janestarz | A nice summer Sunday on an Ingress Mission

We went out today for another Ingress mission. Yesterday was quite stormy, but today there was less wind and some blue skies -- one could claim "Dutch Skies", famous from 16th century paintings.

Meerhoven is horribly modern, with houses and apartment buildings looking like children's playing blocks. The mission we were cycling was called "Explore Meerhoven" and took us all around the Gras- and Zand-neighbourhoods. It was interesting enough to have a gander at a part of Eindhoven we don't often see. The neighbourhood Meerhoven is wedged between the Eindhoven Airport business parks and the A2 motorway.

But there are pretty parts of Meerhoven too. At the Meerhoven park, I took this panorama picture. To our Dutch eyes, it looks rather alien. The styling is (imho) pretty American! The fences and height differences are very non-Dutch. But then there are Lakenvelder cows, and Dutch bike paths and blue skies overhead...

After the mission we cycled home, and I started picking flowers on the final stretch next to the motorway. There was loads of tansy, and some what I think is bullwort or bishop's flower (False Queen Anne's lace), and I picked some to take home. Everything smelled really vigorously, and there were some very rare butterflies darting around. I saw at least four of these, and they're supposedly very rare; or so I was taught as a kid. I never saw them around, but they are apparantly quite common in the Netherlands. We call them Icarusblauwtjes - in English they're just 'common blue'.

I hope you enjoy posts like these, there might be more coming along. I love how playing Ingress can not only broaden our world, but also open our eyes to such beautiful moments.