All good things must come to an end as
they say. And this time in Holland has been one of the best. I
didn't expect a whole lot out of this trip since I was mostly set on
going home. But I am very happy that I did take some time out here.
It turned out to be one of the best and rejuvenating places I've
been. Amsterdam was never high on my list of must-sees, but I wanted
a small trip, a short time in Europe after the stresses of living in
Africa. I had a personal connection here, friends I've had for a
long time but don't get to see or talk to often, so it seemed like
the perfect time and place to go.
Leon and Lina and I all met when I was
in Scotland in 2003. Leon and I were students at Napier University
for a term and Lina was there on a work program and living in the
hostel Leon was at. Soon after they started dating and have been
together ever since. Quite remarkable in many ways least of all the
fact that Leon is from Holland and Lina is from Sweden. We've talked
sporadically throughout those years and I've seen them 3 or 4 times
since. Last year, when I had a long layover in Amsterdam, I asked
them if they wanted to meet somewhere in the airport for a few hours
of catching up. We got so well—like, where had the years
gone?--and I realized how much I missed them so I thought a short COS
trip to Amsterdam would be just what the doctor ordered.
Leon and Lina live in Haarlem, a
stylishly historical town about fifteen minutes from Amsterdam. I
arrived on Friday, so we spent the first couple of days just
wandering around the winding streets and shops. Modern shops selling
the latest fashions, stores with knick knacks and souvenirs, creative
shops with boutique-like merchandise, foreign restaurants, Dutch and
Irish pubs, and numerous cafes line the streets on the ground floors
of buildings that have been there for centuries. Brick work flows
from the buildings to the streets where pedestrians try not to get
run over by an endless stream of bicycles. Dogs on leashes, kids in
cars and lot of flowers and bread and cheese and wine. On Saturday,
vendors selling clothes, seafood, bread, cheese, stroopwaffles,
flowers and fruits and veggies erect stalls in the Grote Markt for
the weekly market in front of the gigantic Gothic church that
dominates the old part of Haarlem. And bad weather deters no one.
Weather in the Netherlands in the winter seems really similar to
Seattle. There is snow occasionally, but mostly it is just drizzling
rain with a biting wind coming off the sea. But that's the worst of
it. Occasionally the sun comes out or the clouds stay high up and
immobile in the sky and weather is tolerable for walking around. And
of course it is the middle of autumn to trees turn colors and lose
their leaves, framing the many canals and old buildings with many
shades of orange and yellow and green.
On Sunday, Lina had to work on a
theatre project so Leon decided he wanted to show me the natural bits
of the Netherlands. Haarlem lies between Amsterdam and the sea so we
headed west into the national park and towards the beach. Somewhere
between a natural park and a city park, many paths meander through
miles of wooded land reminding me of a flatter kind of Virginia with
trees of orange leaves interspersed with bushes. I kept expecting a
black bear to emerge from behind a bush, but I got Highland cows
instead. On this weekend day the park was chockabock full of
joggers. Groups of runners and solo joggers in track duds were
enjoying the cool, sunny weather, but my favorite by far was the
little 8 year old blond headed girl jogging alongside her
grandfather. After a walk through the park, we headed towards the
beach. We never really got there because as we drove through
Zandfoort, a small seaside town, we noticed steam coming from beneath
the hood of Leon's car. We pulled into a parking place on a side
street lined with townhouses. After a peek under the hood, Leon
decided he had to call help, the Dutch equivalent of AAA. But
because the universe works like that, his cell phone battery died
halfway through the conversation. So we went old-school and Leon
tried a doorbell and asked to borrow a phone. (Who's had to do THAT
in the last fifteen years in the age of cell phones?) And thus we
met Connie, a very kind woman in her 60s who had no qualms about
inviting two strangers in for tea and coffee while waiting for the
fix-it guy, after Leon borrowed her phone to call him of course. So
we sat in this kind lady's living room, drank tea, and talked through
the mixture of English and Dutch about the safe things kind strangers
say about themselves. At one point she even said that she had to out
on an errand but we were welcome to say and wait for the repair guy,
but he came before we needed to accept that offer.
Monday was the start of the work week
so I was going to into Amsterdam and walk around on my own. I took
the train in with Lina and got off in the Museumplein, the big square
with most of the city's most famous museums. I had planned to go
into the Rijksmuseum to see the famous larger-than-life Starry
Night while the weather was
questionable, then walk to the Centraal station by way of the city
center, but by the time I got there the weather turned nice, so I
decided to just start walking. There's really nothing interesting
here to mention except I quite enjoyed just soaking in a city
wandering down whatever street looked interesting, through
picturesque neighborhoods, over bridges spanning canals, and
bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. I did some shopping, walked through
the flower market selling enough tulip bulbs to fill the moon, bought
some cheese, found the “High” street where all the cannabis shops
were, rested in cafes over a hot cup of tea, enjoyed a white beer in
a square full of pigeons, trams, and happy shoppers. Exactly the
kind of European atmosphere I'd been looking forward to for months.
I
saved the most important museum for Tuesday. As good as the weather
was, I knew that if I missed the Anne Frank Huis I would regret it.
I had hoped to see it since I found out there was such a place. I
first read The Diary of Anne Frank
in 8th
grade English class during a phase when I was interest in that time
of history. Going to the museum was never high on my list of must
do's, but I always knew that if I got to Amsterdam, I would have to
go there. And it didn't disappoint. It's a very simple and moving
museum and I was surprised by its emotional impact. I remember
hearing stories of people having near-incapacitating reactions in the
Holocaust Museum in DC, which is a graphic testament to the horrors
and atrocities of those years. And I never shared such an intense
reaction to that place. But walking into the first room of the Anne
Frank House with only her portraits displayed on the wall—the
famous ones you've seen a million times—I felt the same way I did
when I saw Dachau in Germany as a teenager. A sense of awe that this
actually happened, right here, not in a book or a movie but right in
this very place. A young girl unknowingly wrote what was to become
the most celebrated testament of oppression. Tears linger behind the
eyes and a catch stays in your throat. She dies hopeless and alone
in a concentration camp not knowing the icon she would become.
After
that sobering journey through history, I continued my
destination-less walk through the city, enjoying some shopping and
searching for the best canal and building front picture. The night
was spent camped out in front of the TV waiting for CNN to give some
election results before we got too tired to stay up. We made it to
the closing of the first polls and that was it. We were awake early
enough to watch Obama's victory speech, however, and get the whole
story which was a better idea than trying to pull and all-nighter.
Lina had the day off so we spent my last day in Holland wandering
around Haarlem again. We found the small but intriguing Ten Boom
Museum that commemorated the heroics of Corrie Ten Boom, the author
of The Hiding Place,
who hid 6 Jews behind a fake wall in her bedroom and helped hundreds
of others go underground during WWII and spent many months in a
concentration camp for her troubles. We also went into the church in
the square, had a drink in one of the cafes near the church, and took
in some more shops. Amsterdam is magnificent, but Haarlem is
charmingly Dutch and easily lovable. We capped off my trip with an
indulgence in sushi for dinner, a great end to a great trip.