Film Project

I volunteered to help a pair of students from another university make a short video about an American living in Amsterdam. Hopefully my incorrect recollection of the Citizens United ruling year doesn't make me sound like too much of a dope.

Summer Begins

When I arrived in Amsterdam on May 20^th, 2011, I was greeted by sunny skies and temperatures that allowed me to comfortably wear shorts in the garden area of the bed and breakfast I stayed in for my first five days in town. Conditions stayed like this for my first ten days – I don’t think it rained once, and my walks across town (before I’d purchased a bike) were hot and tiring. And, after those first ten days, it didn’t stop raining for the rest of the summer, and the temperatures rarely rose above 70 degrees again.

I exaggerate slightly, but you wouldn’t know it from talking with my Dutch friends and colleagues last summer. Last year’s small talk usually drifted toward the lack of sun and warmth, and the high volume of rain.

This year, temperatures stayed somewhat low (one day around 50 degrees) up until the middle of May. Then, as if on a clock tethered to my schedule last year, they shot up almost exactly at the one year anniversary of my move. It was pleasant and warm for my bike ride to Utrecht last weekend. And the temperatures kept rising through the week, with few clouds and no rain to get in the way, all the way up to 80 degrees.

After months of short days and long nights, gray skies, and low temperatures, Amsterdamers flocked to bars and cafes with outdoor seating. They swam in the Amstel River, took to their road bikes for rides in the country, jogged around town, lounged in the parks with wine, beer, and miniature grills, and waited in lines to get ice cream. It’s as if everyone knows what I did not when I arrived last year: that this may be the start of a glorious summer. Or it may be a brief period of beautiful weather before a summer of gray skies, rain, and temperatures that aren’t quite warm enough for “summer,” but are warm enough to feel sticky.

Regardless, ubiquitous smiles suggested that sun and warmth may be better at altering mood than the recreational drugs Amsterdam is better known for.

De Molen

Two weeks ago, when the high was only about 50 degrees, my friend Kat and I attempted to ride bikes from Utrecht to Bodegraven to visit and tour De Molen, which is considered by the beer snob community to be (by far) the best brewery in the Netherlands, and among the best breweries in the world. We took a wrong turn, ended up riding 15km south instead of west, and my hands turned numb from the low temperatures. So, as the kids think is oh-so-cool to say these days: epic fail.

Today’s clear skies and warm temperatures seemed to offer a good opportunity for a second attempt. Kat and I, along with Johannes and Yoel (both of whose names are pronounced starting with a “Yo”) took off from Utrecht with a slightly better idea of the route.

And, for a second consecutive weekend, I took part in a bike ride that did not end in failure. The 30 kilometers (~19 miles) passed easily on a mostly flat trail that lazily ran along lazy canals and rivers in which lazy Dutch people were lazily swimming or boating. The four hours of sun (round trip) felt warm and baked my skin a bit, but it didn’t quite have the strength sapping power of the dry desert air.

Typical scene on the bike trail from Utrecht to Bodegraven.

Lambs deciding whether to run from cyclists.

Lambs running from the intimidating cyclists.

Bird and babies in Bodegraven.

The "Phoenix" building in Bodegraven.

The path leading through Bodegraven to the brewery.

The brewery tour was much like any other. Well, except that there was no “tour” part – just one of the employees talking to the four of us in a room for about 40 minutes. He led us through the history of the brewery, he gave us a standard talk about how beer is made (virtually the same talk I’ve heard at places like Sam Adams, Stone, Deschuttes, Full Sail, Bridgeport, Oskar Blues, and Marble), and he gave us tastes of a summer IPA, a double IPA, and an imperial stout, each of which were on tap at the restaurant. He also shared the amusing anecdote that Heineken uses more volume of cleaning agents every day than De Molen produces beer in a month. And he shared that De Molen was rated as the 80^th best brewery in the world a few years ago, then rose to 50^th, and now is in the top 20 (I’m estimating these numbers on memory of his talk, and he was estimating them based on his memory).

He also told us that De Molen hand bottles their beer, or at least their 75cl beers. I was surprised at this – what must the labor costs be of hand bottling, and what must you lose in production volume? Before I could ask, he shared that the brewery has an “agreement” with an agency that looks after autistic teenagers. That’s right: the brewery uses autistic children to bottle their beer. He explained that it’s the type of repetitive task that autistic individuals enjoy and are good at. Part of my thought that this is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard on a brewery tour. Part of me was a little disturbed. But I walked away from it comfortable with the arrangement.

De Molden means windmill. And, sure enough, there is a windmill on top of the brewery.

Our tour guide.

The remnants of our three tasters, per person.

The shop within the brewery, with a wall of De Molen beers.

Danish beers in the brewery.

De Molen awards proudly displayed.

After the tour, lunch, and another beer, we hopped back on our bikes for the 30 kilometer trip back. So, in total, I got to cross a brewery tour off of my list, I got more sunlight on my skin in four hours than I did in all of November and December combined, and I survived 60 kilometers in total (30 of which coming after a turkey, bacon, and fried egg sandwich and beer).

