This weekend was the ideal time to make a trip to Amsterdam. My visit fell on Queen’s Day, which is more like Queen’s weekend. It’s a huge national celebration to honor, who else, but the Dutch queen. The best way I can describe the atmosphere is like St. Patrick’s Day, except on a much larger scope and everyone wears orange instead of green. Orange hats, T-shirts, feather boas, shoes one-piece jumpers with orange tails, you get the idea. Another aspect of the celebration are the street vendors, and lots of them. Basically everyone reserves a spot on the sidewalk and drags out all of their junk (or treasure, depending on how you look at it) to sell. It looks like one never-ending garage sale lining the canals, mixed in with sidewalk performers and carnival games like cookie-eating contests. Add to that lots of beer (mostly local brews like Heineken and Amstel), music, and thousands of happy people and you get Queen’s Day.
I flew into the city after work on Friday. I stayed with my friend Mieke, who I met while at Fermilab. Her apartment is in a beautiful old building with a great view of one of the many canals. To reach it you have to climb one of the skinniest spiral staircases I’ve ever seen. Mieke says it’s actually one of the larger ones. The cost of Amsterdam houses used to be based on the space it took up on the canal-front. The result is a bunch of tall and skinny buildings. The skinniest house in Amsterdam is just one-meter wide, about the width of its door. It still stands, although it’s been expanded into the surrounding buildings. Enough history for now.
I was so grateful to have Meike for a host and city guide. We walked around the crowded city Friday night and were interviewed by a local TV station. Although I think they interviewed me just to humor Mieke after she continually yelled, “Talk to her, she’s from America!” On Saturday, we hit the streets with matching orange straw hats. Amsterdam itself is really beautiful. It’s built on a series of interconnecting canals and bridges, and the houses all have these great tops on them. Bikes are everywhere and bikers ride in a special section of the road that’s pretty dangerous for a pedestrian to cross. Like most European cities I’ve explored, mass transportation is really efficient and owning individual cars is really discouraged. In general, Holland seems to be really conscious of the environment. The beer we bought came in little plastic cups that had to be returned to a special can for recycling.
It’s also a very shocking city. I knew what to expect beforehand, but it’s still not the same as seeing it firsthand. Weed isn’t legal there, but it’s accepted in small amounts by the police. Not 30 seconds off the train into the city, I got a big whiff of it. It’s sold in coffeehouses and I witnessed a couple people lighting up and dealing on the city’s bridges and alleys. It scared me for a second. Being from the Detroit area, I’m under the impression that drug dealing happens in bad neighborhoods. My first instinct was to turn the other way. But this was wide open, surrounded by hundreds of people. Somehow, it was safe.
I had the same initial fear in the city’s Red Light District, where women stand behind storefront windows wearing lingerie or bathing suits. When a guy enters the building, the woman closes the window curtain and opens it again once they are finished. I found it kind of disturbing and sad, but once again, it’s accepted. Families walked down the street, not noticing the girls at all. In a way, I agree with the way things are done there. By allowing some of these activities that are normally illegal, but happen anyway, police have a certain amount of control. Prostitutes pay taxes and undergo regular checkups. You shut down some of the horrible things that happen in other cities despite it being illegal. It was still really shocking and uncomfortable at times, but I’m glad I got to see it.
On Sunday, we took the bus to Marken, a fishing village that caters to tourists with lots of souvenir shops selling wooden shoes. I considered buying a pair for my dad, who loved visiting Holland, Michigan, when I was young, where they also sell the uncomfortable things. However, the massive shoes would probably take up a big chunk of my suitcase space, which I’m afraid will already be dangerously full. I’ll just have to find him a cool souvenir somewhere else. From Marken, we took a boat to Voldendam, another fishing town. We ate some French fries for lunch, which the Dutch slather with mayonnaise or this peanut sauce that tastes like peanut butter. The weather was beautiful, so we sat on the patio of a restaurant for a while and then headed back to the city. Then we took a boat tour of the canals and for dinner we ate at an Indonesian restaurant, one of the specialty foods of Holland since the country once controlled Indonesia. We ordered a smorgasbord of food that came in all these cute little bowls with lots of coconut sauces. Very good.
