Koninginnedag

I wasn't aware that the Netherlands has a monarchy until I moved here. But they do, and they celebrate their Queen's birthday annually with parades, street parties, and concerts. Apparently the current Queen, Beatrix, decided to keep Queen's Day on the date of her mother's birthday, since the weather tends to be much better at the end of April than Beatrix's birthday in late January. So now, every April 30th, the Dutch take to the streets in bright orange to eat, drink, dance, and shop the day away.

I was joined for Queen's Day festivities by Kat, who lives in Utrecht, but grew up outside of London, and Kat, who lives in London, but grew up in New Zealand. The name similarity and the fact that I'm an ignorant American who can barely tell the difference between a Kiwi accent and an English accent added a little sliver of fun to the weekend. 

I'm told that, in recent years, Queen's Day has been preceded by Queen's Night, which is more of a clubbing/concert night than the street party the following day. Kat(s) and I set off on foot from my apartment to Dam Square and the Jordaan around 6:30pm on Sunday.

There were several vendors - some stand alone, some tables outside of restaurants - already selling food. There was no real dinner - just a series of stops at vendors throughout the night:

Yes, that is bacon on those fries.

Dam Square was set up with (what I interpreted as) an American style fair. Though perhaps fairs like this originated somewhere else. Regardless, the entire square was filled with rides that took people to heights above the tallest buildings in the center of town or spun them around in circles through a smoke machine. There were also games where people threw baseballs at dining plates, punched a bag as hard as they could, and tossed rings onto a pole. 

Small stages were set up in many spots in the center of town, with some holding DJs playing house music, others hosting instrumental musicians, and some having rock covers. This group did songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age, and Foo Fighters. It's always fun to hear Dutch conversation followed by English vocals. 

Amsterdam was blessed with brilliant weather the following morning. It was cold and very rainy on Saturday, mediocre on Sunday, and it's supposed to be quite rainy on Tuesday. But Monday - Queen's Day - was clear, sunny, and the warmest day (around 70 degrees) of the year.

We set off around 10:30am on foot from my apartment. The day started much earlier for some. The day is a city wide street party, but it's also a massive flea market, where people sell all sorts of odds and ends. Dining plates and cups, old paintings, VHS tapes, CDs, clothing, books, and food were spread on top of blankets covering the pavement by the sidewalks, and chalk advertisements drawn on the ground beckoned pedestrians to vendors.

The inside of a Coffee Company (local coffee place - the coffee kind, not the marijuana kind) branch, decked out for Queen's Day.

Sarphatipark, packed with people around 11:00am. It was packed tightly enough that we had difficulty walking through. 

It is customary (nearly requisite) to wear orange on Queen's Day. I don't have any orange clothing, so I bought a knit hat, an orange feather boa, and orange wrist bands the previous day, and I wore them around town. I thought these flowers might provide a good photo op. 

A pair of Dutch girls apparently liked the pose, but they thought they could add to it with their triangles strung together. They seemed pretty excited to be helping. 

A large picture of the Queen's face was put on the Rijks Museum.

While passing near Museumplein, a parade of Hare Krishnas sang and danced past us. You can see one girl give me a coconut cake desert dyed in orange.

The canals in Amsterdam were filled with boats of partiers drinking beer, dancing, and blasting music. Most boats just had young people dressed in orange, but a few were a little more creative, like this guy above riding a pink elephant and trying to catch hats on a pole, and another boat of Sprite employees dressed in green and launching bottles of soda into the crowds.

Vendors sold cups of beer (usually Heineken) for 2.50 euro, plus a euro cup deposit. Along with multiple beer stops, my tally for the day included a 50 cent cupcake thing that some Dutch girls were pushing pretty hard, a two euro piece of raspberry rum cake that I split with on of the Kats, a meat pie filled with Thai Curry, a piece of French Toast, a deep friend Vietnamese bun thingy, and a plate of green curry and chicken. Oh, and ice cream.  

The noise might be a drawback of a canalside apartment. But this guy had a nice view of the party. And a good place to get a tan. 

Even the vans were orange today.

This was a bit of a rare scene. Most cans ended up left on the street.

I've never experienced something like the Queen's Day party. It seamlessly mixed children, teens, college students, people in their 20's and 30's, parents, grandparents, elderly people tourists, expats, and Dutch. The atmosphere was overwhelmingly positive and cheery, with no one yelling or fighting (an even bigger accomplishment given the amount of alcohol consumed).

