Part Two: The Artist
Trip Start
Dec 25, 2005
1
3
5
Trip End
Jan 03, 2006
Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Sunday, January 1, 2006
Perhaps the greatest joy of traveling is not seeing the great sites or eating the exotic food, but meeting the (sometimes exotic) people. Whether these people are ex pats you know from home, complete strangers you meet at a bar, or one of the thousands of people you never actually speak to but just observe from the comforts of a cafe, they are what makes a trip memorable. More often then not you know them for no longer then a couple of pints. Half the time you never catch their name, or don't remember it. Some reappear in pictures, others you run into again later in the trip, and although you exchange emails with promises to write, everyone knows this type of traveling friendship is even shorter then the best one-night stand.
It's hard to summarize an entire nationality in a few words, but perhaps the Dutch can best be summarized in three words: bikes, fun, and pannenkoek. "Pannenkoek?", you ask. "What's that?" We will get to that later. But first, the bikes.
Needless to say I was utterly shocked to find the Dutch do not wear wooden shoes. Who would have guessed? It seems that they have all tired of foot slivers and have instead traded in their woodies for bikes. But they still have a sense for nostalgia. Nowhere will you see a state of the art road bike or a shock-full mountain bike. What you will see is everyone riding an old-school bannana-seat-like bike. They're everywhere. After the high-speed trams, getting hit by a bike is the easiest way of getting killed while wandering around lost in Amsterdam.
A Snowy Ride
Yet, since everyone bikes everywhere, the Dutch continue to uphold the theory that no fat people live in Europe. Furthermore, the biking craze has lead to the development of a bike-orientated infrastructure. All the cities have bike lanes with every street and bike traffic control lights at every intersection. If it's raining or snowing, the Dutch are still biking. They carry their groceries, the school books, their pets, and even their kids (who sit on the back saddle rack or on the front handlebars, holding on with no helmet and no worries that they will be removed from their parents care by the kind people working for the Department of Human Services). It is my theory that everyone with the fat gene immigrated to the United States. So, now you know, when you think Dutch no longer visualize wooden shoes, windmills or tulips. The new symbol of Dutch power is the classic pedal-pusher and the have-no-fear rider.The Dutch can also be known for their laid back, generally fun attitude towards life. They discovered the perfect way to live: legalize everything. For anyone who jokes about getting rid of lawyers, the Dutch have figured out how. You can drink on the street, drink when your sixteen, smoke pot, have sex with a hooker, and then trip on the crack of the brick sidewalk and no one will sue you. Anything seems to go. My favorite custom is that if you sit at the bar long enough the bar tender is seemingly obligated to buy you a drink. Think of it as a little "thank you for shopping" gesture. In fact, this little something extra is prevalent in the drinks realm.
Football at Amsterdam ArenA
Order a coffee and you'll find next to your petite cup a small treat. Whether a cookie, a wafer, a stroopwaffle, or a strange orange liquid in a shot glass topped with whipped cream (it's a Gouda thing), you are always in for a treat in Holland.To better get to know this Dutch approach to life, we decided to dive right into the Quintessentially Dutch past-time: football. Like virtually every nation besides the U.S., the Dutch are football crazy. We took a trip out to the 50,000 capacity Amsterdam ArenA to watch the hometown team Ajax (pronounced eye axe). As it was our first experience with the train system, we ended up watching the arena go by our window as our train continued for nearly a half-hour to the city of Utrecht. But after turning ourselves around we finally got to the match, albeit a half an hour late. Ajax was up, 2 zip. We got our beers and sat back to take in the spectacle of European football. It's been awhile since I've played soccer, so what was going on was a bit hazy, and the fact that the announcer spoke Dutch didn't help in clearing the confusion. But I don't need to speak Dutch to know that the Refs made some questionable calls, that you should stand the entire second half, if you try to beat the crowd by leaving a bit early the guy in the fifth row will (presumably) cuss you out in Dutch for not being a true Ajax fan, and that the entire upper deck is where they put the mentally questionable people. Not once during the entire game did they either sit down, stop singing, stop jumping up and down, stop waiving flags, or stop lighting things on fire.
