Letter from Leiden

Tuesday 1 January 08

Hi everyone -

Goede dag from the Netherlands!We arrived safe but tired when it was still dark early on Wednesday, December 26, Boxing Day, aka the second Christmas. The streets were deserted and nothing was open except restaurants serving special, expensive feasts that people got dressed up for. We couldn't rent a car or bikes or buy food. So we took the train from Schiphol airport to Leiden and a taxi to our hotel -- on the banks of the Rhine but out in the suburbs.

The Dutch plan life. You don't just walk up to the counter and rent a car. The hotel was comfortable, but there was no room service unless we ordered a day or two before and then there were only four choices of party trays. So after we had a nap on Wednesday, we walked a lot and ate sad pre-wrapped sandwiches that we found at a gas station.

Thursday was much better. First thing, we walked two and a half miles along the Rhine to the train station and rented bikes. We rode around the Centrum, which is the inner, older part of the city. It's 1 mile by 3/4 mile surrounded by a jagged moat built in the 1600's. Inside that is the smaller medieval city straddling the Rhine River where it branches. The outer moat (de Witte Singel, the White Belt) and the river are criss-crossed by several miles of canals.

While everything is at a smaller scale than I had imagined from Google Earth and tourist and real estate pics online, Leiden is a very prosperous, modern city with a world-class tourist attraction in the center. The Centrum drips history and every time you turn a corner there's another charming view with canals and bridges and trees and ducks and swans.

Thursday afternoon we met the realtor at the house we are renting for three months. The owner, Renata Burger, is going to Thailand to teach English for two months and then travel for a month. She has been to that part of the world several times. The house is smaller than we imagined from the pictures but is fully furnished and has Internet access. Our neighborhood is just outside the Centrum. Within two blocks we have two small grocery stores, a fish market, a meat market, a fresh fruit market, and a couple of bakeries. And, Jennie points out (hint, hint), two herenkappen, that is, places for men to get their hair cut.

Caspar, our realtor, it turns out, knows less English than I know Dutch, so he brought along his friend, Frank, retired from Shell Oil, who has been writing the emails that Caspar has been sending. Renata and her friend Ilona have excellent English, so we had a pleasant couple of hours getting to know them all and Renata's two cats.

Friday, we rode the bikes to the train station and took the train back to Schiphol, which was the closest place I could rent a car on 24-hours' notice. We drove to Haarlam and the North Sea resort of Zandvoort. Several people had already informed me that my plans to bike along the North Sea were not realistic because of the wind. After walking the beach at Zandvoort, I now agree.

We drove to the Hague and then to Rotterdam, where we had a late lunch in the Turkish part of town. Rotterdam got bombed flat in WWII, so it has concentrated all the high-rise modern architeture that would mar the older cities like Amsterdam and Leiden.

Saturday, we rode the bikes into the Centrum for the Saturday market, which has been happening every Saturday for over 800 years (that's eight hundred, not a typo) in the same spot. The fish stalls were the most impressive to me, an array of freshly caught fish from the North Sea, some of which I did not recognize and most of which looked very tasty, and cheap. Driving around, we found two big-box stores, more Home Depots than Targets, but we didn't find what we were looking for, cell phones and two more voltage converters. We ended up back in the Center where we bought cell phones with plenty of free text messaging. We will buy calling cards as we go along.

Sunday, we got a late start and drove to Utrecht, where we walked the streets until it was time to take Jennie to the airport at Eindhoven. She flew to London to spend New Year's with her friend Ben, a Brit who lives there. The drive through the countryside showed how the Dutch have reclaimed the land and planned its use. Fields everywhere; the Netherlands is the world's third largest agricultural exporter (flowers, cheese, and beer, mostly). On the drive, we saw many old but still functioning windmills, many more tall modern wind turbines, and drainage canals everywhere.

On New Year's Eve, Monday, we moved into our house on Herenstraat. Renata had us sign a 27-page inventory, mostly pictures, of all her belongings. They reflect her travels. The hall mirror is from Jordan, the statue of Krishna on the table is from India, the ceramic plates, lamps, and candle holders from Morocco, various statues and a guitar from the Malagasy Republic, a guitar from Indonesia, bronze and wooden elephants from Nepal. In fact, there are elephants all over -- in pictures, statues, salt shakers, lamps. The kitchen, however, is all Dutch: appliances, food, etc. We went to the bakery and fish store and grocery store and started introducing ourselves to our neighbors. On one side, we have a hair shop and a Greek restaurant. On the other side, we have a publishing services company and a computer supplies store. Across the street is a fietswinkel, a bike shop, and I already have my eye on a used bike for about 100 euros. Our street is painted red, which means bikes have the right of way. Just to get a car into our street means going over speed bumps and threading a narrow roundabout. It is a quiet but bustling neighborhood.