The mood did change a bit as the day wore on. The clean streets and fresh atmosphere at the beginning of the day yielded to garbage, urine, and spilled beer flooding the streets, and more drunk people and less children in the afternoon. During our walk back to my apartment, men were brazenly peeing on buildings and sidewalks. We had to squeeze and snake between the dense crowds to make out way home. But still, no violence or bad spirits - just a different type of festive.

I'm not sure what the cleanup is like, or what to expect in the city tomorrow. I will go into work and treat it as a normal day, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's an unofficial second holiday for many nursing hangovers, sun burns, and sore feet.

Down South

The Netherlands is composed of 12 provinces. “the Randstad,” a metropolisis/megaloposis (or, as Wikipedia refers to is, a “conurbation” of a little over seven million residents), includes Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, the Hague, and other smaller cities in between spans across North Holland, South Holland, and Utrecht provinces (for comparison, the Randstad is about 3200 square miles with a population of a little over seven million; the Phoenix metro area is about 16,500 square miles with a population of about 4.2 million people). I’ve spent almost all of my time in the Netherlands in Amsterdam, and the few times I’ve ventured out have been into one of these three provinces (like to Haarlem, Utrecht, and a few castles and bike trails). I had the opportunity to visit a different part of the Netherlands when the psychology department at Tilburg University (located in the town of Tilburg, population ~200,000, in the province of North Brabant) invited me to give a talk. Tilburg was especially notable to me for two reasons: I applied for a job there last year, and it was the university that used to employ Dedrik Stapel, the infamous social psychologist who fabricated large sums of data.

So, going to Tilburg allowed me to experience Dutch domestic train travel in a new way. This type of travel is routine for people living in the Netherlands – I have several friends and colleagues who grew up in different parts of the country, and they visit home frequently. And many people choose to live in Amsterdam but work in another part of the country, or vise-versa.

Morning scene from my apartment 

The trip begins with a short bike ride (~1 kilometer) from my apartment to Amstel Station, a small train/metro station close to the Amstel river. I have to catch a train from there to Utrecht, where I’ll need to switch to another train that goes directly to Tilburg.


Looking south from the train platform at Amstel Station.

The train was ten minutes late, just as it was the last time I took it to Utrecht. This naturally meant that I missed my connection to Tilburg, and that I’d need to wait another thirty minutes until the next train arrived. After looking at the train maps, arrivals, and departure times, I realized that I could take a different train that departed in five minutes to a town called s'Hertogenbosch, and that I could grab a different connection from there to Tilburg. Plus, I’d have a 15 minute wait in  s'Hertogenbosch to briefly walk around the train station and see a small part of another Dutch city.

I did this, and I quickly walked around what was indeed a very small part of  s'Hertogenbosch. But what I saw was quite similar to the other small Dutch cities I’d ridden my bike through while seeing the countryside or on my way to a castle. It had small roads with lots of bicylists, modern shops housed in the ground floors of classically designed buildings, and cafes advertising whether they primarily serve Amstel, Heineken, Juliper, Grolsch, or (shudder) Bavaria.

Fountain outside of the train station in s'Hertogenbosch.





River passing through s'Hertogenbosch.

Streets of s'Hertogenbosch.


s'Hertogenbosch train station.

I arrived in Tilburg around 11:45am – about two hours after I’d gotten to the train station near my house (and about thirty minutes after I would have arrived had my first train not been delayed). After giving my talk and spending a few more hours at the university, I took another train back to Utrecht. But I did get off the train at a stop in the center of Tilburg to walk around the city briefly before going home, since I figured that I might not make it to that part of the country again.

When I mention Tilburg to Dutch people who live in Amsterdam, they often derisively repeat the city’s name back to me before saying something like, “Ughh…it’s so boring!” or “why would anyone ever want to (live/work/visit) there?” Though I had heard from a few people that the center of town can be very nice.

The Little Devil cafe, serving Grolsch and Jack Daniels.

My (very brief) impression was more consistent with the majority view. Some of the buildings looked similar to those in  s'Hertogenbosch, but there were also many large, blocky, “post-war” style buildings. Apparently Tilburg was heavily bombed by the Allies in World War Two and, much like Rotterdam (and, well, a lot of Europe), it had to be rebuilt. And the rebuilding effort did not replicate the aesthetics of some of the older structure and style.

Streets of Tilburg.




Native English speakers should probably be able to figure out what this means.

Tilburg, like all Dutch cities, was preparing for the weekend’s festivities. This will serve as minor foreshadowing….            

Visitors from the U.S., Part 1.5

This past weekend marked the second time that fellow former Burquenos visited me in Amsterdam. Well, I've downgrading the first visit to a half-visit given my poor Australian friend (whose anonymity I shall protect) came down with horrendous food poisoning and spent most of his visit on my air mattress. So this was the first and a half visit from a UNM alum.