Go Ajax!
Ajax won, 4-3, although Groningen almost came back in the last few seconds, which is exactly why the guy in row five had the right to cuss you out.Although football fans can be crazy at times, football remains in the "fun" category. It's not until New Year's eve in Amsterdam that you begin to experience the crazy and insane side of the country. Of course you can't hold it against Holland, since it is invaded annually by foreign party-goers, which makes you wonder if perhaps the crazy is all imported. Although fireworks are actually one thing that are illegal in Holland, this ban is lifted every December 31st. On this day, everyone gets all of their built up pyro desires out. And when I talk about fireworks, I don't mean snaps, snakes and bottle rockets. I mean full fledged, fireman only fireworks; and I don't mean organized fourth of July events, I mean anywhere you want no matter what the size of the crowd. We were walking down the street and a man was taking a leak at the back of an alley. Two other guys thought it would be funny to light a firecracker and toss it, unbeknownst, directly behind the pisser. Admittedly...the result was hilarious.
For New Years Kara and I decided what better way to celebrate then getting drunk. We started at our favorite brown cafe (Dutch for pub) with some pints. Of course this earned us a free shot of something from the bartender. It was all downhill from there. Kara ended up chatting up the entire male population of Luxemburg and the entire male population of Luxemburg bought her numerous shots.
Ice Skating in Amsterdam
(According to Luxemburg, you need no less then 10 full days to truly experience their country. Who would have known, 10 days to experience a country you could walk across in 10 hours). Anyways, I was feeling a bit left out since Luxemburg doesn't seem to have any interest in getting males to come to their country so I turned the other direction and met some English lads. There's nobody better to drink with then the British. You're guaranteed to get along, to get a round bought for you, and to learn how much a red light district hooker costs (40 euro for a straight lay, in case you were wondering). Next thing I know its a quarter to 12 and we're running to Dam Square with four 19 year old American Air Force kids. Dam Square is packed with thousands of people listening to the selection of international DJs playing all night. Midnight arrives and I feel like I'm in a war zone. Fireworks are everywhere, some above me, some below me, and others coming straight for my head. After some time celebrating it was off to our hotel bar, where we were invited to a "private" DJ hosted party. Again we got a drink given to us from the bar and decided it was getting late. But we weren't done yet. After the hotel bar closed we followed the crowd to another club where Kara danced with a Scot, Nick tried to understand a Scot but instead gave up and accepted a cigarette as an excuse to not being able to talk (the coughing), and we both realized it was time to call it quits. 4:00 a.m., not too shabby (never mind we were hungover until 4 pm, but that's a different story).Another thing the Dutch are good at doing is hanging out with friends and having fun.
Nice Wheels
Ok, ok, so Nate and Andrea aren't really Dutch, but they live there so it's close enough. And yes, the Iowa Hawkeyes and American Football aren't exactly Dutch, but we did drink Heineken and ate Dutch cheese and Dutch candies, and had a great time watching the game via it being slingshot over the internet from Chicago so doesn't that count? Yes, even mixed with all the Americana, it still seemed perfectly Dutch.Finally, the Pannekoek. What is it? Well, it's Dutch and it's food, and it's strange. While over at the Greens they inquired whether we had tried the pannekoek yet. After hearing that we had not, they seemed utterly distraught and it was decided that we had to try pannekoek. It became our mission. Pannekoek is best described as an open-face omelet made from a pancake instead of an egg. You get an extra large pancake and you fill it up with various toppings, such as veggies, meats or fruits. Then you top it off by smothering it with a thick, molasses syrup like substance. My experience with the pannekoek was with bacon, cheese and thick molasses syrup like substance. At first it may seem like a random Conglomeration of ingredients, but some how it works as being perfectly Dutch. Which leads me to why I say Holland is like pannekoek: it may seem like a random conglomeration at first, but some how it works as being perfectly Dutch.
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