We have had overcast skies, but only a little rain one night and early morning. Saturday and Sunday there was a lot of blue sky and sunshine. Linda and I are adapting more quickly; we feel cut off and out of touch and that feels great! Jennie was feeling cut off and out of touch and it made her sour and unhappy. After we got online at a hotspot and bought cellphones, her outlook improved. Skype to the rescue! She has been a great help noticing things and marching right up to people to ask questions.

It is a bicycle culture. Officially, the government is making policy and spending money to prefer bikes over cars, and it shows. In the Centrum, they had to graft the bike lanes onto narrow streets, and there are more bikes than cars. On all but a few streets, bikes have the right of way. Out in the other parts of town where they have planned and built for bicycles, there is an infrastructure for bicycles that parallels and many cases exceeds the infrastructure for cars. Along most streets, there are two protected paths, separate paths, not lanes, on either side of the roadway. The bike paths are each as wide as the car lanes. There are roundabouts for bikes, suspension bridges for bikes, curbs, signage, traffic lights, landscaping, and lots and lots of people of all ages biking. The ANWB, the government organization that is builds and maintains the infrastructure as well as the social engineering that makes it work, has a strong presence -- offices all over town. Ocassionally, the people seem to be biking for leisure and exercise. Mostly, they use bikes as they would use cars, to get some place, often in a hurry. A couple of near misses and shouted curses taught me to stay in my lane. Even out in the suburbs, where cars and bikes must cross, the bikes have many of the rights of way, so the cars are always stopping for me. It finally occurred to me that all the drivers are bikers, so they respect and tolerate people on bicycles. It is also a pedestrian city. People walk and bike, they are tall and thin, they are prosperous and healthy.

Colorful explanation of Dutch national bike policy: Cycling in the Netherlands

It is a bi-lingual culture. Many signs and labels are in both languages, some as translations but many just a mixture of Dutch and English (Dunglish?). Almost everyone we have met speaks English. We had read about the Dutch reputation for poor customer service, but we have found the people to be friendly and helpful. Even so, my limited knowledge of Dutch is very useful. I spent many hours in the past six months drilling myself in Dutch vocabulary, and it is paying off. At sight, I can read most signs, menu items, and grocery labels. With a dictionary, I can translate all of them as well as maybe 90% of newspaper articles. Many TV shows are in English and subtitled in Dutch. I am picking up new phrases by listening to the English and reading the Dutch. However, listening to Dutch is hard. I can pick out only a few words. And speaking and writing Dutch are a little further down my road. But I'm learning!

The good folks of Leiden practiced their vuurwerk (firework) skills, mostly noisemakers, every day since we got here. Monday, New Year's Eve, as the day went on, we heard more and more. By evening, the teenage boys were out of the streets with bags full of firecrackers, setting them off, and people were leaving the temporary stores (sales legal only in the week before New Years) with large boxes of Roman candles over their shoulders. By 10 PM, it cranked up several notches. Around eleven and for an hour after midnight, it was like nothing I've ever experienced. All over town, on every street corner and every back garden and every rooftop, people were setting off fireworks. Not just firecrackers. I mean the kind that go high and burst into colors. From thousands of street corners and back gardens all over town, unrelenting. And the odor and clouds of smoke. Linda and I stayed inside, so we saw only from our second-floor windows, but we could hear what sounded like a firefight in the middle of a raging war zone that lasted for two hours. While these streets are generally clean and litter-free, the mess on the streets Tuesday morning was extensive; it will be interesting to see how long it takes to clean up the whole city.

Now, our big tasks are to use our lease and my Medaille employment contract to get a residency permit and use both of them to get a bank account so I can get my paycheck. When Jennie returns from London, we will buy used bikes for each of us. Jennie's school starts next week, and Linda and I are looking forward to starting on our projects. Renata's friend Ilona lives in Delft. Ilona knows people who work at the Delft porcelain factory, and she said she can get us a tour of the factory that the public doesn't usually see. Linda is very excited about that, and Jennie will go along to videotape it.

Overall, so far, I feel as though we made a good choice with the Netherlands and an even better one with Leiden.

Happy New Year to you all.

Cheers,
Doug

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