Jolly old saint... Sinterklass? (Amsterdam part 2)

Maggie and I, having no knowledge of the story of Sinterklass, had chosen to go to Amsterdam the weekend that the Sinterklass festivities began in early November. Who is Sinterklass you ask? Allow me to explain.

Every year, on Dec. 5, Sinterklaas and his servant Black Pete travel from Spain with the aide of a horse to several countries in Europe, including The Netherlands. If the children they visit were good that year they leave small gifts, like an orange, in the shoes that were left by the fireplace or the central heating coil. If the children were bad, Sinterklass takes them back to Spain. This is apparently the basis for our story of Santa Clause.



Hm.

A racist (by current standards) rides a horse for what I can only imagine is many days to leave a practical joke in kid's shoes. (Ever stepped into your shoe found orange pulp squishing between your toes? Me neither, but I imagine it to be very unpleasant.) If children aren’t lucky enough to find themselves stepping on fruit the morning of Dec. 6, they are kidnapped and forced to walk behind Sinterklass’ horse with countless other children (since he has no magically expanded sleigh and a single horse certainly couldn’t carry that many children even a short distance) to a faraway country where I can only assume they are forced to slave away in Sinterklass’ orchard raising oranges that will be given to next years’ good children.

Um, what? I rank that with stories of werewolves eating grandmothers and Vampires drinking the blood of entire villages, not with warm holiday tales.

To be fair though, I’m sure people who are unfamiliar with Santa Clause are similarly shocked by a fat man who enslaves little people and rides bewitched deer to break into peoples houses via their chimneys and leave presents or coal.

Anyway, our second day in Amsterdam started rather stupidly for me at least. We got all the way down to the Rijksmuseum, one of the most prestigious museums in the Netherlands, before I realized that I had left my money in my backpack at the hotel.

Maggie went on to the museum since, being the art major, she was the one dying to spend weeks inside and I took the tram back to the hotel. Apparently I am hopeless on my own though, because not only did I get stuck in the barrier getting on the tram through the exit rather than the entrance, but I also couldn’t figure out how to get off. The conductor got on the intercom and said in a half amused, half bored voice, “Push the red button…” Apparently I wasn’t blending in since he said that in English.

The ride back was smoother and I opted to wait for Maggie at the exit since I had been gone about an hour and didn’t want to spend the money to get in if she was almost done. Plus I was almost done with the first Hunger Games book, which, if you haven’t read the series, is completely addicting.

Maggie came out a little over an hour later looking thrilled and gibbering excitedly about art so quickly that she was almost incoherent and we drifted down the canal. We found a charming restaurant/pub-thing not far down a side canal and sat down to get breakfast.

We both excitedly ordered bacon and cheese crepes, and were even more excited when they came with a small tin of syrup! The syrup turned out to be molasses though, but it was still by far one of my favorite meals. The crepe was warm and buttered, the cheese stringy and the bacon the perfect amount of crispy. The sweetness of the molasses complimented the savory flavors perfectly, leaving Maggie and I in a food coma for about a half an hour after we were finished eating.

Canal Ride

There are about four different canal boat tour companies stationed by the river in a three-block stretch to the right of the Rijksmuseum. Maggie and I wandered lazily back to the first one - a hop on hop off tour that went by the major sights and through the major canals in the city. It was a bit more expensive than we wanted, but the person inside directed us down the canal to a cheaper one.

The boat docked before much time had passed, and we sat down at a horseshoe shaped booth inside. The most annoying thing on boat tours like this are closed windows that won’t open, but ok - I get it. It’s winter and cold as Antarctica, but the windows weren’t even clean, meaning pictures would be a massive challenge.

It worked out fine though, because I was able to put down my camera (for the most part) and just enjoy the ride without feeling the slightly panicked need to snap thousands of photos like I usually do. I could see more of the buildings this time since last time I had toured the canals had been in summer and the trees had been covered in light green leaves. It was nice to get a different view of the city.






(This is the street that Anne Frank's secret annex is on.)

I also finished my book at one of the few, longer stops the boat made, and (again) if you haven’t read the Hunger Games trilogy, the end of the first book is left so ridiculously open that you need the second one right next to you so you don’t go crazy like I did.

Van Gogh Museum



Directly behind the Rijksmuseum are red and white letters that are around eight feet high spelling out the city’s slogan: I AMSTERDAM with a long reflecting pool in front of it. Of course, like everyone else, we had to play on the letters for about an hour before moving on to the Van Gogh museum a little past the end of the reflecting pool.






(Who says white girls can't jump?)

(Side note: it’s so strange to me that the majority of the people I met abroad pronounce Van Gogh as “Van Goff” instead of “Van Go.” Oddly enough I don’t remember anyone at the actual Van Gogh museum saying his name so I don’t know how he would have pronounced it himself.)



We got into the museum an hour and a half before it closed and began our self-guided tour, spending way too long at each painting. The bottom floor had paintings from artists that had influenced Van Gogh and earlier works of his that reflected the influence.

When I was standing in front of one of Van Gogh’s paintings, Maggie asked me, “Do you know where you’re standing?”

“Um… in the Van Gogh Museum?” Was he buried under the floor here or something?

“You are standing right where Van Gogh stood in relation to that painting.” She said.

My eyes widened.

Mind blown.

Maggie walked away, leaving my mind whirring through a million different scenarios. I don’t think I’ve stood in front of another piece of art since then without imagining myself as the artist staring at my masterpiece. It made Van Gogh’s paintings somehow more personal.

Up the stairs on the second floor we found paintings exclusively by Van Gogh, including one of his paintings of sunflowers and the newly restored painting of his room with a reconstruction of the room next to it. There was also a really interesting exhibition with paintings on canvases that he had reused. Using special equipment and analyzing the pieces to death, researchers compiled interactive programs on the computer showing what was left of the original paintings that Van Gogh had painted over.

We had just reached the top floor when someone came by and announced that the museum and the gift shop would be closing soon, and Maggie’s and my obsessive need to buy postcards sent us flying down the stairs to the gift shop.

Maggie came out with something like 18,000 post cards while I showed amazing self-control and bought none even though I had found several that I liked. There was also a hilarious Van Gogh graphic novel that was tempting. I’ve never been able to learn about an artist in a comic book before. It was almost as odd as the Anne Frank graphic novel that we had seen at the Secret Annex, though this one was a little more respectful we thought.

Red Light District





After playing on the giant letters a little more, Maggie and I grabbed a tram back to the central train station and started to walk down the main street toward several souvenir shops we had seen on the ride. Three shops later it was clear that my self-control was rather low again, as I had gotten souvenirs for several family members, a huge stack of postcards and the most awesome clog slippers ever. Maggie had done no better though so I didn’t feel too bad.

It was starting to get late and we had a flight at six in the morning, meaning we had to get up even earlier, but we decided to walk through the red light district before heading back.

We started walking in the direction that Maggie’s guidebook said was the red light district, and soon found enough red lights to know we were on the right path. (Seriously, someone took “red light district” a little too literally.) Before long we began passing barely clothed strippers in windows and doorways. (On a side note for my parents: we never felt unsafe because there were crowds of nicely dressed tourists swarming up and down most of the canals and we were smart enough not to venture down the ones without people or lights.)


(This photo is from a canal before the red light district looking towards it. Apparently taking photos in the red light district is frowned upon, and I had no desire to get attacked by an angry prostitute or her angry pimp.)

It was strange seeing prostitutes standing so openly five feet away from us, but mostly it was depressing. Half of the girls looked like people I knew and were no older than me, if not younger. I wanted to throw a towel over them and call their mothers.

Other Photos


A massive sculpture at the tram stop by our hotel, which was called Rietlandpark. (I still think that sounds like Ritalin park.)


