Ah wait, there’s a tram station, two blocks away. Exhale. Ha no…It’s the 4, 16, & 24. I weigh my options: It’s too far to walk. Like, 2 hours far. A cab? Taboo, absurdly expensive and nowhere in sight. I gathered my nerves and bolstered myself. Rogier, my Haarlem-bred boyfriend, had been trekking around New York & navigating the subway system like a pro after 2 days on his first visit. I could already hear him chastising me, as this was my 3rd trip here, my days totaling around the 30-day mark.
I saunter to the tram map; the 2 ligne simply could not be that far. The map is completely in Dutch, no kind “You are here” sign a la NYC’s maps to be seen. I meet eyes with a rosy cheeked woman, so characteristically Dutch. I make a point to first ask if we could proceed in English to which she replies, “Sure, I speak a little”. They always do that, and they’re always fluent. She aptly suggests I take one of the similar lines that all lead to the central area, hook up with the 2 there. Crisis averted.
On my journey back to Rog’s apartment, I get lost in the sights and sounds of this city I’m about to leave. I feel comfortable, familiar. I think about how hard it was in my first few visits here to ‘get it’ here; it perhaps being a true sense of the national identity. France, Germany, pretty obvious. In cartoons, there is always a caricature. There had to be more to the Dutch than the blonde braids, wooden shoes and windmills. I stare out the window to try and find a café for my last decaf cappuccino in Europe as we pass a take out named “Mech: Make and Take”. I giggle to myself as I find that so Dutch. Equal parts kitschy, blunt, innovative and efficient. Funny enough, that is exactly how I’d describe the best parts of my boyfriend. He and his friends once told me as I implored about how they’d describe their national identity that there is a saying: “Just be normal- that’s weird enough.”
I think about this and try to assimilate it with what I have observed in my time here. …And I don’t really get it. To my eye, people here are easy going, considerate, sharp and open. Legalized taboos aside, there’s the fact that the International Court of Justice happens to be in the Hague; People here are relentlessly green: riding bicycles in the dead of a winter rainstorm with nary a frown, all the while looking effortlessly pulled together in a manner rivaling fashionistas in Paris; On mass transit, people pay no mind to delays, in sharp contrast to NY where people would be shouting obscenities into the air in protest. Not only did I find Amsterdam completely ethnically diverse, EVERYone is fluent in English and don’t give you funny looks when you don’t attempt (it’s scary to dare) to speak Dutch. People have accused them of being cold, but I find Dutch folk unharried. Perhaps because their level of health and retirement care is so comprehensive, it leaves the citizens unstressed and free to attend to other matters. Like teaching other nations how to build dikes and dams as they did in New Orleans after the floods. I don’t know… So I suppose I have yet a lot to learn, perhaps there is a secret dark side to the culture I’m just not grasping. Yes, they used to want to take over the world. There are very few places in New York, for example, that aren’t named after something Dutch; But that evil empire stuff seems to have died off a long while ago. My time in this freethinking & easygoing place has been a respite from the bustling pace stateside. I can’t wait to come back and mark it as perhaps my favorite City in the EU. Don’t tell Paris.
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