, and of course Utrecht. My friends tell me how lucky I am that the strikes kept me from going to university today. Still, I'll have to go there today: I have an assignment to hand in during my afternoon lecture. I don't want to go though. I don't feel safe. I feel sick.
I text a friend who's in lockdown in a university building to tell her that I'll be coming over.
"Like fuck you are," she texts back. "You're staying home. I'll fight them if they penalize you for not handing a hard copy in while there's a shooter on the loose."
She's right. Of course she is. I'm staying home. I send my teacher a quick e-mail explaining the situation. Then I go back to what's most important now: texting everyone who's near and dear to me.

You sit down on the couch, phone in hand, and turn the tv on. You text your family and friends.
"Are you safe?"
"Where are you at?"
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Don't worry about me, I'm home."
Some reply immediately. Others, those who don't live or study in your city, bombard you with questions. A few haven't heard the news yet. You put your phone down a million times, only to pick it up the next second in hopes of seeing a reply from that one friend who hasn't answered yet.

Mom's skin is showing red patches. She says I have them too. We don't know what to do with ourselves. I guess we are in shock. We try to understand what's going on in Utrecht, but news comes slowly and half of it turns out to be false within 10 minutes of its being shared. The police are searching for a red Renault Clio. The license plate numbers are shared in a university group chat. The shooter is expected to head towards campus. Utrecht University officially closes its doors.

You slowly lose touch with reality. You're just sitting there on the couch, watching an endless loop of the Prime Minister saying that the situation is unsettling, that he's going to a crisis meeting. You see anti-terror units burst into houses, police officers pulling their weapons near a bank. There's talk of shots fired near mosques, multiple shooters, shouts of Allahuakbar. You just want it to stop. You become numb to the sight of the dead body under a white sheet next to the tram in which it happened. It's vehicle number 5014. You wonder if you'll find yourself on board number 5014 in the near distant future. You wonder what the shooter's motive was. You want to know more. You want to know less. You break.

Just before I can start crying, I get off the couch. One death has been confirmed, there are possibly as many as nine wounded. The city is in lockdown. I've been watching the news for four hours. I can't take it anymore.
"Mom, shall we sow some seeds?"
I just want to do something productive. Something positive. The seeds for our vegetable patch need to be sown anyway.
Mom and I fill tiny pots with soil. The tv is on in the background. We hear that the suspected shooter has been identified, but not found. We focus on our deeds. With every seed I sow, with every new life I plant, I think of the victims of the shooting. This is how I commemorate them.

You try to get away from it. You try to do something else. It doesn't work. You can turn the tv off, but your mind is still there, in the chaos of your city. You look out of the window and fail to understand how everything outside seems so normal. You ignore the news for a while, but you still worry about your friends in lockdown. You try to distract yourself. Nothing works.

At 6 pm I watch the news once more. Nothing has happened, nothing has changed. I see the deserted streets of Utrecht's city center. I hear my university's name. Sadness washes over me again. Then, in the middle of the news bulletin, the reporter is interrupted: the suspect has been arrested!
I sigh with relief until my lungs hurt. My friends can safely go home. We'll finally know what exactly happened.

As I go to sleep on the 18th of March, the suspect's motives are still unclear. Three deaths have been confirmed. I am still in shock. I don't fully understand what's happened, but I soon will. The shooting had characteristics of a terrorist attack, but the nature of the shooting hasn't been confirmed yet. It's a dark, dark say for my city, my people, my country.

It never happens in your city. Until it does.

On my second day in Paris, I woke up to find the city covered in a thin layer of snow. I immediately got changed, grabbed my camera and hopped on the metro. I wanted to spend my day among the dead, starting with a visit to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. The cemetery was closed though: apparently the French are not fond of people visiting graves in the snow. So I went to the next best place: les catacombes de Paris.

The metro quickly brought me to Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, where I bought my ticket to the catacombs and started my underground adventure. A winding spiral staircase of over 100 steps took me over 20 meters down from ground level. I was all by myself already, which was good: it gave me the time to leave my sticker among the many others on the lamps that lit the way down. Soon I entered an old quarry. A few tourists caught up with me, so I lingered around for a while so I could explore the route all by myself. Usually the place is packed and lots of people choose for guided tours, but towards the end of January, I had the catacombs almost all to myself. Exactly what I wanted.


The first couple of hundred meters took me through the 15th-century quarries that provided the city with the stones it needed to build just about anything. I mostly paid attention to the stickers on the electric wires here (and left one of my last ones there too) while daydreaming about books I'd read that were partially set in the catacombs. In Michael Scott's books series about Nicholas Flamel, the catacombs were a prison for the Roman god of war Mars. In World War Z, the place was infested with zombies. None of that exciting stuff was happening during my visit of course, but thinking about those books added to the creepy ambiance.

I walked alone for a good 20 minutes, occasionally letting other tourists pass and get out of earshot again. Then I entered a big room that took me from the quarries into the domain of the dead. The catacombs weren't always a place to stack human remains in an "artistic" way: the started out as the simple quarries I'd just walked through and some of them always remained just like that. Others were turned into underground graveyards. Officially I should use the word "ossuaries", but that's basically a fancy word for a mass grave. The people buried here were for a big part buried in normal cemeteries right after their death, but overpopulation of both the city and its cemeteries plus health risks made it necessary for a lot of skeletons to be moved into the catacombs. You can still visit these poor souls there to this day: they're waiting for you behind the gate that says Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort.


