The Netherlands
We arrived at Sloterdijk station in early September by none other than the all too familiar Flix bus. After making our way to the old city center, friends, Deirdre and Luke, welcomed us into their apartment. They’ve graciously offered us a loan of their digs while they travel to Kyrgyzstan!
Deirdre (from SF) and Luke (from Ireland) have lived here for 5 years. Over a few days of chats and a picnic in Vondlepark, we heard much of their perspective on life abroad. Wonderful as it is to meet locals, exchanges with ex-pats hold equally fascinating insights on culture with home country, upbringing, work, and personal interests all impacting what one might find comical or confusing or wonderful about a new place. As with chatting with Eddie (from Ireland, living in Lisbon [also Deirdre’s cousin!]), we were thrilled to hear about subtle and dramatic differences Deirdre and Luke have noted in communication (direct), healthcare (universal), renting (an apartment may or may not ‘come with floors’ in the Netherlands), commuting (BIKES) etc. They ride the bikes with ease but… there was Barry’s tea in the apartment (for the US audience- Barry’s is a staple in many Irish and Irish-American homes!). We laughed to hear Deirdre’s endorsement of Dutch blunt communication- she’s never had to ask for a co-worker’s unvarnished perspective on her work. It will be provided solicited or otherwise!
During our two weeks here we did laundry (yes!), cooked a few proper meals in a full kitchen, took tours, visited museums, met up with cousins, tried our hand at cycling, and attempted to learn 25 (an Irish card game). A few pictures and thoughts below!
You might at this point be able to note the difference in writing styles. But if not, this was primarily written by Marlene with cheese, stairs, canals, architecture, and shoe-related anecdotes from Chris!
On bike culture:
It is incredible and it is intimidating! Bikes are EVERYWHERE. And the infrastructure is unparalleled.
Streets are constantly filled with cyclists. They are: Moving quickly. Helmet-less. Dressed for work, for play, for a night out. Carrying children, friends, suitcases, groceries, pets. If you don’t see cyclists you certainly see racks and racks of bikes. Deirdre and Luke rent bikes from a Dutch company for a monthly fee. Financial penalties apply if the bike is stolen or lost. Evidently, more often than not, lost bikes are reported when a person simply can’t find where they parked their bike (see below)…
Luckily, Deirdre put stickers on their bikes so we wouldn’t misplace them!
After a few days as pedestrians, we got up the courage to get in the saddle and merge into Dutch traffic! I, Marlene: day dreamer, architecture gazer, people watcher, do not love fast ( I was asleep when we hit those marks on the autobahn in Germany!) and was intimidated! On narrow bike paths, we were passed by other bikes, cargo-bikes with kids or dogs in the front, and motorbikes (was that legal?) but we managed! The bell helps and the predictability does too. Cars and pedestrians are expecting bikes and, barring tourist areas where people have no idea what’s happening, generally yield to bikes and stay off the bike path. Unfortunately, I haven’t used a back-pedal brake in some time, and in a few instances where synapses misfired, stopping was not an option, and there were a few strong Dutch words hurled in my direction! It was, however, an incredibly efficient way to get around and get a sense of how people have been navigating these very streets for more than a century.
On Dutch history and national identity:
We, of course, took a walking tour. Our guide took us around town with insights into Amsterdam and The Netherlands, current events, and history. We learned of the Dutch historical attitude of tolerance and its application to drugs, by way of coffee shops, and sex work, by way of red light districts. We learned of Holland’s colonial history, and participation in transatlantic slave trade, its current government style- constitutional monarchy, and the fate of citizens and Jews in particular in the Second World War.
We also happened upon this gem… not an intentional part of the tour.
On the red light district:
We came, we saw, we did not indulge…we do not have photos.
