Gemeente Horst aan de Maas

America is a pretty typical Dutch village, by which I mean remote. It's hard to imagine how such a small country with such a high population density could even have patches of 'remoteness', but it does. The Netherlands, despite it size, is the world's second largest exporter of agricultural products. 17 million people live in the Netherlands, the vast majority of which are in the cities in the north along the coast; Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Utrecht, etc. The south of the country, where you find the villages, is very sparsely populated and almost entirely agricultural.

The few roads in and out of America are impossibly straight. Lined with oak trees, they cut through the flatness of the fertile farm land with Euclidean precision. Upon arriving, a sign greets you and then you are in the village itself. There's a railway station, a small highstreet and a couple of pubs. People here are pottering around on their bikes, a few are tending to their gardens, but everything slow, slow, slow.Read more