One of the most important things for any newcomer in an
international city is to figure out the public transit system. Before you do
that (especially if there’s a language gap), you’re lost. Once you get it, the
whole place becomes unlocked, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the size of
Manhattan, because all of a sudden the place becomes a lot more systematic, even for those with no sense of direction.
From what I can tell, Amsterdam has three options for
getting around, besides walking or bicycling. There’s the train, which passes
through Amsterdam on its way across the Netherlands and farther afield; the
bus; and the tram, electricity-powered vehicles that run on tracks throughout
the city. The network, all told, is pretty intricate, and pretty convenient for
us—there’s a station at Uilenstede, just a short walk from our residence
complex, that runs right to Amsterdam Centraal Station in the heart of the city, and a handful of other key stops.
We picked up a reloadable ov-chipkaart that works by
scanning it at the station before you get on, and then when you get off,
automatically deducting the amount of your fare. We’re still figuring out the
exact routes and how the fares are calculated, but it makes getting around that
much easier.
Especially if you’re spending a full day shopping at Stadshart Amstelveen, which I’m already sick of [the views expressed herein are a minority
opinion of the co-authors of this blog]. Thankfully, Kayla knows exactly when
I’m done with shopping and suggests getting a coffee, effectively making the world alright again.
On Friday, we took our first trip further afield than Amstelveen
and took the tram in to Amsterdam itself. Showing up in mid-August, it’s pretty
clear that we’re seeing the throbbing life of a tourist city, although despite
the crowds the flow of traffic stayed pretty organized. I think we only had
near-death by bike once.
Amsterdam is an old city, built on marshy peat with a canal
ring in the central part of the city, hosting more waterways than Venice. It’s
a clean, cobbled city of just under 800,000, the capital of the Netherlands,
and its arteries flow with the heartbeat of enjoying life, not killing yourself
to get to the finish line first.
We were on a mission, and veered straight along the Singelgracht, one of the outer-most
canals, to the offices of the IND, the Immigration and Naturalisation Services.
Tucked into a nondescript office building, the dude at the front desk handed us
a number and told us we’d have to sit and wait for a long time before we could
speak to anyone to move our visa issuance forward. We took a seat at 3:45,
wondering if we’d get in before the Dutch immigration workers decided it was
time to start Happy Hour slightly early.
Fortunately, our number flashed on the screen and off we
went, handing over our passports in a small booth and setting up an appointment
for the beginning of September to apply for our Working Holiday Permits. Being Canadians under 31 years old, staying in the Netherlands for the first time, it's extremely easy and affordable to apply for these permits, which not only let us stay for the duration of our time but also work, in case we get into dire straits. All the
legalities of our stay worked out for the time being, it was time for our Happy Hour—we went across the canal,
stopping for a hot dog en route.
On a sunny deck, we had frothy Dutch beers and poffertjes—a specialty in Holland, these
are little, bite-sized pancakes with a splash of whipped cream on the side, and
a generous, powdery ring of sugar around the works. Picture a touton, without the molasses and pork.
Afternoon bliss
Propelled by a sugar high and a slight afternoon buzz, we made our
way back to the tram stop, passing through the expansive plaza of the Rijksmuseum,
the national museum of the Netherlands that looks closer to a palace than a
museum.
The museum is one of several key Amsterdam sites along the museumplein, yet another public space in
the heart of the city, surrounded by plenty of cultural attractions. Bustling with visitors on a Friday afternoon, we
relished in the fact that we get to live here for four months, and return at
our leisure when things settle a bit.
Our Friday night, after a busy week
frantically adjusting to a brand new reality, consisted of a bottle of wine and
a Netflix movie, set up on a plastic chair while we reclined in the living room
of our home-away-from-home.
One of our little tips and tricks was to pick up a
Museumkaart, a piece of plastic to give you immediate access to some 400
museums throughout Holland. Of that sprawling list, a handful of places that we
had every intention of seeing anyway—the Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank Huis, the
Rijksmuseum—were included, and there are that many spots again that we probably
wouldn’t fork over ten euros to get into but would probably like to poke around
just the same. The Museumkaart is one of a few different types of discount
cards, and also the one that makes sense if you’re in Amsterdam for an extended
period of time and planning on doing a bunch of this type of stuff. So we
bought one, and tested it out at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen.
Considering that the first time Kayla and I bonded was
literally making fun of modern art in a prestigious London gallery, this ought
to be some testament to the fact that we’ve either grown up or become more
pretentious. Maybe a bit of both, job to say.
Anyway, back in 1948, responding to the devastation of the
Second World War, a small group of artists signed a declaration, forming the
Cobra group. That’s CoBrA—an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam,
where the original group was from. The group changed over the years, but the
ideals remained: an aversion to the commercialization and “intellectual”
approaches to art, instead drawing on non-Western expressions, children’s
drawings, and folk art to liberate the artistic creativity dormant in all human
beings. It’s a grandiose idea with the oh so-slight ambition of collapsing
Western culture, and one that might be a bit ironic in a polished gallery where
you can buy postcards of the stuff on the wall, but it helped to contextualize
the displays just the same.
My travelling partner summed it up pretty concisely back in
St. John’s when she said that she figured art should make you uncomfortable, or
at least unsure of whether you love it or hate it—that way, it doesn’t just
hang useless on your wall, but actually forces you to think about it every time
you stroll by it and try to make up your mind. This gallery was a bit like
that—unsettling somehow, the images drawing on the grotesque and the visceral.
I especially liked this part, a display from Danish artists
Lone Bank and Tanja Rau titled “Shaping the World.” It’s a brick wall almost in
ruin, and that’s a black and white shot of soldiers emerging from the trenches
in the midst of warfare, there in the top right. Kind of a visual representation of what this whole
gallery embodies: breaking through established boundaries to bring the
marginalized artist into the midst of chaos, all in pursuit of ending the
conflict. Or maybe I just figured out if I’ve become more pretentious.
We spent a good hour roaming throughout the gallery, and
left with the intention of being able to return anytime—it’s only a quick tram
ride from Uilenstede after all. I left Kayla to shop more at her leisure, and I
tried out the trails for an afternoon jog through Amsterdamse Bos, ducking
through shady glens and bypassing a spot for nude sunbathing in a protected
little space.
From what I can tell so far, the Dutch people are happy,
healthy, and closer to achieving a kind of personal liberation than anyone I’ve
encountered thus far. Maybe the goals of the Cobra artists have not fully been
realized, but maybe Holland nonetheless stands for the potential to get there.
Maybe an ov-chipkaart, Museumkaart, and a working holiday visa aren’t the
one-stop solutions to figuring that out for ourselves, but maybe, if we're lucky, they’ll help.
Cheers,
rb
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