Amsterdam and the Waterlands

It was after midnight in the Port of Dover and we were wearily standing in line to be processed through the (surprisingly lightweight) border controls to enter France enroute to Amsterdam. That’s when Craig made a big mistake. Now that we were leaving the English language behind once again, his brain switched to the few words of Spanish that he knew. Never speak Spanish to a French customs officer…

Frenchman: Can I have your passport? Craig: Si Angry Fr­enchman: Si? You are from New Zealand. Why are you speaking Italian* when you are from New Zealand? Craig: Spanish, mumble, sorry, mumble, we’ve been in South America, mumble, force of habit, mumble Angry Frenchman proceeds to grill Craig with several questions, purportedly to establish his true identity. Angry Frenchman: If you are from New Zealand, do not speak Italian!

*Si means “Yes” in both Spanish and Italian

(Side note: Craig doesn’t perform well at border crossings. In New York Airport he accidentally pressed the “No” button in answer to the question “Have you understood the preceding security questions and answered them truthfully?” Luckily we were able to get the resulting security alert taken off our tickets!)

Once we got to Amsterdam we were relieved to learn that almost everyone speaks perfect English. We hadn’t been able to learn any Dutch, except to have a quick read of the phrase book on the bus. To us monolinguistic English-speakers, Dutch seems a hard language! According to the phrase book, the sentence “I don’t understand, could you please speak more slowly” is pronounced “ik buh khreyp huht neet, kunt ew al stew bleeft wat traa khuhr sprey kuhn”!

Amsterdam is a really different urban environment to what we’re used to, at least in the historic centre. Firstly, there are several wide canals running through the city – once the backbone of commerce and trade but now full of house boats and tourist cruises. Bicycles outnumber cars by a long shot – every tree and railing is covered with chained-up bikes. Bike theft is common, so the chains are huge. The lack of cars means nice quiet streets, but you still have to watch where you’re walking because trams, bikes and scooters are flying everywhere. At some intersections you end up crossing bike lanes, tram lines and car lanes and hardly know where to look.

Most of the buildings in the centre are much taller than they are wide. This is because of an old policy where buildings were taxed based on the width of their street frontage. We saw the extremes that this tax policy bought about – a very wide house built to flaunt wealth and a house that was only 1.6 metres wide!

The Dutch have a history of being liberal and tolerant people. During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the people of Amsterdam went on strike to protest against the Nazis’ treatment of Dutch Jews, receiving a violent response. Apparently the Netherlands was one of the only places that the general population stood in solidarity with the Jews during the Nazi genocide.

It’s this philosophy of tolerance that gave rise to the two things Amsterdam is perhaps most famous for: prostitution and marijuana. Like in New Zealand, prostitution has been legalised here in order to reduce the risk of harm for those working as prostitutes. Marijuana is actually still illegal in the Netherlands, but there hasn’t been a prosecution for personal possession in decades. Strangely, coffeeshops (where marijuana is sold) are licenced and regulated by the state for selling an illegal product! We learnt on a walking tour that the Netherlands actually have fewer marijuana users per capita than the European average. Which countries have the highest per capita figure globally? Apparently it’s Australia and New Zealand!

It’s a shame that a liberal stance on these issues is so rare globally, because the resultant novelty of Amsterdam makes for a really tacky form of tourism. There is plenty of tourist tat with stupid slogans like “Good boys go to heaven, bad boys go to Amsterdam”. The government is reportedly unhappy with this reputation and is trying to clean up the city’s image – they have started closing down windows in the Red Light District and are considering tougher regulations on the coffeeshops. No one we spoke to was sure what impact this might have on Amsterdam’s tourism industry in the future.

Speaking of tourists, the city has plenty (possibly more than residents at the peak of the season). So we decided to get away from the city and go cycling in the countryside. In less than 30 minutes we were out of the city and amongst farmland.

We went to the area north of Amsterdam known as the Waterlands. We biked past pastures, dykes, lakes, villages and the ocean. One thing we noticed in the villages was how well kept all the houses are. They all look freshly painted and clean, with well-manicured lawns and gardens. It wasn’t just for tourists either – we found the same thing even in small villages with no tourist facilities. We heard that it is part of Dutch culture to take pride in the appearance of your home.

The bicycle facilities in the Netherlands are amazing. Most of our cycling was on dedicated off-road cycle paths, through fields and on top of dykes. Almost every junction was signposted and there were lots of maps showing the various cycle paths. In fact, we didn’t even need a map with us – all we had were some directions we’d found on a travel blog.

By the time we got back into the city, our route had taken us over 60km – further than we’d expected. We had a great day and would really recommend this for anyone visiting Amsterdam. There were lots of other cool places we could have biked to as well.

We didn’t have long in Amsterdam, just a few days. The Netherlands is definitely a place we could imagine coming back to – the landscape, history and culture here all seem really interesting and unique. We are now heading onto Paris, the most visited city in the world.

Comments from WordPress

• Robbie Lane 2012-09-05T11:11:27Z

  Have fun … interestingly we all think about Holland as being liberal … yet my sister-in-law’s parents from Holland had to leave because of being an inter-racial couple (Dutch/Indonesian). Still enjoy all that Europe has to offer.

• Craig and Sal 2012-09-09T12:32:48Z

  Wow that’s surprising (and sad) to hear Robbie. I wonder why they’re liberal about some things and not others?

• Lesley 2012-09-05T20:30:40Z

  Love thosse bright green bikes. being one language [or the bit of it you know] will probably be the norm over the next few weeks. I thought we’d taught you about being on your best behaviour at borders. :)

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson