Amsterdam

Life In Amsterdam

I actually lived in Diemen, which is a suburb of Amsterdam, only ten minutes by train from the central station, or about half an hour by bicycle. The CWI keeps a number of rooms there for visiting foreign students in some student housing apartment blocks. There are five fifteen-story buildings that house almost a thousand people (the website seems to be broken, which is a pity, because you could see that one of the main headings on the front page was devoted to cockroaches "kakkerlakken"). I was sharing the kitchen and washer/dryer with about seven other students who were all visiting the CWI.

People came and went while I was there, but I think the total country count was: 2 Romanian, 2 Spanish, 1 Czech, 1 Slovak, 1 Hungarian, 1 Belgian, 1 Italian, 2 German, 1 Iranian, 1 Sri Lankan, 1 Australian and briefly an American. So, while I spoke a lot of English, which was the only language we all had in common, I didn't talk that often with native English speakers, and never with Canadians. The result of this was that after a while, whenever I opened my mouth, I sounded ridiculously Canadian to myself. It's an experience to hear your own accent as an accent for the first time. Up until then, Canadian English as spoken by me was the standard against which all other English accents were compared. By the time I left, people were telling me that I had something of a Dutch accent, which caused me to formulate my new theory of accents: your accent does depend on how old you were when you learned the language, but it also depends on how much time you spend speaking it: forming those sounds with your mouth and building the habits.

As for the abovementioned cockroaches: I've never lived anywhere before that had roaches, in fact, the only ones I'd ever seen were the preserved speciments in my economic entomology class lab and one live on in a pet store. I was extremely lucky in that I didn't have any in my room. I was pretty careful of my food, but I think the real reasons were probably that my room had stood empty for a while before I arrived and I didn't have a fridge in there because I think that behind the fridge is prime roach habitat. The kitchen, of course, had plenty. One time I pulled a wooden spoon out of the drawer and almost stuck it into my food before I noticed that it had a big - well okay, just a small cockroach sitting on the end.

Of course, the bicycle is essential. I was allowed to borrow my aunt's bike, a "Starfighter DeLuxe". It was a proper Dutch granny-bike: a single speed with coaster brakes as well as fenders, mudflaps, chain guard, coat protector, heavy-duty luggage rack and bell. They don't build them for speed over there, but in such a flat country it works. And, when you have a flat country with a well-fendered and protected one-speed bike, you can bicycle in street clothes. I used to bicycle to work, to the bar, to the movies, to the opera, to the grocery store, and at one point almost two months had gone by without me sitting in a car. That's something that would never ever happen to me in North America.

Fun things

Climbing

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there are something like three indoor climbing gyms in the city. "Between heaven and earth" is in an old church. Cold, but nice high ceilings. Another one near station Sloterdijk Klimhal Amsterdam also has extremely high ceilings, and even a lead climbing wall. This one also had a some less than vertical climbs, which are always good. Plus a climb called "Women Can't Jump", which required that you squat down and then lunge for a big hold that was about fifteen centimetres beyond your farthest reach. Of course, named as it was I couldn't let this go so I risked skinned knees and belayer failure and went for it. As is often the case with this type of thing, I made it the first time, failed the second time and made the third time. The third climbing wall was Klimmuur Centraal, which you see when coming into Central Station from the East. Climbing hall culture is a little different over there: I never signed any waivers and they serve beer (only once you've finished climbing). Also, instead of flagging a route with coloured tape the way they do at the wall here in Victoria, they just use the same colour holds all the way up, which is a lot easier to see. There are a lot of European rating systems, but the Netherlands seem to use the French rating system.

Visiting Paris

Another novelty is that if you travel 500km or so, which will barely get you a quarter of the way up B.C., you're two countries over. My mother and I went to Paris for a few days and it's only four or five hours on the high-speed train. You can sure tell you're in a foreign country though. Different money (this was just before the Euro conversion) , very different city from Amsterdam and the language! I know Canadians are supposed to be bilingual, but we're sadly overrated on that score. I can understand French pretty well, but can't speak at all fluently. Visited on this first trip: the Louvre, Institut du Monde Arabe, Jardin du Luxembourg.

Sensory overload

Went to Six Flags over Holland, which was my first time at an amusement park since I was fifteen. It was my first upside-down roller coaster experience, and it was lots of fun. One of the roller coasters is accelerated by electromagnets, like a railgun, and according to the database achieves 5 gravities acceleration and goes 0 to 90 kph in 2.8 seconds.

Kayaking!

There is in fact a little bit of whitewater in the Netherlands: in the far south where the country is a little less than pancake-flat, there's enough height difference for some flowing water and there's a nice little fish ladder to play in. Someone else's photos .