Bike to Utrecht

The spring has lasted too long. Even while leaves sprouted on tree branches, flowers bloomed, and the daylight lasted until 10:00pm, the high temperatures stayed well below 60, and jackets were required outdoors. There has been little warmth - almost no opportunities to run in shorts, or take long bike rides without having my fingers numb.  

Conditions seem to have changed rather suddenly, with highs projected to be in the mid 60s to low 70s for the next ten days. And the timing was excellent; a beer festival held today in Utrecht gave me the perfect excuse for a 40 kilometer bike ride.

I did not have the opportunity to do many biking trips outside of Amsterdam last summer, since I didn't get my road bike until I'd been here for about a month, and I couldn't move my neck much for the next six weeks after that (that whole full speed collision with a motorcycle thing). So the routes around Amsterdam are still relatively new to me, and I'm not familiar with the sights and smells of nature at this time of year.

Buildings overlooking the Amstel as I leave Amsterdam heading south.

Typical sign post telling cyclists which direction to go to their destination, and how many kilometers remain.

It only takes ten minutes to pass livestock and thick fields of pungent, knee high grasses. The cycle path splits many times, with routes leading to different cities. The paths pass through several small cities along the way, with locals walking around doing their grocery shopping, and intercity riders darting through on their road bikes.

Canal in a small town outside of Amsterdam.

One of the small towns I passed through was having some type of outdoor market. I saw a sign that said "Jaarmarkt 19 Mai," which might mean that today was an annual market of some type. All the side streets in one part of town were packed with small tables of (mostly older) people selling pots, glasses, dishes, paintings, furniture, etc. And some booths selling food, either cheeses and meats for people to take home, or sandwiches, ice cream, and pie to eat on the spot.

Market

The route from Amsterdam to Utrecht is about 40 kilometers (so, about 25 miles), but it took me almost three hours to do because of all the places to stop and explore. Along with the town market and the other locations photographed above, the route passed right by a castle I'd never heard of. I took the small path leading to the castle, and I walked around the perimeter (which was free; there was a fee to go inside, and I was already late for the beer festival, so I declined to pay).

Behind Zuylen Castle

Side of Zuylen Castle

I arrived at the beer festival after three hours on the bike. It was packed. There was no line for beer at the spring beer festival in Utrecht in March. Today, I waited between three and ten minutes for each of the four ten ounce beers I had. Like many things in the Netherlands (e.g., Gay Pride day), children joined their parents in the fun, and the young and old mixed together seamlessly. A Dutch blues/rock group played loud music in the tent in the center of the festival, and vendors served hot food, including a pork sandwich with a honey mustard sauce made from scratch, and a thick Irish style stew with meat, carrots, and potatoes (I had both).

So, with the weather turning nice, hopefully this will be the first of many summer cycling opportunities.

Navigational Challenges

I have wanted to visit Browerij de Molen, which reputable sources suggest is (by far) the best brewery in the Netherlands. De Molen is in Bodegraven, a small town about 25 miles south of Amsterdam. My friend (British) Kat suggested some outdoors activity for the weekend, and I mentioned that a brewery trip has been on the to do list for a while. And a plan was born.

I took my road bike out of the attic, made sure it was in working order after a winter in storage, and sketched out a cycling route online. In addition to having bike friendly cities, the Netherlands has a network of cycle paths that allow you to bike long distances in between cities. The trails are generally well marked, paved, and well maintained. The weather was supposed to be sunny, if cool (highs around 50 degrees), after a week of drizzle, so the day was set up to be a success. We would leave from Utrecht, which is about 18 miles from the brewery.

I paid six euros (in addition to the five euro ticket) to carry my bike with me on the train to Utrecht. Kat and I then set off for de Molen. It only took us ten minutes to hit our first navigational pothole - we turned right about a half mile before we were supposed to, and we were headed in the wrong direction within Utrecht. Retrospectively, this set the tone for the rest of the day.

From a bridge in Utrecht.

We thought that we'd correctly corrected our course. But, an hour after biking through small towns, windmills, and streams, we saw a sign that said IJsselstein, which is ten kilometers south of Utrecht. South being a direction that would not get us closer to de Molen.

We tried some course corrections with Google Maps in my cell phone. But the map led us to a 60km/hr road without a bike lane (high speed for the size of the road and the part of the country we were in), and we realized that we could wander around for an hour before finding our way back to the bike path. And, even if we were to find the correct path, we'd never make it to the brewery in time for the 2:30pm tour.

So, with some grumpiness and disappointment, we made our way back to Utrecht. We stopped in one of the small towns for ice cream, which soothed much of the frustration. In all, we biked 35 kilometers in a circle instead of 32 in a straight line. And we managed to buy some de Molen beer at a beer store in Utrecht. So the day did not end up a total failure.

And now a second attempt is in the works.

This was a typical scene from the ride: a futile navigational stop.