This is my favorite I'm-bored-waiting-for-the-tram-so-I'm-going-to-take-many-many-photos picture.


The Heineken Brewery










This sign usually led to the exit, but sometimes you would find yourself by the restrooms. I'm still confused. What is the stupid white block and why is the dude running like mad?


Bicycle parking garage?


Correction: MASSIVE bicycle parking garage.


This is either the strangest gang or the strangest school uniform I've ever seen. Except for the one brunette guy, they even have the same hair and hair style.


Early in the morning at the airport...

And finally...

Then:


and Now:

Different spot in Amsterdam, same shoe, almost 5 years apart!

RLO

The stereotype that British people are overly polite is definitely true, at least for the South. Northerners tend to be known more for speaking their minds openly, but I doubt that a southerner would save a drowning person without a polite exchange of pleasantries first.

Store workers seem to be exempt from this rule. Perhaps the reason that the customer isn’t king in the UK like they are in America is because the British have real royalty, but either way store clerks are flat out rude. Best-case scenario is they just ignore you and let you get on with your shopping.

London-isms

This London-isms section will be all about pronunciation and emphasis. The syllable or syllables that are emphasized will be capitalized. It’s amazing how much of a difference the emphasis can make.

Adidas - AH-dee-das (Das not dus like the American pronunciation)
Yogurt - YOH-gurt (o as in stop, not go)
Stalagmite - stAL-ag-mite
Stalactite - stAL-ack-tite
Aluminum - AH-loo-MIN-ee-um
Nikon - NIH - kon (I as in lift, not life.)

What do you mean we're at the wrong airport? (Amsterdam Part 1)

“Luton.”

“What?” Maggie and I stared at the woman behind the counter holding Maggie’s flight confirmation email.

“Your flight leaves from Luton – this is Gatwick.”

Seriously?

If you didn’t know, London has about four main airports – one that is actually in London (Heathrow) and three that are outside of London but are deceptively labeled with the city name. Gatwick is to the south, Luton is to the north, and Stanstead is somewhere else (not) in London. (I’ve never flown from Stanstead so I’m not entirely sure where it is.)

“Um, how do we get there?” I asked, my mind a bit blank.

“You won’t make it.” She said, typing something on her computer.

Seriously, this had to be the least helpful woman I’d ever met. “What are our options then?” I asked since Maggie’s mind seemed to be even blanker than mine.

“I’m switching your tickets,” she said. “It’s a 50 pound charge – is that alright?”

We both agreed that 50 pounds was better than losing the money for the flights and the hotel and proceeded to stare dumbly at my ticket while the woman continued to type on her computer.

It was right there, in large printed letters smack in the middle of the ticket: LUTON. How did we miss that? We double-checked everything – the hotel, directions from the airport to the hotel, the time of the flights, addresses and prices of things we wanted to see – how did we miss the freaking airport?

We got through security with our new tickets, now with two hours to spare since our new plane left later than the original one would have, sat down at a Costa Coffee and soon realized that we had made another error – the hotel was booked for two nights instead of three.

Oh good lord.

We did get to spend the next hour or so in the airport with the professional Rugby team, the London Canterbury Wasps though, which was sort of exciting since they were all rugged, muscled and scared in an oh-so-attractive manner.

Once we had arrived, found our hotel without problem and sorted out the room, we asked the concierge for a restaurant recommendation. She sent us to a cheaper area located to the south near the city center where a lot of younger college students tended to go and recommended a Middle Eastern restaurant in a converted church. If we didn’t want to go there, she said we could go to the Tapas bar down the street to find good food and similarly cheap prices.

I didn’t hear Tapas though - I heard Topless.

I didn’t want to be rude because it was obviously a place she liked, but I was a little surprised she had recommended a topless bar to total strangers, so I tried to curb my initial reaction a bit.

“A TOPLESS bar?? Oh….Cool!”

Maggie looked at me like she was looking at a rather slow child and said “Tap-as!”

Oops.

