Here are all the reasons I'm deeply, passionately in love with the Netherlands, and with Amsterdam in particular:
1) Dutch. I love the language. I love learning it. Apparently, some Renaissance artist / poet / thinker of sorts claimed that Dutch was the most logical language of all, and therefore was the language Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise / the Garden of Eden. I really do love the language. Want to continue learning it.
2) The people. I like them, and I like their culture.
3) They're not rude! They're just practical + I think there's even an implicit understanding of some basic, assumed level of niceness that makes extra "niceties" frivolous. If I bump into you in a grocery store, I *obviously* didn't mean to bump into you. So there's no reason for us both to go snivelling over how we're both sorry to get into each other's way. So, I think this actually doesn't just reflect pragmatic directness, but it actually reflects a more basic understanding that we're all just doing what we do, and not trying to run into other people, so if you have to push past someone...it's not personal. You're just pushing past someone. It's not a personal judgment, and there's no reason to treat it like one. No one was trying to target you to pick on.
4) They're not rude!: once again, and for different reasons. They're just honest, and not passive-aggressive.
5) The Dutch wink a lot, which is something I really enjoy. It's a thing we've almost all observed: being winked at, but it's not creepy--it's just endearing, friendly, open. So, for all those people who think the Dutch are cold or abrupt or don't appreciate the falsity of smiles in the streets from strangers, I disagree. I think they love it. I think they do it right back.
6) Food. It's so easy to be vegan here--I kid you not, the local supermarkt chain Albert Heijn carries its own brand of vegan food. As in, the Albert Heijn brand. And it's just your generic Dutch Shoppers or Giant Food Warehouse, or whatever. There's one practically anywhere in the city, and everyone carries around AH bags all the time. It's a mammoth here--their Starbucks, maybe. Well, that would be Coffee Company. But anyway. And so you walk into this generic chain grocery store--and they have, legit, their own AH line of vegan meatballs, falafel, vegan 'beef' crumbles, vegan 'chicken' slices, soymilk--EVEN SOY ICE CREAM (soja ijs).
Moreover, food is far less processed here--as I've observed before in this blog, bread (brood) contains maybe 5-10 ingredients, versus 20-30 in the U.S. Consequently, it also goes bad more quickly because it has less preservatives, but you know it's fresh, and you know it's healthier, and most importantly, you actually know what's in it. There aren't strange Latin-seeming words you've never seen before and have to interpret and analyse and google / wikipedia. It's just bread.
7) Candles. There are candles everywhere in Amsterdam. I think my friends / people around me thought I was crazy for how much I loved candles, how I would try to find opportunities to light them all the time. My bedroom in my parents' house is filled with around 40+ candles and fun candle-holders. It's an atmospheric thing, an aesthetic thing--and, apparently, a Dutch ( / European?) thing. Something they get, and practice regularly. When I walk around the city, I'm always (sneakily) looking into people's houses, trying to imagine myself in them, or reinvent it as my own / mapping mine onto what I see inside, and when I'm doing this, one thing I continually observe is that there are candles everywhere, and they are always lit as soon as the sun goes down (say, 4 or 5pm). They have already discovered what I have discovered, and made it a whole cultural practice. <3 <3 <3
8) Gender. Again, there are multi-stall multi-gender bathrooms here. I've twice gone into bathrooms, only to see (ostensibly) 'boys' from my classes coming out of stalls or entering the room, too, and we'll say, 'What's up?' and then go about our business like usual. The first time it didn't even strike me as out-of-the-ordinary until I was walking home that evening and suddenly I stopped and realised, and was like: '...WHAAAAT!' It's true. Explicitly multi-gender, multi-person bathrooms.
Also, motorbikes. While primarily a 'masculine' phenomenon in the U.S., it is a matter of less gendered practicality here. Bicycles are the average way to get around. But, if you want to get around with all the ease and flexibility and convenience of a bicycle...but want to get there faster (and with less effort), you use a motorcycle / motorbike. And...shocker! Maybe more than fifty percent of the people I see on motorbikes seem to be presenting as 'wymyn.'
9) You guessed it...city design / architecture / canals. My Dutch teacher pointed out that the canals not only add aesthetic qualities to the city, and open it up so roads are larger and also feel more spacious / less oppressive, but they also bring in wildlife (geese, birds, swans), and brighten up the city because--!!!--light reflects off water! So the city is more full of light.
10) Winter Festivities Preparations. There's nothing more beautiful than Amsterdam as it prepares for Christmas. Period.
Other wonderful things that have happened recently:
a) a close friend and I booked our bus tickets (€20 roundtrip!) to Bruxelles. We found an AMAZING couch surfing host and were really excited. Then we both got sick, of course, so we couldn't go--but the point was, we *were* going to go to Brussels over the Halloween weekend, and we have become involved with the Couch Surfing community / website, and connected with a really cool host, which was awesome. So.
b) CONTRA DANCING! My housemate and I went contra dancing last night (30 okt.) and she said it was one of the best times of her life :) I couldn't believe contra dancing could be *that* amazing, but I was really glad to go & we had a great time. It was mainly older Dutch people, but there were about 7 youngsters (2 Dutch, 3 other originally-Americans, myself, & my housemate), and we all got along great. There was this one older gentlemen who always was offering us hors d'oeuvres that he had smuggled from the food table and had on the ready at any moment that a "young lady," presumably, was in need of instant snacks.
