Amsterdam and the Netherlands

Amsterdam, Netherlands - We enjoyed ourselves on our recent jaunt to the Netherlands. Below is a disorganized jumble of the many and varied things we learned.

Names of Things 

Amsterdam

Let's start with an easy one. I had never taken time to think about the name Amsterdam until I got here, but the origin of the name is rather literal - it refers to the dam of the river Amstel, the river on which the city was founded. When you arrive here, you'll notice that many places in the Netherlands are named similarly: Edam, Monnickendam, etc. Controlling the flow of water is, as it turns out, very important in a country where a third of the land area is below sea level and the average elevation is 98 feet.

The Netherlands vs. Holland 

The Netherlands means the Low Countries and it refers to all twelve provinces. People, particularly English speakers and sometimes the Dutch (particularly those who live in Holland), often use "Holland" to refer to the whole country. But "Holland" technically refers to only two provinces, North and South Holland. Among the Dutch, this can be a touchy subject, particularly with people who live in the Southern and perhaps less appreciated provinces. For their part, the English think the differences between various Germanic peoples are really not worth all the fuss and don't bother themselves to learn the difference.

Dutch

Which brings me to the Anglicized name for the people and the language - Dutch. If you're a Dutch person, then you don't refer to your nationality and your language as Dutch. You are a Nederlander and you speak Nederlandisch. "Dutch" derives from Deutsch, which is historically how the English described the whole swath of Germanic speaking peoples in central Europe. At some point, the English begrudgingly decided the Germans were something else and warranted a different name. So of course they called these people - who refer to themselves as Deutsche - "Germans". 

IJ

The IJ is a body of water that makes up Amsterdam's waterfront. As we walked around Amsterdam, I noticed that "IJ" was always capitalized, even if they other letters were not. That's because IJ is a diagraph of the letters i and j. A diagraph is (according to Wikipedia): a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. Anyway, IJ used to exist as its own character. It only appears in the Dutch language. A picture of it is below (after the R). 

Venice of the North

Amsterdam sometimes refers to itself as the Venice of North. This seemed to us very appropriate when we first embarked on our trip: Amsterdam is of course famous for its intricate and beautiful canals. We later came to realize that many cities claim to be the "Venice of the North." In fact, Wikipedia has a page dedicated to this subject and lists some forty European cities that refer to themselves this way. Wikipedia, unfortunately, does not adjudicate the validity of these claims.

Museum Highlights

Amsterdam has some lovely museums. Below are some that we particularly liked. 

• Rijksmuseum (note spelling uses the IJ diagraph). A Dutch national museum of art and history. Stunning building with some European masterpieces, including the Night Watch by Rembrandt and the Milkmaid by Vermeer. The museum provided what I thought was a pretty unvarnished description of Dutch colonial history, including their bizarre two hundred year exclusive trading relationship with Japan. From 1634-1854 the Dutch were the only Western people allowed to trade in Japan and they were only allowed to do so from a 2.2 acre artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki. Entry to and from the island was strictly regulated by the Japanese. 
• Van Gogh Museum. A museum dedicated Van Gogh based on the collection of works donated from Van Gogh's family. This museum holds 200 paintings and many more drawings, including some of Van Gogh's most famous works, like the Potato Eaters and Sunflowers.
• National Maritime Museum. This being a famous sea-going nation, I dragged Hannah to the maritime museum where we wandered around a replica of an East Indiaman tall ship. The quarters were remarkably tight, to say the least. In the large cargo hold, the museum set up a jungle gym for kids where they could clamber over and through various crates. 

Bikes

Biking is for real in the Netherlands. I've never seen a people so committed to it as a form of commuting and a place so invested in it with respect to infrastructure. You need to be thoughtful of bike traffic here as a pedestrian. Many sidewalks come with separate sections for bikers and walkers. If you should absentmindedly wander into a bike path, the result could easily be a nasty collision and at the least you will hear a furious cacophony of bell-ringing and unseemly Dutch phrases. 

The Dutch have all manner of bikes outfitted in various ways, though most people have a fairly basic bike, usually with a basket in the front or rear. Parents often have seats in the front and rear for children. Many people have bikes with a large box mounted over an elongated front so they can carry groceries, children, and dogs. We even saw a DHL delivery person using one of these for deliveries. 

Photo courtesy of Bike Europe (bike-eu.com) and larryvsharry

Moving Furniture

Almost all houses in Amsterdam have a large beam with a hook extending from the roof over the sidewalk and large windows that open out onto the street directly below the beam on each floor. This is for moving heavy and bulky objects into and out of the upper floors of the house. The Dutch will set up a pulley on hook and use that to lift objects up to the desired floor and pull them in through the large windows. In fact, many buildings lean out toward the street so the exterior wall is not perpendicular to the ground. This is so your new couch or Steinway piano doesn't smack into the wall or windows so easily on its way up.

Vice

The Netherlands is well known for its lax attitude towards vice. 

Prostitution is legal here and - within the confines of the red light district - it's not particularly discrete. We walked through the red light district (on our way to a church!). The brothels put scantily-clad women on display in floor-to-ceiling storefront windows lining the street like mannequins at a clothing outlet.    

The country was also a pioneer in legalizing marijuana. Strangely, businesses that sell marijuana are called "coffeeshops." These are not to be confused with "coffee houses" or "koffie huis" or even "koffiebars," which only sell coffee, unfortunately. It seems that decades ago people sold marijuana at coffeeshops under the table and at some point a distinction was made between a "shop" and anything else. 

To be clear, none of the above reflects my opinion on these issues, but is rather intended to be a colorful description of what I saw.

Koningsdag 

Koningsdag, or King's Day is a national holiday in the Netherlands celebrated in late April. Of course, we were not there to celebrate this year, but we heard about it from our Dutch friends, Lieke and Stef. 

For me, there are two remarkable things about this holiday. First, the name changes. Until 2013, the holiday was known as Koninginnedag, or Queens Day, since the ruling monarch was previously Queen Beatrix. Second, the holiday features a nationwide yard sale called the vrijmarkt. According to a recent survey I found on Wikipedia, one in five Dutch are sellers and about half are buyers. 

Cute villages

We visited several astonishingly cute villages in our brief time in the Netherlands.

• Wijk bij Duurstede is an unpronounceable place near Utrecht. Hannah's friend Lieke and her partner Stef live here with their adorable infant, Ollie, and their lazy cat, Falafel. They were kind enough to show us around their picturesque town with its cobblestone streets, old stone houses, dilapidated castle, and - of course - a windmill. 
• Edam and Monnickedam are lovely villages north of Amsterdam near the sea. Edam was particularly charming. As you may have guessed, it was founded around the dam cross the river E (yes, just E). Edam is where the eponymous cheese originated. I would say the town is somewhat proud of this. We visited a cheesemonger who told us that yes, the town is known for its Edam, but Edam isn't that great of a cheese and most Dutch prefer Gouda. Apparently Edam cheese is not special in taste, but it travels remarkably well and so it was very popular in the 14-18th centuries, when such things mattered.