My uncle and one of my sisters welcomed me to the Netherlands when I flew in from Iceland. It was great to see familiar, friendly faces! Together we went to a beachside café and had an excellent meal while gazing at the North Sea. Just the sight of waves (these ones not as icy) was calming and refreshing after a relatively short flight.
Afterwards my uncle dropped me off at my cousin’s place in Oegstgeest, a residential area filled with charming homes, some of which used to be farmhouses. Apparently, the builders of this area modeled the layout after a tree trunk and branches, and you certainly notice this when traveling along the meandering streets that seem to flow into each other and away without a clear pattern.
I started working remotely again the day after I arrived and spent a good number of hours just catching up. Afterwards, with excellent instructions from my lovely cousin’s husband, I took the bus to nearby Leiden to visit the old section of the city. (Dutch transportation is great, but you pay for distance rather than for a ride, so you use a transit card to “check in” and “check out.” And you don’t want to forget to scan your card when you get off!)
Most of the experience here is in the small observations: the uneven cobblestones that have been there for hundreds of years and seem determined to twist your ankle as they endure for hundreds more; the fact that front door knobs don’t turn in the Netherlands but are simple used to grasp and close the door, while a key in a separate lock moves the tongue out of the door jamb; the humidity, that it’s abnormal to request a doggie bag, all of the structures are old to varying degrees—one doorway will date a building to circa 1607 and another to 1100 and another to 1960. It’s all mixed together. The remnants of the Roman presence from thousands of years ago are still noticeable, as are the moat-like canals that the Dutch built for addition protection hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
And the food is delicious. French patisserie baked goods, Belgium beers, Dutch cheese, Indonesian delicacies, these are all available because of cultural osmosis. And the cost of eating out is waaaaaayyyyy less than in Iceland. Even having a meal while out on the town in New York was less than Iceland.
There are major museums, a university, the oldest botanical garden in Europe, and other tourist attractions. Leiden is definitely worth a half-day trip the next time you are in Holland; the city is quintessentially Dutch and yet has a voice of its own in the older parts.