Stop! This is the empire of the dead. I did not stop. I walked in while wiping my camera lens clean; the humidity in the catacombs made it fog up in no time. Some of the skulls around me were green with algae. It was a fascinating place that made me wish I could see more of the catacombs than what's open to the public. I'd already passed a tunnel that'd lead me to the lower catacombs, but it was completely locked off. For my own good of course, but I couldn't help but think about the things I could have discovered down there.

I roamed through the hallways, took pictures left and right until suddenly, from the deepest part of my soul, a voice screamed: "WHAT SICK BASTARD STACKS PEOPLE'S BONES LIKE THIS?!"
It was shocking, disgusting, but also morbidly interesting. Skulls formed hearts, crosses, weird house-like shapes. I can understand having to move a surplus of anything to a new place, but why were these people taken apart and used as pieces for a mosaic? They're dead, but still they're people... It made me feel so weird when I looked at the skulls, knowing they never chose to be part of this creepy display.

As I followed the route, I gradually felt more and more uncomfortable. I almost jumped out of my skin when I suddenly heard footsteps coming down the empty hallway on the other side of a fence. It turned out to be another tourist who was ahead of me on the route through the empire of the dead, but my mind immediately concluded that I was going to be killed by a World War Z zombie.

A bit further down the hallway, the poetry started. It was all in either French or Latin and all about death. The little bits of it that I could understand were quite depressing and since I didn't want to launch myself into my next existential crisis, I quickly walked past most of the poems. To be honest, I'd had quite enough of the place by then.

After almost two hours, I left the domain of the dead behind me. I hadn't come across Mars or any zombies, but I'd seen what I'd wanted to see for years: the skeletons residing in the catacombs of Paris. Call me morbid, but I loved it. Almost every second of it, until the walls started lecturing me about death and decay. The creepy vibes, the darkness... it reminded me of the Edinburgh Vaults. For someone like me, who got sick and tired of Paris' romantic clichés very quickly, the catacombs were a perfect place to go. Who know, maybe one day I'll go back and try to see more. I've heard there's a hidden movie theater somewhere down there. Care to join me on my search?

A quick look at my Instagram feed could lead people to believe that I spend most of my time traveling. In reality, I'm stuck in university buildings for lectures and seminars five days a week. "Stuck" is a bit of a strong word though. It implies that I'm not enjoying my time as a university student. And if there's one thing I did in the second block of my first year, it was enjoying my classes.

Block 2 started in late October. I took three classes (Literature, Linguistics and German), was completely stressed out about the amount of work I'd have to do (seems to become a tradition at the start of each block) and went on to score some top grades on most assignments (my first score of 100% became a fact in the second week of block 2). To my own surprise, I didn't fall into a state of half-depression when the sun started to set earlier and earlier. Everything was pretty great throughout November and December. Sure, I had a lot of stress on deadline days, but I'm actually at my best when I'm running on stress hormones. Before I knew it, Christmas break started. I'd made a schedule for those two weeks so I'd be able to finish all my essays at least a week before their deadlines, which were all coinciding with final exams.
I stuck to my schedule for three days. Then I spent Christmas with my family, Lydia from Mademoiselle Women came over to Rotterdam, my boyfriend celebrated his birthday, I ran the traditional "Oliebollenloop" on December 31st... All of a sudden it was 2019. I'd finished one essay. On Sunday before university would start again, I set up my workspace to start writing about Doctor Faustus. I sneezed once. Twice. Three, four, five times in one minute. Two hours later, I was sick.

I spent a full week in bed and on the couch. I had the flu, like many others around me. Even though I was feeling awful, I went to university once. I had to give a presentation on the German graphic novel Endzeit, which counted heavily towards my final grade. To this day I don't understand how I managed to score 81%, as I forgot half of my presentation. The two essays I still had to write were thrown together in what felt like a fever dream at the last moment. The entire process was horrible and stressful. By the time I'd more or less recovered from the flu, it was time to hit the books: I had less than a week left to study for my finals.

Looking back on it now, I have no idea how I pulled it off. I winged my German exam, which I passed mostly because I'd taken similar classes in college. I scored 100% on my accent analysis test for Linguistics, the only exam I'd properly studied for. Literature turned into a living hell though. Literature courses are a struggle for me anyway, but it got even worse after missing two seminars. I panicked, blanked, and ended up writing as much as possible even I wasn't sure if the topic I was writing about had anything to do with the correct answer.

It's now been two weeks since that dreadful finals week. I went to Paris to get away from all the stress for a while. Not being able to study and work at full capacity had dealt a huge blow to my self-esteem. I felt like I was constantly behind on schedule, constantly missing out on important information. I hadn't felt so low in two years. A short trip abroad was just what I needed. Receiving e-mails to confirm that I'd passed my German and Linguistics classes made me feel much better when I came back home.

