My cousin invited me to go try a fun dance class with him in Rotterdam, which is about an hour-long car ride to the south of Amsterdam. We passed through an area known as the Green Heart of Holland, but that day it wasn’t green at all. Look at the glorious sunset!
One of my sisters lives in Delft, so later that week I hopped on the train to go visit. The town itself is really small, much smaller than the stories from my childhood had painted in my mind. We decided to bike around the seven or so blocks that comprise the center of town. It was fun! Definitely rent a bicycle to ride around the places you visit in the Netherlands. Jostling along as your tires meet the uneven cobblestones, with the sun shining on your face, as you pass colorful markets…it was a nice way to experience life.
Anyway, back to Amsterdam!
The Concertgebouw: This building is so beautifully acoustic! They feature primarily classical here and many world class artists come to share their talents. There is not a bad seat in the house, from an acoustic perspective, but the builders tilted the chairs on the balcony along a diagonal so that everyone can see and, if placed there, you end up spending an entire performance with your neck cricked in order to observe the stage. Three and a half hours of Bach’s Passion, and I found myself Passionately, Epically, Desperately wishing that the long-winded composer would just quit blathering on so we all could go home and stretch. The performers were excellent, interpretation superb, and it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience I am so grateful for having attended with my sister…the piece is just very long. Amen indeed.
Anne Frank Museum: It’s a somber place to visit for obvious reasons. As a child, I read part of Anne Frank’s diary and watched one of the film adaptations, so it was interesting to go see what reality painted over the pictures I had created in my imagination.
It would be wonderful to say that it was a moving experience, but it felt hollow and commercial. The building itself has been modified to allow for greater numbers of people to walk through the halls, so the natural flow of a home that’s been lived in was completely lost. No furniture and few personal items remained, in part because the Nazis had confiscated everything when the hideaway attic was raided; Otto Frank had also stipulated that nothing should be put in the home again so that the absence of the people and their things made clear, for viewers, the effect of the Nazis’ actions.
But I connect to history through people, and so there were only two moments that I felt the reality of what happened. Once when viewing the lines on the wall where Anne and her sister had marked each other’s height as they grew, and the other time when looking at the secret door to the attic, hidden by a false bookshelf.
Perhaps someone who had a great connection with Anne through her diaries would feel more? (Those interested should check out the unedited version of her diaries that were recently released.)
Oude Kerk: This experience was surprising. The caretakers hired modern artist Germaine Kruip to contribute art pieces to the space. The entire time there, one or two notes were continuously sustained on the organ, which gave an atmosphere of past times. The noise was sometimes annoying but mostly beneficial to the mood of being inside a church. And the building is ironically right in the middle of the Red Light District.
Brown Cafes: Many of these historic businesses are lit by candlelight, have a lot of dark wood, and formerly smoke-stained walls. One I visited, called Hoppe, was in business since the 1600s!
Also, De Zotte was fun. Two other recommendations my family made were Festina Lente and Gollems Proeflokaal. My cousin and I poked our heads in another, which was completely packed with people, called Café De Dokter, which looked like something straight out of Harry Potter, complete with cobwebs. There are so many of these cafes around Amsterdam! Here’s a link to some others you might want to try while here.
While wandering around Amsterdam with my cousin, we stopped to take photos of one of the smallest houses I’ve ever seen, no more than the width of its door. A local stopped and told us a neat story. Hundreds of years ago, the larger the width of your home was, the more wealth you had. The owner of one of the largest on the street had a servant that retired. The wealthy person wanted to give a substantial gift to the former employee. “Build me a house the width of your door,” said the servant. And the landowner did. Maybe this story isn’t true, but it would be lovely if it was.
As I mentioned before, Amsterdam and other areas have stringent policies on making changes. One of Amsterdam’s natives shared that the city has lost its spirit and is now more like living in a museum than the groundbreaking cultural mecca that it once was. Few remember how it used to be and the rest are not from Amsterdam originally. Things are cyclical, so we concluded that generations down the line would reclaim the spirit again and reinvigorate innovation once more.
Life in Holland is much simpler in many ways than in the United States. The social care systems are better managed, public transportation is effective, everything you could need or want (big city or small) is within one hundred miles, folks in the capital can still buy food directly from farmers, etc. It’s a beautiful, well managed life. America has many pluses, but so do many other first world countries.
There are some interesting differences in even the smallest ways of life here. Every kitchen I’ve visited in Europe is stocked with a fancy grinder and coffee maker. They take their caffeine quite seriously here and have made a convert out of this former abstainer.
The beer here is phenomenal, especially those of Belgian origin—Leffe Beer especially, light or dark, doesn’t matter. The next time I’m in Europe, I want to visit Belgium and do a beer, food, and chocolate tour. YUMMY! This coming from someone who didn’t have a great love of brews or chocolate.
No one seems to put a waste basket in the toilet, which is a separate room from the sink and shower. For women, this can complicate hygiene when disposing of menstrual products. Why no trash can?! Also, none of the bathrooms had fans, which delays odor elimination.
The showers are walk in with no rim to keep the water near the drain. It’s aesthetic but after a shower you have to spend five minutes squeegeeing the glass walls (if there are any) and another few minutes squeegeeing the floor so that the water goes down the drain. By the time you are finished, you’re sweaty and covered with the drain water you had rinsed from your body, and tired from contorting to get the last droplets from the walls and floor. Basically, it’s time for another shower.
The Dutch like to keep doors closed in between different rooms, at least this happened in many of the homes I stayed. My hosts would be in the kitchen or living room with the doors closed, so when I would go to speak with them, I would knock on the door before entering. Every single one of them said, “There’s no need to knock, just come on in!” When I asked if they preferred to keep all the doors closed, they would say, “Oh no, they certainly don’t need to be closed!” Then I would return after grabbing something from the other room a few minutes later and the door would be closed again. 🙂 This wasn’t any kind of malicious act, but seemed more like a habit of limiting the space used at any given time or perhaps the desire to enjoy the function of an enclosed area.
Both in Iceland and Holland, beds are not made with a top sheet. There’s the bottom fitted sheet followed by pillows and a comforter in an envelope. That’s it. This isn’t a problem in the slightest, just odd if you’re used to another way of doing things.
Well, that’s it for now! It has been an absolutely fantastic trip to the Netherlands! Tomorrow I head to Spain to visit all the wonders of Barcelona, or at least as many as can been squeezed into two weeks.
