TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6
BUS TO AMSTERDAM
Like the health freaks that we are (haha), we rushed to the gym first thing in the morning. Though ridiculously expensive at 8 euros each, it was worth living up to our promises to ourselves. Also, we knew we would spend hours sitting on a bus from Brussels to Amsterdam. After rushing back to shower, finish packing, clean the apartment and haul our luggage down the narrow, steep stairs, we waited for an Uber that didn’t come, then waiting again inside an Uber that was stuck behind a truck blocking the tiny street. The 11:30 bus nearly left without us, but it didn’t… and we settled back, and enjoyed the passing landscape and a little rest.
I listened to another Hive podcast (I had listened on the bus ride from Dunkerque to Brussels ta few days before). The interviewee talked about how antitrust laws could be successfully implemented to break the monopoly of mega giants like Facebook and Amazon and to enforce rules that restrict or eviscerate Facebook algorithms used to propagate posts that insight fear and anger. Little did I know at the time that this information would become relevant later in the day iwhen we met an economist.
OUR FIRST HOSTEL
ViaAmsterdam is a funky/hotel style hostel, and was our first hostel in Europe. It’s located in a corporate office park, surrounded by parking lots and low-rise modern office buildings. Just outside the front door, a group of 20 somethings lounged around a small round table, smoking weed. An ashtray full of cigarette butts rested on a small table between them.
The inside was modern and bright. Broad swaths of yellow and murals covered the glass-enclosed stairwell. Some people were playing pool, some sat at a bar/restaurant (the Dude Restaurant), snacking and drinking. Our room was on the third floor, all very austere and modern…a concrete floor, white walls, a swath of color painted across it, two beds, and a small bathroom with shower.
From the hostel to the train was a long 15-minute walk, and the metro to downtown another 30 minutes. Many brown-skinned people–Southeast Asian, Africans–boarded the metro en route, but in the city center, most people were white…original Dutch.
BIKES, BIKES AND MORE BIKES
As everyone knows, Amsterdam is a biking city, but if you haven’t visited you may not know that it is an aggressive biking city. Fast biking, bikes with right of way before pedestrians, and super congested. Frightening, really!
DINNER WITH FRIEND OF A FRIEND
We met a friend’s friend, S, and her husband, E, at a stylish and popular pizza restaurant, called Loulou Pizzabar. S., who had big brown eyes and short cropped hair and appeared a no-fuss kind of person, was born in Boston but has lived in Amsterdam for 30 years. She and her husband, a native of Holland, raised their two, grown children in the city. She told us the Dutch never, and she said “never”, accept outsiders. We would come to think Amsterdam is a lot like Vancouver. Outwardly all about love and peace, acceptance and tolerance but underneath uptight, slightly arrogant and judgmental.
Our great experiences with people in London may have skewed our expectations of people we would meet in our travels. In London, we were taken in. But from the moment we met S. and E. it felt like they wanted to leave, and that feeling continued throughout dinner though the conversation was broad and interesting, covering ideas about Europe’s turn to the right, immigrants and economics, and economics, E.s specialty. He’s an Economics professor. E. looked a typical Dutchman — very tall, very lean, with stylish glasses and hints of red in his hair.
On the subject of immigrants, S. explained that Moroccans were brought to Holland as guest workers and the Dutch expected them to leave. When they didn’t leave, tensions rose. E. bragged about life in Amsterdam, touting its superior lifestyle. “We are many and diverse,” he said.
IS IT TRUE ABOUT MONEY?
Somehow S. brought up her yoga class, and I explained how we pay for our classes in Vancouver by volunteering at a studio. I explained that yoga classes are expensive in Vancouver, and asked her if that was true in Amsterdam as well. She said, yes, and told us the cost. E. looked shocked, but he wasn’t shocked by the amount. Instead it was the question that startled him. He said he and S. had never once discussed money – never in their over thirty years of marriage. People in Holland do not talk of money, he said. It is different than in North America (though British Columbians don’t discuss money that much either). With social welfare, free health, a professor’s salary and owning their apartment, he said, they didn’t have financial issues. And, they, like others in Amsterdam, don’t strive for more. I felt uncomfortable and crass.
Before parting ways, they recommended things to see, including a film at the Holocaust Museum, and they told us they would put Chloe in touch with their good friend who used to sew for Parisian couture houses, and now organizes fashion shows, but the offer felt hollow.
They were quick to get up after the bill was paid.
Home to the hostel in the corporate office park, and 20-year olds smoking weed.
