Third Season

When I moved to Albuquerque (the "ABQ" in this blog title) after living in the Phoenix area for about 23 years, I struck by a city with "four seasons," partially because this ostensible benefit of living in Albuquerque was repeated by dozens of residents in my first months there. I suppose that Albuquerque does have four seasons. Why this was noteworthy  is a bit beyond me. I think that even equatorial regions have seasonal variation in precipitation, if not (much) variability in temperature. 

Anyway, the special attention paid to Albuquerque's four season distinction confuses me more after a year in Amsterdam, where there seems to be even more seasonal variation in daylight, rainfall, foliage, etc. I'm starting to realize that four seasons really ain't that special. 

The cut-point between summer and fall was abrupt this year. It was 80 degrees and sunny on Sunday the 9th, a few days after Doug and I returned from Paris. Then it rained all week and barely got above 60 degrees. Suddenly a jacket seemed like a good idea for the morning bike ride to work, and, a few days later, I broke the gloves out. The leaves on the trees outside of my windows started to look sad and limp, and the color slowly shifted from green to brown. 

I met a work friend and her fiance for a dim sum brunch at noon last Saturday. It was one of those days where rain would fall hard for twenty minutes, then it would be sunny with bright white clouds around for several hours before repeating. The air was cool and crisp, cleaned out from the moisture, and the bright sunlight reflected off the water and against the changing colors of the leaves.

While walking around, I saw that the Zuiderkerk (Southern church), which I've seen dozens of time but never knew the name of, was charging seven euro for a tour up to the top, where I could get a panoramic view of Amsterdam. I'd done something like this in Gent, Bruges, Delft, and Utrecht over the past two months, but never Amsterdam. So I jumped at the chance.

The Zuiderkerk from below

The Zuiderkerk from the south. This is an especially nice view at night.

And now, a week later, the inexorable changing of the seasons continues. The trees have fewer leaves than last week, and my hands went numb while I walked around for the first time since last spring. But we still have another month before the clocks "fall back" and nighttime starts around 5:00pm - about another month of enjoying autumn before the long Dutch winter begins.