As I write this, I am looking out my window at all the snow falling to the ground, adding to the white blanket that was made overnight. It’s the end of March and the beginning of my Easter break, and for some reason still freezing. Holland was no different, and although they didn’t get snow while I was there, it sure was windy! I spent almost 5 days in Holland visiting a friend from St. Edward’s, and I am so glad that I went. Not only is Holland beautiful, but it is also the first country I have been to outside of Germany! It’s good to have some sort of context for the country I’m in–what are its neighbors like, what am I experiencing here that is European vs. German? So, without further ado, my trip to Holland!
One of the great things about traveling within the EU is that they don’t check passports upon crossing the border. There’s no border check, no questioning why you’re there. Nevertheless, I knew exactly when I crossed the border to the Netherlands for several reasons, the first being the Dutch language. It’s almost German….but not quite. The Germans like to joke that it’s a dialect of theirs and for the most part they can understand it but they couldn’t tell you why or respond properly in Dutch. To me, all the writing looked like those emails people used to forward: If you are radieng tihs tehn you are sepcail bcuaese the wrdos are jmubled haha! If I stared too long at a text I would realize all the weird differences, but just glancing at something, I could usually understand it. Not the speech though. That was impossible. Fortunately they all speak English; I just felt a little bad not being able to communicate with them in their native language.
The second way I knew I was in the Netherlands was all the canals. Built mostly on marshland, Holland especially is just full of canals. It allows the people to live there without experiencing flooding. I guess I didn’t know that much about the Netherlands because I thought the canals were just in Amsterdam, but the picture below was taken in Leiden, the city where I was staying (about 40 minutes from Amsterdam.)
Leiden is a very beautiful place, and completely different from what I was expecting. It has a lot of character; all the little houses sit right next to each other, and everything looks incredibly historic. Actually, the only really new buildings I saw the whole time were in a section of Amsterdam rebuilt in the 1960’s by architecture students. It’s really ugly and the only reason they did it was because it had been the Jewish area during the war, and once the Jews left or were killed, their houses were abandoned and used for firewood during the brutal winter of 1945 I believe (possibly ’46.) Everything else is like something out of an old film, and all the streets are paved in cobblestone or brick.
And now I’d like to point out something in the above picture: the bicycles. There actually aren’t too many of them in this picture, relatively speaking. Because the Dutch loooove their bicycles and they are literally everywhere and used to transport everything, even the whole family. Even if the Dutch are expert bicyclists, I constantly felt as if I was going to be run over–bicycles are silent. You can just be walking along the sidewalk minding your own business when–WHOOSH–two or three bicycles go past you, missing you by 3 or 4 inches. Amsterdam was especially hectic because they like to play a little game of chicken with the tourists.
Before I talk about Amsterdam, one more thing about the smaller town of Leiden: they had at least 2 windmills in the center of town. You know you always hear about windmills, but I never thought they’d just be sitting there in a city like that. I loved that though. Some expectations, such as the idea that the Dutch have tons of windmills, do turn out to be true.
I made two trips to Amsterdam that week. Amsterdam is a strange city. My friend is a big fan of city tours, and though I normally don’t like them, I was glad that I went because I learned a lot about the city’s history. Now whenever someone thinks of Amsterdam, they normally think of two things: prostitution and pot. The city is so much more than that, but I am glad that I learned a little about the reasoning behind those two things. I’ll share just a little here: first of all, prostitution is legal, pot is not. However, no one get arrested for smoking marijuana. Why? Well apparently the story goes something like this: back in the 70’s, Amsterdam had a lot of drug problems. (10,000 hard drug addicts.) The police got to thinking, what if marijuana isn’t a gateway drug, and the people get introduced to hard drugs in jail after getting arrested for smoking marijuana? So they just stopped arresting people for marijuana altogether and now the number is down to 300. Thus, the famous coffeeshops are very obvious about their presence (both in smell and location. I swear the whole city smelled like pot.) They can’t advertise, but it’s pretty apparent what’s going on.
Also on the tour, we were given a lot of history about Amsterdam’s trading history. Apparently they were really successful trading, especially do the New World, and had their own East India company. New York city was originally a Dutch colony. I’m so used to thinking about the English history of America that I forget sometimes how many Dutch settled the early US.
Another interesting thing is the architecture. Our tour guide explained that because the ground is so marshy in Amsterdam, the buildings would often shift on their foundations and begin to lean left, right, or forward. The Dutch didn’t bother to fix the foundations and instead let the buildings rest on their neighbors’ houses, sometimes replacing the windows to be aligned with the angle of the street and adding to the lopsided look of the houses. In addition, sometimes the houses’ angle made it easier to lift objects onto the second or third stories using the hooks attached to the walls.
My favorite thing about Amsterdam, however, was definitely the Van Gogh museum. As someone who enjoys museums immensely, Europe is great because of its great art history. I have never seen a Van Gogh in person but always enjoyed the reproductions for their color. However, upon seeing 75 of his paintings in person, I am struck by another detail: texture. Everything was so incredibly textured to fit how the object really looked. Sea foam had form and the center of the sunflowers were rough in contrast to the smooth petals. They had many of his famous paintings, including The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers (one from the series), and the Bedroom. I absolutely loved the exhibit and now, wherever I go, if a museum has a Van Gogh painting I will always pay it a visit.
Holland is such a lovely place. Although I missed the tulips on account of winter lasting so long, I am glad that I got to see it. And I am also glad to have spent some time with a friend from St. Edward’s, to see a familiar face and speak English for a while. Now I’m off to new adventures over Easter break!