Amsterdam Wildlife

We have a bit of a mouse issue in our building.

Sinterklaas

For me, being in an environment with ubiquitous biking, small grocery shops, and non-judgmental attitudes toward many social issues is totally natural.

One thing that I've found rather odd, though, is the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas. In the Netherlands and Belgium, Sinterklaas is accompanied by Black Peter, a black helper who helps deliver gifts. In December, legions of Dutch people dress up as "Zwarte Piete" using a black face costume that has been considered somewhat inappropriate in the U.S. since the 1960's. Needless to say, it's a fascinating sociological phenomenon to witness:

And thanks to Loren for reminding me that David Sedaris actually had a nice commentary on this:

Gent

I had the opportunity to go to Gent, a city in Belgium, to give a talk, a lecture, and an interview (all of which are slightly different, but put together involved me talking for approximately five hours over an eight hour span) at the university there.

Gent was a gorgeous city. I don't know much about Belgian history, apart from quick defeats in world wars and misguided actions in African colonies (not its brightest moment), and my ignorance led me to think that there's not much of interest in the country. But the region was part of multiple empires during the middle ages, and it makes sense that there would be some impressive architecture and monuments.

And, indeed, there were three cathedral/churches in close proximity in the city center:

One of these - the Belfry of Gent - included a 300 foot tower in which visitors can look down upon all of Gent (a few of the higher angled pictures of churches above were taken there):

A fortress is close to the churches:

And, beyond churches and a fortress, the city center has large squares, a river, and a plethora of interesting restaurants and cafes.

Escargot from a street stand

Belgian waffles

Apparently Gent is nearly as enthusiastic about biking as Amsterdam.

The Antwerp train station.

Gent has invested in lighting the city up during the evenings. Night time walks on the cobbled paths along the river have a magical feeling.

Thanksgiving in Amsterdam

Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday. There are no overt religious themes (and, in fact, it's implicitly celebrating charity from pagan Native American), it is not strongly commercialized, and it involves pie and football. And, as Jon Stewart pointed out, it's the only day of the year in which it is socially acceptable to get drunk at 2pm in front of your children (not that this is particularly relevant to me, but I do appreciate the sentiment).

Despite Thanksgiving not being a Dutch holiday, I managed to find two dinner gatherings to attend on Thanksgiving day.

First, Omar, who works at the university, volunteered his apartment for a dinner. Brian, an American Ph.D. student in the psychology department, cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with six hours of prep time. Omar also managed to download a torrent of an NFL game - Steelers (for Brian, who is from Western Pennsylvania) versus Bengals. It was the first football I'd seen since the Superbowl last year. When I walked into the apartment and saw the game on TV, I felt myself grinning from ear to ear. It was a genuine "reminder of home" kind of moment.

I was surprised and pleased at the Dutch folks' response to the game. They were interested enough to frequently ask me and Brian and Allen (another American) for rules clarifications, and they started to get into rooting for specific teams. I wouldn't have been surprised - or even blamed them - if they'd complained about the game being boring or otherwise unpleasant to watch (much like many Americans would while watching a European league soccer match). So, in all, it was a pretty fun experience.

Brian's meal turned out great. There was "turkey" (whole chickens, I believe), cranberries, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and vegetables.

After spending the afternoon at Omar's on the edge of the city, I rode to the center of town for a Couchsurfing dinner on a houseboat. I'd gone to these monthly dinners twice before, so I knew a few people, including Rick (Dutch), Alexsandra (Polish), Niki (Sudanese), and Bea (American). There were several others who were either passing through or hadn't been to an event before, including two guys from Iraq, a guy from Pakistan, and others.




After dinner, I introduced myself to a guy I hadn't met before, who had raised his hand earlier in the evening when the hostess asked who was American (four out of the 20 people there, it turns out). His name was Corey, and he had just arrived in Amsterdam with his Japanese girlfriend Hitomi. Corey had lived in Japan for several years (and is completely fluent in Japanese, which was good, since Hitomi's English was limited), traveled through India and Nepal, and was touring Europe with Hitomi in search of hip hop dance competitions. Both he and Hitomi are apparently very good, competitive hip hop dancer.