On coffee shops:
This is a place for a good cup of coffee…and “if the coffee is bad, definitely don’t smoke the weed”, advises our tour guide. The origins date back to the 1970s and have roots in the city’s policies of tolerance and its attempts to manage an increase in drug use and crime in the 1970s. Marijuana use is ‘tolerated’ (illegal but not prosecuted) in a controlled context (in coffee shops, for people over a certain age, must be smoked on premises, cannot provide other drugs). Coffee shops were a place where people could buy marijuana safely and without being offered illegal hard drugs. Permitting controlled use of marijuana was combined with a harm reduction approach to heroin use which served to improve a drug/social situation that had become unmanageable in Amsterdam. The Netherlands was a pioneer in the use of a harm reduction approach in the management of heroin addiction and has had significant success in increasing the health of those who use drugs and decreasing drug-related crime.
On Art:
We visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Mauritshuis in The Hague. We saw paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Jan Steen from the Dutch Golden Age. It was fascinating to look at the art in the context of history, and the impacts of changing borders, trade and colonialism, economic booms and busts, and war on the production, style, and appreciation of art.
Of course, where there are guinea pigs… I will find them
On architecture:
The 16th and 17th century Dutch Baroque architecture is iconic Amsterdam. The buildings are characterized by large narrow windows, decorative gable tops, narrow stairs (see below paragraph this topic), and a pulley outside the front eve to transport large objects to upper floors. The buildings along the canals historically served as both homes and businesses (especially for merchants who relied on the canals to move their products).
On food:
Of all the food we tried in The Netherlands, bitterballen was probably the most unique. To make bitterballen, you start with a meat stew, thicken it with roux, refrigerate it until firm, bread it, and then fry it. Healthy? No. But delicious.
On stairs:
If you didn’t already know, the staircases in The Netherlands are STEEP and NARROW. Some stairs are so steep you would be better off ascending on all fours versus trying to walk! This is due to a couple of factors, including limited space and housing taxes historically being based on the width of the home. To avoid high taxation, people built upwards.
As a physio, discharging a patient from the hospital to a home with stairs means something entirely different here versus in The States.
On WWII:
Both quite interested in history and WWII, we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to learn about the Netherlands under Nazi occupation.
We visited the Verzetsmuseum or the Dutch Resistance Museum. An incredibly interesting museum with general history of WWII and more specific stories on the Dutch response. Holland intended to take a neutral stance in WWII but when Rotterdam was bombed by Germany and the Nazis threatened to take the same approach to other Dutch cities, Holland’s government vacated to England and the Netherlands became a Nazi-occupied country. The museum was filled with personal stories of detailing the experience of life in the Netherlands under Nazi occupation. There are stories of individual acts of resistance from using explosives to destroy a registry office (containing information for checking the veracity of identity cards), to creating forged identity documents for Jews, to assisting with hiding Jews as in Anne Frank’s situation. There were also the stories of those Dutch who elected not to resist. Strikingly, the stories of the majority of those who resisted Nazi rule in some form or another (much of the resistance effort started after the Jews had been deported) have death dates in 1944/45 having been shot for their insubordination. Sobering numbers of estimated WWII casualties in the Netherlands include 104,000 Dutch Jews, 2000 Dutch shot for resistance activities, 7000 who died in prisons/concentration camps for participation in resistance activities, 30,000 forced laborers, 53,000 civilian casualties of war, 50,000 from the general decline in health and the list continues…
On Anne Frank:
We were able to visit the annex where the Franks hid during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In anticipation, we both re-read her diary. Though there were crowds of people visiting, the visit was marked by a reverent silence save for the shuffling of feet and creaking of old stairs and floorboards. We filed through the spice and pectin warehouse below the annex and through the offices where those who helped hide and sustain the Franks from 1942 to 1944. We then walked behind the bookshelf that hid the entrance to the annex and ascended the stairs to the hiding place of the Franks. The rooms are without furniture. The Nazis took the furniture and Otto Frank (Anne’s father) did not wish for it to be replaced. We walked through the bare rooms where Anne’s parents and sister stayed. Where Anne stayed with Fritz. We ascended more stairs to where the van Pels’ lived and where the two families cooked and ate. We visited Peter van Pels’ room and saw the attic where food was stored. We saw Anne’s original diary.