I don’t think the woman caught any of this though as her English was good but a bit slow, so she just looked confused when Maggie collapsed on the floor laughing.

The restaurant had a unique, vibrant atmosphere. The exterior was floodlit with green and blue lights, making it a) the only lit building on the street, and b) very easy to find. The door had been replaced by a thick curtain, which pulled back to reveal a large bar in the center of tables arranged around a huge, open room and on a balcony that ringed the room. Nets of small, colored lights were hung underneath the balcony and wine bottles covered in different colored wax drips held candles on each table. Music pulsed through the restaurant and there was a buzz of talk as people ate various Middle Eastern dishes or sipped drinks from the bar. The food was good, though not quite as memorable as the atmosphere; but hey – I’m not going to complain about a full meal that cost only 5 euro.



The Hiding Place

After waking up the next morning (in our amazing feather beds, in which sleeping can only be described as snuggling with a thousand baby ducks) we headed to the train station and caught a train to Haarlem, a town 16 minutes by rail outside of Amsterdam where Corrie Ten Boom lived and hid Jews and Dutch resistance fighters during World War II.



Haarlem is a quiet, picturesque mix of cobbled streets and idyllic canals, and Corrie Ten Boom’s house (now a museum that offers free tours every hour or so) is located on one of the busier shopping streets leading to the main church.



We had an hour to kill before the next English tour so we wandered toward the church. A farmers market covered the square in front of the church and we made our way up and down the rows, perusing the produce and odd assortment of objects before heading toward the church.



We happened to go to Haarlem the one day a year that a massive book sale takes place inside the church, allowing us to get in free and speak to some of the locals.

The church was beautiful. Whitewashed walls and a high wooden ceiling made it seem bright and open, and the massive red and silver organ was famous for having been played by Mozart and Handel. I got distracted by a table with ration cards from the end of World War II and old military passports and the like while Maggie got caught at a table with old, Dutch Harry Potter books. We ended up nearly losing track of time and speeding back to the Ten Boom house for the tour an hour later.



A woman met us at the door and took us up a rather short, narrow staircase between the shop (now a jewelry store but previously the Ten Boom’s watch shop) and the rest of the house. She invited us to sit around the Ten Boom’s table in their dining room as she began to tell the tale of a happy, Christian family living in peaceful Haarlem in the early 1900s. Corrie and her four siblings had a happy childhood, loved by their two parents and surrounded by family and members of their parent’s prayer group that was hosted weekly in their now-museum home just off the town square. When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Corrie, then middle aged, and her family began actively hiding Jews and members of the Dutch Resistance in their home. As the guide began to tell us about the home during the Nazi occupation, she walked over to the case in the hall just outside the dining room and stepped on a button beneath it, setting off a soft alarm throughout the house that stopped when she removed her foot. Similar buttons were hidden throughout the house and alerted those in hiding to danger, sending them running up the steep, winding stairs to the hiding place at the top.


Photo: A hallway now serving as a small museum created by Corrie when she combined four separate, very small rooms.

Her story stopped suddenly with the promise of returning to the dining room later on in the tale. For the time being, we were to move on to another room. We climbed the narrow staircase up several floors (The houses are narrow but tall) to the liberation room, previously two separate rooms that were converted to one long room by a member of the family to celebrate their son being released from a labor camp. The walls were covered with photographs of the Ten Boom family. This room is where the family often held their Bible studies, one of which was taking place when the hiding place was betrayed and Nazi soldiers entered and began their interrogations.

Finally we climbed the stairs again to Corrie’s room on the top floor. When the war began, the Ten Booms had a hidden room, the hiding place, built at the back of this room. A brick wall that was added, which extended above the ceiling and below the floor, making it nearly impossible for the Nazi soldiers to discover and creating a small, hidden room.