The first person there to really take an interest in us and start talking to us was another older gentleman, originally British, who had lived in the Netherlands for 30 years now. He said he preferred New England contra dancing to English country dancing, but that we were basically dancing a fusion here (I added my own little New England flairs--more spinning, twirling my partners, extra swishing of the skirts, &c.) He could be a bit up-tight and English-proper, obsessed with discipline & control & all that, too. He was the only person, really, at the dance who was sort of a control-freak. I danced in an 8-person group with him, the old man with the hors d'oeuvres, and my housemate the first dance, and he made us stop several times, in a very firm, crisp, precise voice / tone, and made us go back to where he thought we had messed up, and do it again. I wasn't really enjoying that part--especially because I've done this before and sometimes he was just wrong. I.e. he was in the wrong spot, and then the dance got confused, or he interpreted someone else as being wrong when they were confused because someone else had gotten confused, so he'd point the finger at the wrong person (indirectly, of course). And so then, whenever he felt like the dance was not patterned enough to suite his proper sensibilities, he'd take control and order us back to the beginning. Finally another dancer in my group said, "okay--let's just do it this time, and for fun." Me: "Agreed!" He was actually very nice, though, and when you got something right, he would beam at you, as if to say: well, I'm proud you're trying hard and maybe have finally gotten something right that is probably beyond your capabilities anyway. Good for you! So, patronising, but still a kind smile.
The next dance, though, his group was selected by the contra dance leader / teacher to lead the demonstration, and the teacher entered his group, and he TOTALLY messed up and confused the dance again, but of course you can't contradict the teacher, and she was laughing and laughing and enjoying the good time, so he was forced to, too. Then she led them back to the previously fatal portion, and carefully guided them through--with a particular kind emphasis on him. So. He got called out. YO. But by a very nice and encouraging person who tried not to damage his pride. His manner of speaking, his face, and his build / height reminded me a lot of my great-Uncle Don. Really a lot. So I liked him for that, not just for his interest in getting to know all the new dancers and ease of talking to between dances.
I never thought of myself as a dancer, but one lady in that first 8-person group said she thought I was very good and guessed I must have already done this before (true: for 2 years, off and on) because I looked like I knew what I was doing. So then the two of us danced the next dance as partners, and I taught her to twirl me whenever releasing my hand, and it made everything a lot more fun! Of course it was already fun. She looked like she enjoyed learning that new trick, too--though at first she didn't realise it was a possibility and became confused when I tried to spin her! She said: "Nee, nee," and I said, "Ja, ja. You can do that. Ja." It was funny. (If I had thought ahead, I could have said "Ja, ja. U kan dat doen." I did practice my Dutch a bit throughout the evening, though--mostly as trying to practice my listening skills, which are sadly much worse than I suspected. I used my direction words, though: "licht," "recht," and I answered one or two questions in Dutch--about whether or not I knew or was learning Dutch.)
Anyway, at one point my partner and I ended up in a four-person group with the English dude, and I was wearing a skirt one of my housemates had lent me, and making full use of it dance-wise, so I held the edge and when English person and I had to sashay, I sashayed while holding my skirt and he started grinning and smiling and then--lost his place in the dance and totally messed up and all four of us started laughing hysterically and my partner yelled out to me: "Mooi!" (beautiful), and then afterward said, "He was so charmed by your dancing that he was distracted! You dance like you're in a court. You know a court? Is that how you say in English? Like, with princes and princesses? Queens?" Me: (laughing) "Yes, yes, a court! Dank u, dank u wel!"
The final dance, I chose my housemate as my partner, but it ended up being a switch-off dance where you're constantly exchanging partners, and so I took the opportunity to introduce some extra New England liveliness by spinning all my new partners. At first they seemed surprised, but by the second or third person, they almost began starting to spin themselves--anticipating it, but also, in my mind, looking forward to it. Like they had noticed I was doing that, and were excited, haha. I also had told my last partner that she should teach others to start twirling, so maybe my new partners expected this treatment because she was also doing this now. Oh! Another thing that really confused them was how, in New England contra dancing, "do-si-do"-ing involves extra spins and twirls the whole time you're circling your partner, and they tried to tell me I was doing it wrong, but when I explained they said, "OH! My! Well, that's just more dynamic that we do. Just the basics; very static. I like it." Contra dancing, fyi is a New England phenomenon--a folk evolution from English country dancing. It's now in the mountain areas of the U.S., too (like South Carolina, &c.), so...what we do in New England goes. It's correct. They seemed to like these new influxes of techniques and information.
There wasn't any live music, unfortunately (but: it proves you can contra dance to anything--including a CD instrumental version of Disney's "Bear Necessities of Life"), but we had a great time (and an adventure trying to find the place...it's soooo hidden). My housemate had never been contra-ing before, and she's going to go again in November. I'll be in Stockholm during that dance, so I can't go.
Oh! Remember the old man with the cashews and other hors d'oeuvres? Well, he and another dancer ended up getting off at the Metro stop my housemate and I took, and invited us to an all-day contra event this coming Sunday in Utrecht. It wasn't good timing for us, but they were soooo kind--and the nice old man had more cashews in his hand, still, and offered them again. He has such a thick snowy white beard; he reminded me a bit of the police officer in Hot Fuzz who was really hard to understand when talking, and who was always with the dog. The way he talked, though, reminded me of the grocer's father in Amelie who says: "Brodeteau, what more can I say?" The person he was with said she'd e-mail / contact me about the next dance in Utrecht or elsewhere in the area, and the fact that she offered all this by herself, and specifically asked my friend and I if we'd like to go--I don't know. It was just so out-reaching, and so friendly. I had told my friend that you'll meet just the nicest people when you're contra dancing, but now I'm proven. Just such nice, nice, embracing, warm, friendly, good, kind people, who are interested in other kind nice people.
p.s. I LOVE my professors. They're phenomenal. I'm a little in love with them all.