Corey said that he had heard about the event at the last moment, and that he and Hitomi did not have a place to sleep that night. I offered my air mattress, and they walked back to my place with me and spent the next two nights before moving on the Utrecht.

Pretty interesting experience. I've met many interesting Couchsurfers, but no competitive Japanese hip hop dancers. Regardless of the novelty, it was a nice Thanksgiving experience.

Fog

Amsterdam has been smothered by a thick layer of fog for the past 72 hours. The moisture seems to kill sound, and so everything seems quiet and still.

Photographs taken with my cell phone rather than SLR camera, so they are a bit fuzzy (even fuzzier than the would be because of the fog alone).

This last one was pulled from a friend's Facebook feed.

Dutch Coffee

When telling others of my pending move to Amsterdam, I got the sense that people who have never visited the city think that it’s a pretty cool and fun place. And it is. However, I’m guessing that this impression is based on perceptions of rampant drug use and prostitution rather than the things that factor into day-to-day life here. The coffeeshops specifically seem to acquire mythic properties.

The 21 year old couchsurfers I hosted on Friday (one Australian and one Canadian; both studying abroad in Paris) both marveled at the fact that the coffeeshops aren’t “actually coffee shops” (some of them do sell coffee, but many of them do not), and they expressed concerns with the drug problems and addictions that must exist when marijuana is legal.

When I explained to them that the policy of not prosecuting a small amount of marijuana sales and consumption allows law enforcement to focus on violent crimes and drugs that have greater negative health consequences (e.g., heroin, cocaine), they expressed concern that marijuana is “the gateway drug.” I explained that the “gateway theory” is more of a political moto than anything firmly grounded in evidence (for a summary), that, even if marijuana does act as a “gateway,” it may do so by exposing people to the criminal element (so, it is only a “gateway” because it is illegal), and that there is no reason to suspect that it serves as a “gateway” any more than alcohol, which is a drug that, for some reason, is not demonized and feared to the degree that marijuana is.

They then expressed concerns regarding tourists “going crazy” when they smoked marijuana in the coffeeshops. I explained that, although hoards of stoned tourists walking around through the center of Amsterdam like zombies can be annoying if you’re trying to bike through that part of town, I was not familiar with marijuana causing people to become violent or unruly. In fact, it seems to pacify the young’uns who want to come to Amsterdam to “go crazy.” In contrast, alcohol seems to make people much more energetic and, potentially, aggressive.

So, in general, it felt like a bit of an after school special in reverse. While I wasn’t advocating marijuana use to them, I was explaining that a lot of perceptions about marijuana are either based on fictions or are inconsistent with perspectives on other drugs (e.g., alcohol, various pharmaceuticals).

As the conversation progressed, I tried to explain my understanding of how the coffeeshops actually work. It’s far from the smooth, “legal” process that I’d pictured before I moved here.

My understanding is that coffeeshops are allowed to sell, but not to buy cannabis. The Dutch government allows individuals to grow up to five plants for personal use, but the coffeeshops sell far more than this could produce. So, to sell cannabis (which is allowed if the shop has a license), the vendor has to illegally buy cannabis from a drug dealer. This does keep the criminal element in the system, and apparently there is some organized crime and violence centered around the cannabis trade.

There are several other issues regarding the cannabis business in the Netherlands. Recently, the Dutch government approved a law dictating that coffeeshops can only sell to Dutch residents. This was apparently designed to limit drug tourism from France, Germany, and Belgium –people from these countries would cross the border, buy cannabis, and take it back to sell or use illegally. Amsterdam is not planning on enforcing this rule. Recently, another law was passed dictating that coffeeshops could not operate within 200 meters of schools. I’ve also heard of laws either passed or being written to limit the “strength” of the cannabis that coffeeshops sell.