Since then, I've started block 3 of my first year. The second week of that block starts today. Time really does fly. As before, I'm taking my personal holy trinity of classes this block: Literature, Linguistics and German. As before, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work that lies ahead of me. But I'm sure it'll all turn out fine. It always does. Even the Literature exam I took with the bare minimum of preparation wasn't the disaster I expected it to be: just after I finished writing the draft for this post, I received confirmation that I'd passed with a 71% score. Now I can fully focus on this block's classes. Especially Linguistics is very interesting now, with phonology joining the game. I'm the kind of geek who wants to make recordings of key words so I can measure the frequency of vowels in my speach and turn them into a vowel diagram. It's challenging and totally awesome.

Just a year ago, I doubted if going back to school was the right way to go. Five months ago I doubted if I'd be able to pass any of my classes. Now I know I made the right decision. Linguistics is the love of my life and I'm grateful that I get to study so many other subjects as well. It's cheesy, but it's true: I can't wait to see what this block will bring me.

"Have you seen the Eiffel Tower at night yet?" asked the only other English speaking person who'd joined the Civitatis walking tour in Paris.
"No, I just arrived this morning," I answered.
"It's so beautiful," she said. "You should go take a look tonight."
"I want to." My mind immediately rushed back to the time a chicken foot was thrown at me when I walked down a street in Rome at night. The time my dad was threatened after dusk in London. The time... "But I'd rather not go out after dark by myself."
"Yeah, I get that. Maybe we can go together directly after the tour."
It sounded like a good plan. But first, we had a walking tour to do.

A little over two hours later, we were both in a horrible mood. The tour operator had canceled the English tour and the Spanish tour, which we joined out of desperation, was 80% rapid-fire history facts and only 20% walking to beautiful buildings. On top of that, it was raining. A freezing cold drizzle fell down on us. We were cold, angry, and didn't even wait for the tour to finish at some random point in the Jardin des Tuileries. The sun was setting, so we left for the Eiffel Tower.

I never learned my temporary travel buddy's name. She was from Bulgaria, but lived in Poland. She took pictures with an old-fashioned analog camera. We got along just fine. Before we'd left the Jardin, we were already smiling again. As darkness fell, everything around us became more beautiful. Our plan was to simply walk to the Eiffel Tower. Since the thing literally towers over everything, it wasn't difficult to find our way.


We crossed the Pont de la Concorde and followed the main road along the Seine a while. We were giddy with excitement. It was completely dark already and the lights on the Eiffel Tower were shining brightly. After a while, we took one of the roads that led us away from the riverfront. It looked like it'd be a faster route. This specific part of Paris seemed a bit less touristic. Every now and then we saw the Eiffel Tower peeking through the concrete jungle. Finding our way was as easy as we'd thought it would be and we stuck to well-lit streets with lots of stores and restaurants. We talked endlessly about all the things we wanted to see and do in Paris. People walked by without paying any attention to us. Except for one man. He came from the opposite direction. The Bulgarian girl bumped into me as he pushed his way past her, even though there was enough room for him to pass.

Then life turned into one of those cliche movie scenes, when everything happens all at once. Some metal object clattered onto the sidewalk. I assumed it was something the rain had washed off a roof. The man started screaming English swear words. I had no idea what caused him to freak out like that. Until I looked down. There was a knife on the ground. The man was still screaming.
"Keep walking!" I told the Bulgarian girl, who seemed a bit in shock. "We've got to keep walking!"
I walked away and she quickly followed me.
"He hit me in the knee," she said a few meters down the street.
"What?"
"He hit me in the knee so I'd fall over. With a part that wasn't sharp, I think." She wasn't bleeding. Neither was she badly hurt. Just in a bit of a shock. Just like me. I could not process what had happened. So I walked on.

By the time we'd reached the end of the street, I just wanted to go home. I did not feel safe anymore, but I was also very far away from metro stations. But as we turned the corner, I saw the Eiffel Tower again, this time with dozens of tiny white lights blinking all over it. The light show looked magical and reminded me of why I'd come there that night. It was beautiful. And so we walked on.

About 15 minutes later, we finally arrived at the security checkpoint that we had to pass to get to the tower. It was cold and rainy, I was still half in shock, but still it was awesome. I wanted to go touch the Eiffel Tower, as I've always thought I would be so overwhelmed by it that I wouldn't believe it's real until I touched it. Sadly, the base of the tower is locked away behind fences, to protect them from graffiti and other more serious threats. So instead of touching the thing, I just took a million pictures. We waited for the light show that'd convinced us to keep going to start again. It was worth all the weirdness. We ended the day with a crêpe Nutella under the Eiffel Tower. We saw a man propose. It was the picture perfect Eiffel Tower visit.


Two days later, I found myself scrolling through pictures on my phone. I looked at those I'd taken of the Eiffel Tower, thought about how long it'd taken us to get there... and how the Bulgarian girl had almost gotten stabbed. "What the hell was that?!" I said out loud to my empty dorm room. I don't think I'll ever get an answer to that question. One thing I do know: it's the weirdest Eiffel Tower related story I've heard in my life, and I hope none of you will go through something similar if you decided to go to Paris.