On the morning that the family was betrayed, Corrie was ill and in bed. When a strange customer, the person who betrayed them to the Nazis, left the store and Betsy pressed the alarm with her foot, the six people hiding in the house at the time ran up the stairs and entered the hiding place through the sliding door at the bottom of the cabinet on the left side of the wall. Corrie, seeing this and deducing that something was wrong, got out of bed to put sheets on the bottom shelf so that attention wasn’t drawn to the trick back and got back into bed. She was pulled from her bed minutes later by Nazi soldiers and taken down to the dining room. The Ten Booms, after being brutally questioned, were taken to a concentration camp where nearly everyone but Corrie perished. The six people in the hiding place were smuggled out after a few days by several members of the police who had remained on the force to work against the Nazis and all but one woman lived through the war. (I am in Corrie's bedroom in front of the Hiding Place in the photo.)




Photo: This is the hidden space where spare documents for those in hiding were kept along with extra money.


Photo: This is the plaque donated by the German people to the Hiding Place.

When Corrie returned after the war, she began to travel the world and speak about her experiences and spread the Christian message.

The museum was amazing – kept almost exactly how it was when the Ten Booms lived there, including the original furniture. Minimal changes were made to the house and it’s contents after Corrie left for the United States later in her life, so even though it isn’t exactly as it was when it was used as a hiding place, it is still very authentic. The guide was knowledgeable and kind and the experience was incredibly inspirational.

After the tour was over, we walked slowly through the tranquil streets to the train station, enjoying the city before riding back to Amsterdam Central Station and catching a tram to Anne Frank’s house.


Photo: Amsterdam Central Station

The Secret Annex

It seems like a rather heavy combination for one day, but it was actually quite humbling. Seeing both places in one day also made both books, Anne’s Diary and Corrie’s book, ‘The Hiding Place,’ seem more real than they had before. I never knew these women lived and suffered a mere 20-minute train ride away from each other.

When I visited The Secret Annex for the first time when I was a sophomore in high school over four years ago, most of the people I know who had been said it was disappointing. I disagreed the first time and I disagree even more after visiting for a second time.

Maybe it’s just because I fell in love with her diary in Jr. High or because I have a sizeable collection of holocaust memoirs, but standing in the space where Anne’s diary was written and the events in it took place is utterly astounding to me. First, it’s amazing what human beings can endure when necessity arises, and second it’s incredible that beauty can arise even in situations such as Anne’s. In reading Anne’s diary, one meets a young, inquisitive, sensitive, beautiful girl struggling to find an identity under immense stress. It is inspiring, touching, emotional and even more important, it is vital that we confront difficult periods in history such as this so that people like Anne and the atrocities that killed her aren’t forgotten, for it is by forgetting that we allow repetition.

You enter the secret annex after winding through the rooms that used to house Otto Frank’s canning company and climbing a very long, steep staircase. The famous bookcase that hides the Annex is directly ahead, standing ajar like most of the photos show. A faded map is hung above it. You must duck to climb up a single, tall step to enter the Annex. The staircase is ahead of you, but the path directs you to the left, where you enter Margot and Mr. and Mrs. Frank’s room, a small room with tan and green walls and harsh overhead lights. Through the next door is the room Anne shared with Mr. Pfeffer. The photo clippings that she pasted to the wall are still exactly where she put them, but now plastic sheets protect them. The next room is the bathroom. The room for the kitchen, dining room and living room, which also served as the bedroom for Mr. and Mrs. van Pels, is small considering the fact that eight people shared it. There are mirrors positioned at the top of the staircase in Peter’s attic room so that you can see Anne’s favorite Chestnut tree through the attic window without having to climb up to the attic, which is off limits.

At the end of the Annex is a room that houses Anne’s diaries and the pages she began to re-copy with the intent of publishing it as a book at the end of the war, along with her short stories and Margot’s schoolwork which she completed in the Annex. Unfortunately, all of the pieces present were replicas since the originals had been taken for restoration, but there was also a wall displaying copies of Anne’s diaries from different printings and in different languages. Interviews were playing on TV’s in many rooms, including interviews with people who knew the Franks before they went into hiding, people who came into contact with them in the camps after they were discovered, Miep Gies – one of the women who hid them, and Otto Frank.