Oskar, who did his Ph.D. in Anthropology at UNM with me, and his friend John, who did his Ph.D. in Tucson at UofA, shared a car with two German teenagers from Rostock, Germany (where they are both postdoctoral fellows) to Amsterdam last Friday. We met up at Beer Temple around 7:00pm, after I finished up at the university.

As a refresher, Beer Temple is the American-ish bar in the center of Amsterdam that often has Rogue, Flying Dog, Great Divide, and Left Hand on tap, along with a bunch of European beers that emulate American microbrews. Picture from December - the taps were quite a bit different this weekend.

After Beer Temple, we went to what is tied for my favorite bar in Amsterdam with Beer Temple and Gollem: Hesp. Hesp is a brown cafe (basically a cozy, wooden, candle lit bar/restaurant) a quarter of a mile from my apartment. They also have a large selection on tap, and also a few Americans (this weekend it was a brown ale; they occasionally have Raging Bitch from Flying Dog). After dinner, Oskar and John wanted to go outside for a cigarette. I joined them for the company, and also to discuss what the next part of our evening should hold. We were quickly joined by a short (5'6") man who was in a talking mood. He revealed that he is from Uganda, and he proceeded to share his thoughts on U.S. foreign policy, the Dutch people, the problems with African infrastructure, and, in a jaw dropping fashion the fact that tolerating homosexuality turns people gay and increases the rate of transgenderdness.

After standing in the cold for a while, and making small talk with several ridiculously drunk Dutchmen (including one who apparently lived in Deer Valley, Arizona, for several years), Oskar, John and I indicated that we were going to move on to another bar. Our Ugandan friend said, "Great! Where are we going?"

We weren't exactly thrilled with the tag-along. While bar hopping, we weren't really looking for continuing discussions involving anti-gay and/or anti-transgender comments, scolding about American foreign policy (however valid), and a je ne sais quois of annoyingness. Plus, he didn't drink, which is kind of a downer for three guys who are busy drinking. But John was one of these "the nicest guy you know" kind of guys, and Oskar and I tend to lean toward nice, and are definitely non-confrontational. So, instead of telling him, "you can't come with us," or being clever and saying, "we're going to the hardcore gay sex club," we shrugged our shoulders and let him follow. We ended up in a small cafe that, despite being just over 100 meters from my apartment, I'd never visited. After John and I chatted up the charming young lady who was bartending and drinking with the customers - and Oskar talked with our friend for the evening - we parted ways, with the three of us ending up back at my apartment.

The next day was spent in the ideal visitor-to-Amsterdam-on-the-weekend fashion, with a walk to De Pijp, through Sarphatipark and the Albert Cuypmarkt, past Museumplein, and on to the Vondelpark.

The oft-photographed view of the Amstel above the Ceintuurbaan bridge.

Sarphatipark

Building a nest and laying eggs across from the Red Light District in De Pijp

After enjoying strawberries and figs from the market, quiche and croissants from a French inspired bakery, sandwiches from a bread shop, and a bottle of pinot noir split between the three of us, we walked through the park and gazed at blooming flowers, groups of exercisers completing a boot camp class, runners, alcoholics grouped together drinking beer on benches and stoners sitting in circles on the grass smoking grass, and groups of tourists on their red rental bicycles.

After leaving the park, we found ourselves at my final favorite bar in Amsterdam, Cafe Gollem. Oskar wanted a coffee, so we stopped in and perused the impressive beer selection while watching the Dutch men outside knock back beer after beer after beer.

Oskar's coffee drinking pose

The coolest advertisement we saw that afternoon

There are many charming aspects to Dutch society. One of my favorites is that Dutch bars often have their own cats, who tend to be quite social with the customers who want some feline company. This one was open to playing with my backpack, lounging in the thin beams of sunlight that snuck into the cafe, and being photogenic.

The day went on, with more stops at favorite local hangouts, dinner at home, interactions with locals, etc. Other highlights included: meeting a ridiculously cool guy from Uganda later that night, and making him confused and boderline offended when we reacted by sighing and rolling our eyes when he told us he was from Uganda; seeing a man violently (and literally) thrown out of a bar later that evening; conducting qualitative observational field research on sex ratio and attire effects on dancing and drinking effects in bars; and convincing a bartender who controlled a music video program to play, among other things, It's Raining Men, I Will Survive, and this in a crowded bar where people were dancing:

So, this was practice for two visits from transcontinental travelers this summer. Matt and Denise, Doug/Ruben/Craig: I'm practicing for you. Hosting skills will be well polished.