The existence and operation of coffeeshops is only a part of the unique Dutch (or, at least, Amsterdam) drug policy. There are also “smart shops,” which sell other “soft” drugs, though there is a bit of an arms race between the government outlawing certain drugs, and the smart shops replacing them with slight variations that have not yet been outlawed. There are also needle exchange programs for addicts, and I believe there are even programs that give addicts heroin in lieu of having them commit crimes to feed their addictions.

After the conversation, one of the young couchsurfers ordered some tea, which came with a little cookie. He looked at it suspiciously and asked me if it contained marijuana. I thought it was cute.

These are pictures of some of the coffeeshops that are within a half mile of my apartment:

This one apparently caters to the artistic. It's tucked away on a small street.

This one is on a busy street across from a grocery store.


This one is next to several trendy cafes.

This is next to the market.

Fall photo of Sarphatipark.

This is tucked away on a small, quiet street. I'm guessing this caters to locals rather than tourists.

The "themed" coffeeshops are more common in the center of town. This is one of the only ones close to where I live.

A man with his son outside of a coffeeshop. I'm not sure if the man works there, is a customer, or is visiting friends who are there.

A sketchy looking guy ran out of the coffeeshop and started yelling at me as I took this picture. I'm not exactly sure what the problem was, but I decided to not respond and quickly ride away on my bike.

Lard Balls

My friend and former Ph.D. adviser, Geoffrey, lent me My Dam Life, an autobiographical book written by an Australian humorist who detailed his three years living in Amsterdam. I vaguely recalled him describing something called "oliebol," a winter holiday desert which he described as a heart attack waiting to happen, when I saw strange stands popping up all over town last weekend.

Apparently, in the last week of October or first week of November, little vendors start selling deserts on the streets. Some of these are, indeed, oliebol. I decided to order one last week, and I can safely report that they're the most ridiculously sweet and rich dough-based food product I've ever had. It was like the unholy offspring of Indian Fry Bread, a doughnut, and a croissant. I only had mine smothered in powdered sugar; there were other options, including ones stuffed with raisins and currants, and ones filled with vanilla cream.

And, if one is curious of the official account, here is the Wikipedia entry:

An oliebol (plural oliebollen ( pronunciation (help·info)) is a traditional Dutch food. Oliebollen (literallyoil balls) are traditionally eaten on New Year's Eve and at funfairs. They are also called smoutebollen(literally lard balls) in Belgium.

Oliebollen are a variety of dumpling made by using two spoons to scoop a certain amount of dough and dropping the dough into a deep fryer filled with hot oil. In this way, a sphere-shaped oliebol emerges.

The dough is made from flour, eggs, yeast, some salt, milk, baking powder and usually sultanas,currants, raisins and sometimes apple pieces and zest or succade. The dough needs time to rise for at least an hour. Oliebollen are usually served with powdered sugar, or brown sugar.

They are said to have been first eaten by Germanic tribes in the Netherlands during the Yule, the period between December 26 and January 6. The Germanic goddess Perchta, together with evil spirits, would fly through the mid-winter sky. To appease these spirits, food was offered, much of which containeddeep-fried dough. It was said Perchta would try to cut open the bellies of all she came across, but because of the fat in the oliebollen, her sword would slide off the body of whoever ate them.^[1]

A very similar type of doughnut can be found in Belgium and France. Croustillons are deep fried dough balls served hot and liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar. They are usually served in a paper cone with a little plastic fork to eat them with. They are typically found at fairgrounds in Belgium and in Lille, France.

The autumn here has been very nice so far. The contrast between the weather here (a high of 52 and low of 50 tomorrow) and Albuquerque (a high of 51 and a low of 30 tomorrow) is striking. It was mildly foggy all day today, and the mists rising up from the canals and rivers through the fallen golden leaves and still green grasses were quite enchanting.