Words certainly fail to encompass the magnitude of loss in WWII and the Holocaust. And certainly, I will contribute nothing that hasn’t been thought or said. But my own understanding of war and loss changed in The Netherlands. I read and learned much about this war in school. The losses in numbers felt unfathomable. The first-hand accounts of those like Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel were devastating but felt singular. It was only standing in Amsterdam that I truly realized that despite the Nazi’s ultimate defeat, we are still left with their success. The ugly success reveals itself in an entirely different community makeup now in what was previously Nazi-occupied Europe. This is specifically true in the Netherlands and Amsterdam. The magnitude of loss is noted in the simplicity of who walks the streets, who owns the homes and businesses, who contributes to the schools, literature, the arts, the government, who simply exists in this physical space. The loud and horrifying actions of The Holocaust obscured the quiet and subtle loss that persists and the absence that impacts and creates a shameful void in the world we encounter today.
On cheese
We hopped a quick train to the city of Alkmaar to witness the weekly cheese market. This cheese market has been taking place in the town square since 1365 when the town was granted regional weighing rights and a weighing scale. At the market, cheese carriers carry the cheese on barrows, inspectors evaluate the quality of the cheese, and traders and farmers negotiate the prices. A bit of a “touristy spectacle” but entertaining nonetheless.
And Chris and Marlene sampled way too much cheese in the afternoon.
On canals:
The city of Amsterdam has over 62 miles of canals and 1,500 bridges. The oldest canal (Singel) encircled the medieval city as a moat. Three main canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht, and Keizersgracht) were then dug in the 17th century to form concentric belts around the city. The primary purpose of these canals was for residential development. Today, the canals are utilized for pleasure boating and are part of the UNESCO World Heritage List.
On markets:
We really don’t have anything specific to say about the markets. We just wanted to include this photo of one happy “customer.”
On cousins and ventures outside Amsterdam:
We were lucky in the Netherlands to have many people to see. My cousin Emma and her partner Ross were visiting and staying in the Hague for a part of our time here. They came out to Amsterdam for a visit and between various chats Chris and I finally took on the daunting task of learning 25. I don’t know the history of this card game but it seems everyone in my family knows it. Maybe everyone in the West of Ireland knows it. It is played quickly, brashly, seriously… and for money. I was warned that I’d better be sure I could play properly before attempting to play with my uncles in Ireland. Of note, my grandfather (on my dad’s side) loved cards and was a master of 25 … Amongst various stories in this vein, (many of which involve ruffling the feathers of my grandmother over the years) my favorite is one where my dad has returned to Ireland and is staying in his childhood home with my grandfather who is over 90 years old. My dad thinks he’s had a wild night out at old haunts with his brothers and comes home at midnight to go to bed. He revels in his perceived youthfulness only to wake at about 3 AM to the sounds (and bright massive flashlight for navigation of country roads) of my grandfather coming home from a night playing 25 with his buddies. A humbling experience for my dad. Chris and I tried to learn the game from our patient teachers (outside consultations with Jenny Lundy at work in Ireland were intermittently required) and now we’ve got a slight handle on the seemingly innumerable and unyielding rules of the game.
A couple of nights later we visited the Hague where another cousin, Laura Lundy, works as an Irish Dance instructor. After some catching up, the cards came out again. The game was 50% play and 50% arguing over rules regarding reneging, wondering why the ace of hearts (a powerful card) is called the banbn (little pig) in Irish, and trump versus lead suit. This led to more outside consultations. But a great night and a few wins for Chris!
We also visited another cousin Stephanie and her partner Andrew in Utrecht… They brought us into the pub they own during off hours and Chris learned how to pour the perfect glass of Guinness.
On “a little late:”
And we took the time to write a LOT of thank you postcards. “Just a few huh?” remarked the postman as we sent these. Hopefully, they make their way around the globe!
On new shoes:
Chris would like a formal apology from Merrell for not designing shoes that can withstand 3 months of travel. Say hello to his new 30€ Decathlon shoes (which are, as our friend Pat likes to say, “for athletes”).
A special thanks to Deirdre and Luke for giving us the lay of the land in the Netherlands and the use of their wonderful apartment. And thanks to all the Lundy and O’Reilly cousins for great chats and nights out!
A few important words:
Hallo — Hello
Bedankt — Thank you
Proost — Cheers
