Leggings

Leeuwarden is like most cities of 100,000 or so.  Cosmopolitan enough to support restaurants and theaters and antique shops.  Small enough that the cab drivers know where everything is.  I’m sure there must be a “bad part” of town but I haven’t seen a slum nor anything else to indicate that poverty or crime is a major factor in the life of the city.  There’s a young man at the train station, very clean and nicely dressed, who appears to be mentally ill and asks for money.  But there are also hundreds of bicycles parked at the station every day and only a handful of them use bike locks.

Lots and lots of tall white people live here.  I notice when I encounter someone of African or Asian descent; I don’t notice national origin in a more diverse community.  The tall white people come in all sorts of ages and shapes and physical attributes.  If they are male, there is a 99% chance they will be wearing long pants.  If they are female, there is a 75% chance they will be wearing leggings.  Knee length or calf length or ankle length leggings.  Sometimes black but more often made of that ugly thin off-white stretchy clingy cotton that looks like old fashioned long underwear.  The leggings will often be paired with a polyester tunic in a garish print, long enough to be worn as a dress.  Skin tight leggings aren't all that attractive on young girls and on older heftier women, it's an abomination.  Sorry that I haven’t been able to sound neutral about this fashion but I didn’t even try very hard to be fair.

As a university center, Leeuwarden has a fair share of students and I love seeing them and their youth and energy and love of life.  I’ve had coffee a couple of times at a café/bar that attracts university students.  It’s not so much that I need the coffee but I do need to hear the laughter of young people and I go away refreshed.  Besides, the university girls tend to avoid leggings.