Life in Amsterdam
Sarah says:
We humans are such creatures of habit. Dare I say, immediately after dropping those dusty, dirty, too-heavy and not yet retired rucksacks down on our temporary Dutch floor, David and I subconsciously set about creating a life extremely familiar. Even our choice of winter home could be considered a habit. Amsterdam is a large enough city to have culture, art, music and shopping while small enough to navigate entirely on foot or bicycle. It’s charming, has great coffee, good beer, there is water everywhere you look and it rains. Sound familiar?
This part of humanity makes me laugh and leaves me curious: why are humans so inclined towards their familiar? Why did we wrap ourselves up in a comfy security blanket of routine in the blink of an eye? These aren’t hard questions. They are screaming with easy answers. After nine months of sensory overload, overwhelming stimulus of the unfamiliar, smells, sounds, foods, animals, and the wide assortment of non-regulated public transportation in two-thirds of the world’s 3rd world countries, we craved cereal.
And we have it. Five days a week we have cereal for breakfast. On weekends, we make special breakfasts. I make coffee each morning, David and I have a cup together and I finish off the press after he leaves for work. We have a newspaper subscription, we change the bed sheets every two weeks, we have a savings card for our local grocery store and we rent movies. I go to yoga twice a week and the instructor knows my name. We even found a nice little karate school and had our first karate test last month. We are proud yellow belts.
We like to ride our bikes real fast and especially at night when the streets aren’t as crowded. We know that even though the Dutch have the word “sorry” in their language and it means the same thing, they will recognize our accents when we say “sorry” to mean, “please switch to English”. And *finally* a culture that appreciates cream for your coffee! You will never, ever be served regular milk for your coffee here, cream is the normal, the natural, the default, and it’s dreamy. It’s my perfect coffee existence.
So, it’s really no wonder neither of us has written an entry since October. We didn’t keep a blog before we went travelling and we really can’t think of anything to say now. What can we really say? Our lives are routine and clean and calm and I love it.
I suppose I could take this opportunity to provide a brief summary of the past three months. We brought October to a close in the country of my heart and name, Hungary. I was thrilled to finally show David where I lived during the summer of 1999, to show off my Hungarian (thank you, excuse me, cheers and six more beers please), and to take him to the famous Lukacs pastry shop. In November, we had a Thanksgiving dinner even though it was a workday with no mention at all of the enormo holiday going on in the US of A. I couldn’t even stream the Thanksgiving Day Parade and we had to have game hens instead of turkey but that’s OK. Then, we went with our friends, Nina and Steven, to Germany to see a Christmas market where we drank Gluhwein. We had a 12″, pre-lit, pre-ornamented Christmas tree on our window sill. We flew to the UK to spend the holiday with David’s family who were ecstatic to have the Grinch himself home for the first time in ten years. We had roast dinners, plenty of wine, Christmas eve down the pub and pram races on Boxing Day. New Year’s Eve was back in Amsterdam where they allow normal citizens access to vast quantities of sparkly gun powder most modern cities restrict to professionals at an extremely safe distance from the public.
Further putting our current geo location to good use, we began 2008 with a snowboarding trip to the Austrian Alps. I realize how luxurious that sounds but we really did try to find the cheapest village we could. It had been two whole years since our feet were last strapped to a board, and we were on rented boards at that, but things came back to us and before long we were screaming, “woooohoooooo” down the beautiful slopes of snow. To my observation, snow sport customs are the same in Europe as they are in America: skiers hate snowboarders, snowboarders wear baggy pants and no one likes getting off the chair lift. I’m glad I’ve had this experience but I still maintain that the best skiing is at Whistler and I’m thrilled that my permanent home is only five hours away from this winter wonderland. David and I *already* have butterflies about being re-united with our own gear and making the beautiful drive up to B.C. See, there you have it, we are thinking about home.
But what about home? We refer to Amsterdam as, “home with a little “h”.” I have recently had a revelation like a brick falling on my head: I like that I live here. I like the constant ringing of bicycle bells, I like how all the cafes have candles lit in their windows all day every day. I’m getting used to the ridiculously over-crowded grocery stores, I’m getting used to just about everyone being at least a foot taller than me. Frankly, it’s teaching me to walk with confidence better than my 9 years of studying karate. Claim your space! I’m not getting used to the clouds of cigarette smoke everywhere; I’m surprised actually that the Dutch don’t smoke in the grocery stores, they smoke everywhere else. But, hey, every city has its thing. So what am I trying to say? Life in Amsterdam is pretty good and it is beginning to feel a little like “h”ome. It’s carving a special little place in my heart as affection begins to grow. These are the streets that I have woken up and looked out upon for the last five months and it’s all beginning to feel quite normal.
This past Friday night I returned from a work meeting in Rotterdam at about 5:30pm and met David near the train station. He and I walked his bike to a wine bar where we had arranged to meet Beth. We see Beth at least once a week but we always seem to have SO much to catch each other up on that the evening flew by over beautiful wine and perfect bits of food you put on gourmet crackers. We ended our evening, as you do, with Beth getting on her bike and us getting on ours. There is one thing that all Dutch women know how to do with effortless grace that I am sure is a skill very very few American women have: they slide themselves perfectly side-saddle on the back of a moving bicycle, instantly cross their ankles, hold on with one arm, and away they go. It’s pretty hysterical to watch me try to do the same thing. As much as I would love to pass the blame onto David, we both know that it is entirely my fumble because he has given backies to Dutch women who have complimented his steady bicycle maneuvering. Apparently, he is innately capable of keeping his bike from wobbling. I can’t help but laugh myself into contortions as I try to get a running start and throw myself on the back of his bike but finally we were off and I was treated, which doesn’t happen very often since I usually have my own bike, to hands-down the best view of the city. And as we were turning here and there down Amsterdam’s narrow, brick-paved streets, the fairy-tale architecture may have been passing me by but the moment was not. I’m pretty darn lucky to be calling this city home with a little “h”. Afterward we stopped at the bar downstairs for a night-cap. It’s a good, honest bar that serves stew and local gin and we like to think the staff recognizes us when we walk in.
So, again, I have to ask myself, “what am I trying to say?” I know that I’m not trying to say I want to move here forever and I know that I’m not trying to say that I don’t want to shake out those dusty rucksacks and get back on the road. The next leg of our journey is even cooler and more exciting than the travelling we’ve already done! We are making friends here, though, and everything is growing comfortable. Even the little things that used to drive me crazy don’t drive me so crazy anymore which I think produces some weird feeling of accomplishment that they don’t drive me crazy anymore which then kind of turns into affection for what was irksome. Perhaps I am nervous that by the time our departure dates rolls around, I will feel like we’re actually leaving something which is not what I wanted. I wanted to feel emotionally free to go. Is that what I’m trying to say? I dunno….we’ll have to see.