Otto Frank’s interview was by far the saddest one. Even though so many years had passed, he was still a rather broken man. In his interview he said he was shocked when he read Anne’s diary. Despite being close to her, he had never seen the serious, critical side of her that she showed in her writing. He said that after reading her diary he came to a very sad conclusion: “ that most parents don't know really their children,” and will never really know them well.

At the exit from the Annex on the ground floor where the entrance was located was an exhibition of photos and letters from Anne and Margot’s mother, Edith Frank. The exhibition was excellent, revealing the woman that was portrayed in a somewhat less than flattering light by Anne, who never quite understood her mother.

Other Photos


The street where Corrie's house is, looking toward the church.


How much is that...kitty?...in the window!


One of the canals in Haarlem.


I probably can't still ride a bike without killing myself, but I would definitely give it a shot if I could have a collapsable bike like this one.


Haarlem Central Station.


The houses on the other side of the canal from Anne's Secret Annex.


A canal near Anne's Secret Annex.


We ate dinner that night in a little, traditional dutch restaurant on a canal. The staff seated us on the top floor next to the staircase, and when we glanced over the railing next to our table this was our view. I deserve some sort of trophy for not dropping something in those people's food.





RLO - Homophobia

I have heard many times that American men are homophobic but I never really understood how true that statement was until coming to London. By American standards, most of the men in the UK must be closet gays.

First of all, personal space: guys here are much more hug-y than American men, and I don’t mean clasp-hands-pound-on-the-back-and-always-keep-at-least-six-inches-between-crotch-areas-and-faces “hugs” that American guys do. The actually embrace each other in a very close way.

Second, verbiage: After my dad visited, both of my male flatmates told me he was “such a lovely guy.” I love my dad, but lovely probably wouldn’t be a word I would use to describe him to people. Then again I don’t think I would have used that word to describe anyone before living in London. One of my favorite examples of different word choice comes from Maggie. Her male flat mate answered his phone one day, brightly exclaiming “Hello darling! How are you?” On the conversation went until he hung up and she began to tease him about a girl. He responded by explaining, “Oh no it was my friend Max! He’s such a lovely fellow!” Hm. This seems much different than the favored American guy-to-guy greeting of a grunt or, “Hey man, sup,” *head nod.

I am not sure how to title my third and final point here, but if you search the blogs/Tumblrs/Twitters of almost any male British band, it’s amazing how they talk about each other or the photos they post! My favorite example comes from McFly. (Which, if you’re British, you might argue that they are actually gay, but bear with me!) Tom Fletcher posted a quote on his Tumblr that reads something along the lines of we aren’t like brothers, we are like gay lovers without the sex. Most British guys interact with each other similarly, which was, at first, quite surprising.


London-isms

Blank – ignore (i.e. “She blanked me!”)
Come round – come over to (i.e. “I’ll come round yours later.”)
Mine/yours – my/your place (i.e. “I’m at mine.”)
Tyre – tire (this one is just spelling but it’s really different!)
Alight – get off (i.e. “Alight here for Buckingham Palace.”)
Salad – veggies, usually on a sandwich. (i.e. “Do you want salad on your bap?”)
Eat in or take away – For here or to go
Tit job – Boob job
Kick off – get angry at/ argue with (i.e. “I really kicked off at her.”)
Kick about – go from place to place (i.e. “I was just kicking about today.”)
Chinwag – a talk (i.e. “We were having a right chinwag last night.”)
Duvet – quilt
Pudding – desert (more of a Northern thing)

Side Note

Living up my last week in London/jet lag on return/the holidays/driving 30 hours to Missouri/moving into my apartment/starting as a reporter at Vox Magazine, coupled with slight nostalgia and laziness, necessitated my recent hiatus from blogging, but I am back and will finish my semester in blogs from here! I apologize for the gap readers, and thanks for staying with me in the meantime.